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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"GNU/Linux" redirects here. See also GNU/Linux naming controversy.This article is about operating systems that use the Linux kernel. For the kernel itself, see Linux kernel. For other uses, see Linux (disambiguation).Linux Tux.svgTux the penguin, mascot of Linux[1]Company / developer GNU Project, Linus Torvalds and many othersProgrammed in Assembly language, COS family Unix-likeWorking state CurrentSource model Free and open source softwareLatest stable release 2.6.39.1 (3 June 2011; 18 days ago)[2] [+/?]Latest unstable release 3.0-rc4 (21 June 2011; 0 days ago)[3] [+/?]Marketing target Desktops, servers, embedded devicesAvailable language(s) MultilingualAvailable programming languages(s) ManySupported platforms DEC Alpha, ARM, AVR32, Blackfin, ETRAX CRIS, FR-V, H8/300, Itanium, M32R, m68k, Microblaze, MIPS, MN103, PA-RISC, PowerPC, s390, S+core, SuperH, SPARC, TILE64, Unicore32, x86, XtensaKernel type MonolithicUserland GNU and othersD efault user interface Graphical (X Window System) and command-line interfaceLicense Various including GNU General Public License, BSD License, Apache License, MIT License, and others[4]Official website kernel.orgHow Linus Torvalds pronounces LinuxProblems listening to this file? See media help.

Linux (commonly play /?l?n?ks/ lin-?ks in English,[5][6] also pronounced /?l?n?ks/ lin-uuks[7] in Europe) refers to the family of Unix-like computer operating systems using the Linux kernel. Linux can be installed on a wide variety of computer hardware, ranging from mobile phones, tablet computers, routers, and video game consoles, to mainframes and supercomputers.[8][9][10][11] Linux is a leading server operating system, and runs the 10 fastest supercomputers in the world.[12]

The development of Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed, both commercially and non-commercially, by anyone under licenses such as the GNU General Public License. Typically Linux is packaged in a format known as a Linux distribution for desktop and server use. Some popular mainstream Linux distributions include Debian (and its derivatives such as Ubuntu), Fedora and openSUSE. Linux distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting utilities and libraries to fulfill the distribution's intended use.

A distribution oriented toward desktop use may include the X Window System, the GNOME and KDE Plasma desktop environments. Other distributions may include a less resource intensive desktop such as LXDE or Xfce for use on older or less-powerful computers. A distribution intended to run as a server may omit any graphical environment from the standard install and instead include other software such as the Apache HTTP Server and a SSH server like OpenSSH. Because Linux is freely redistributable, it is possible for anyone to create a distribution for any intended use. Commonly used applications with desktop Linux systems include the Mozilla Firefox web browser, the OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice office application suites, and the GIMP image editor.

The name "Linux" comes from the Linux kernel, originally written in 1991 by Linus Torvalds. The main supporting user space system tools and libraries from the GNU Project (announced in 1983 by Richard Stallman) are the basis for the Free Software Foundation's preferred name GNU/Linux.[13][14]

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The key reason why Learn Linux? If you are encountered this you probably already have a reason that you want to learn Linux. This article will specially focus on those who wish to learn Linux for professional or a better job. This article is focused on a poor limited to no experience with Linux and understand the professional and career benefits learning this kind of amazing operating system may have some. Why Not Ubuntu or possibly Debian? Contrary to popular understanding Ubuntu and Debian usually are not as popular as many people think, although there is much of online hype about these distributions and perhaps they are great for the dabbler they are not the best option for those who aspire to gain experience on a Linux distribution that is widely used in that enterprise. If we consider Dell and IBM for illustration they specifically support RedHat Company Linux. Having personally previously worked for IBM, Oracle, Qwest Communications and CSG Systems I understand first hand that these lenders purchase hardware from Dell and even IBM and specifically select RedHat Enterprise Linux with regards to Linux servers. So which includes a price tag ranging from $350-$8, 000 for RedHat Enterprise you are able to easily go broke configuring a few small servers to educate yourself about on. So what on earth do you do? How can you possibly learn this os and give your self the experience you'll want to shine in any venture environment? Why Fedora Main? Well for those this don't currently know Fedora is definitely an open-source RedHat sponsored community Linux distribution. Fedora as stated on the RedHat website is"Community integration not to mention rapid innovation vs, compatibility. Because Fedora's main objective is almost always to get new technology into the hands of interested end users, compatibility is at times another consideration. Fedora applications have a propensity to require recompilation and sometimes source code adaptation maintain w ith changing interfaces. We head over to great lengths to sustain compatibility in Red Cap Enterprise Linux updates. On occasion, this can lead to make sure you difficult decisions--preserving compatibility will preclude the incorporation regarding desirable new features. "What this means suitable for you is that as a person learn on Fedora you possibly can almost guarantee that you're going to feel very comfortable working with RedHat enterprise Linux inside almost corporate environment and then answer technical Linux questions in very nearly any interview. Since RedHat provides direction for the Fedora Project you can guarantee and expect that Fedora will cover the perfect learning soil for RedHat Enterprise Linux. .On vacation to Mauritius as a computer student, we were addressed from Richard Stallman (founder belonging to the free software foundation). Considered one of our group members reared a question, which every one of us had, "it looks like learning new technologi es and constant updates the true secret to a sustained profession growth in computer development, which looks fine, and also puts us in a constant maze, which leaves all of us stranded, as where the whole thing began where it will be heading and why countless changes? "The answer was fairly simple, he asked us to begin working with a GNU/Linux machine and suggested to do business with free software, this will give any student a full clarity not only on the subject but also on the design and style of that software, the issues similar software had together with how this version has overcome it in addition to how the coming software would appear to be.

History Xgl was originally developed on public mailing lists, but for a long time, until January 2, 2006 most development of Xgl was done behind closed doors. On that day the source to Xgl was re-opened to the public , and included in freedesktop.org, along with major restructuring to allow a wider range of supported display drivers. X server backends used by Xgl include Xglx and Xegl. In February 2006 the server gained wide publicity after a public display where the Novell desktop team demonstrated a desktop using Xgl with several visual effects such as translucent windows and a rotating 3D desktop. The effects had first been implemented in a composite manager called glxcompmgr (not to be confused with xcompmgr), now deprecated because several effects could not be adequately implemented without tighter interaction between the window manager and the composite manager. As a solution David Reveman developed Compiz, the first proper OpenGL compositing window manager for the X Window System. Later, in September 2006, the Beryl compositing window manager was released as a fork of the original Compiz. Compiz and Beryl have merged back in April 2007, which resulted in the development of Compiz Fusion. Backends OpenGL does not specify how to initialize a display and manipulate drawing contexts. Instead these operations are handled by an API specific to the native windowing system. So far there are two different backend approaches to solving this initialization problem. Most likely the majority of each backend will contain the same code and the differences will primarily be in the initialization portions of the servers. Xglx Xglx was the first backend implemented for this architecture. It requires an already existing X server to run on top of and uses GLX to create an OpenGL window which Xgl then uses, similar to Xnest. This mode is only intended to be used for development in the future, as it is redundant to require an X server to run Xgl on top of. At XDevConf 2006 (the 2006 X development conference), NVIDIA made a presentation arguing that this is the wrong direction to take because the layered server abstracts features of the cards away. This makes driver specific capabilities like support for 3D glasses and dual monitor support much more difficult. However, delegating initialization to an existing X server allows the developers to immediately focus on server functionality rather than dedicating substantial time to specifics of interfacing with numerous video hardware. At the moment, Xglx does not officially support multiple monitors, although it has been achieved on Ubuntu Dapper / ATI / NVIDIA (twinview). Xegl Xegl was said[who?] to be the future of Xgl and a long term goal of X server development. It shares much of the drawing code with the Xglx server, but the initialization of the OpenGL drawable and context management is handled by the EGL API developed by Khronos (EGL is a window system-independent equivalent to the GLX and WGL APIs, which respectively enable OpenGL support in X and Microsoft Windows). The current implementation uses Mesa-solo to provide OpenGL rendering directly to the Linux framebuffer or DRI to the graphics hardware. As of July 2007[update] Xegl can only be run using Radeon R200 graphics hardware and development is currently stalled. It is likely that it will remain so until the Xglx server has proven itself and the closed source drivers add support for the EGL API, when it should be a transparent replacement for the nested Xglx server. Rationale Structuring all rendering on top of OpenGL could potentially simplify video driver development. It removes the artificial separation of 2D and 3D acceleration. This is advantageous as 2D operations are frequently unaccelerated (which is counterintuitive, since 2D is a subset of 3D). It also removes all driver-dependent code from the X server itself, and allows for accelerated Composite and Render operations independen t of the graphics driver. Competitors Hardware acceleration of 2D drawing operations has been a common feature of many window systems (including X11) for many years. The novelty of Xgl and similar systems is the use of APIs specifically developed for 3D rendering for accelerating 2D desktop operations. Prior to the adoption of anti-aliased drawing by X11, the use of 3D rendering APIs for 2D desktop rendering was undesirable because such APIs did not make the pixel accurate rendering guarantees that are part of the original X11 protocol definition. Hardware-accelerated OpenGL window and desktop rendering, limited to using OpenGL for texture composition, has been in use in Mac OS X, in a technology called Quartz Extreme, since Mac OS X v10.2. Quartz 2D Extreme is an enhancement of this feature and more directly comparable to Xgl. Like Xgl, Quartz 2D Extreme brings OpenGL acceleration to all 2D drawing operations (not just desktop compositing) and ships with Mac OS X v10.4, but is disabled by default pending a formal declaration of production-readiness. Core Animation is the extension of this effort for Leopard (Mac OS X v10.5). Several desktop interfaces based on 3D APIs have been developed, more recently OpenCroquet and Sun Microsystems' Project Looking Glass ; these take advantage of 3D acceleration for software built within their own framework, but do not appear to accelerate existing 2D desktop applications rendered within their environment (often via mechanisms like VNC). Microsoft developed a similar technology based on DirectX, named the DWM, as part of its Windows Vista operating system. This technology was first shown publicly at Microsoft's October 2003 PDC. Availability As of May 2006[update], the Xgl X Server (and related components including the Compiz compositing manager and associated graphical config tools) ships as a non-default in one major Linux distribution, SUSE 10.1, and is included in Frugalware Linux or SUSE Linux Enterpri se Desktop 10. Xgl can be set up fairly easily for Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake) and 6.10 (Edgy Eft) and for Freespire with binary packages from unofficial repositories. Xgl is also available as an overlayed package in Gentoo Linux, and as a PKGBUILD for Arch Linux. The latest Mandriva Linux 2007 includes official packages to run Compiz, using Xgl and AIGLX. Mandriva provides drak3d, a tool to configure a 3D Desktop in two clicks. Ubuntu 6.10 "Edgy Eft" and later use AIGLX, not Xgl, by default. If AIGLX or NVIDIA's implementation of accelerated indirect rendering can be used, there is no need to use Xgl. Xgl is not needed for any Intel graphics chipset from 810 onwards, NVIDIA GeForce 3 to GeForce 7 (through the official 9629 driver), and ATI cards with AIGLX support (through either the free radeon or the non-free fglrx drivers). References ^ XGL Version Info ^ ALGIX, Nvidia, XGL and metacity ^ Latest XGL Code ^ Novell's XGL Code posted ^ Novell Public Release XGL Code ^ SU SE XGL ^ OpenSUSE XGL resources ^ /developer/presentations/2006/xdevconf/compositing-with-current-framework.pdf ^ /graphics.html ^ /?p=xorg/xserver.git;a=history;h=master;hb=master;f=hw/xgl/egl/xegl.c See also X Window System AIGLX VirtualGL OpenGL Compiz Beryl External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Compiz Xgl Xegl Announcement of Xgl on the xorg mailing list Accelerated X flame wars!aybe not an article about the differences between AIGLX and Xgl EGL specifications Article: The State of Linux Graphics overview of various approaches to replace the current X server HOWTO, forums, support openSUSE wiki for Xgl Xgl HowTos: Novell, Ubuntu, Debian Etch, Gentoo Linux How-to install XGL on Fedora 5/6/7 Xgl Beryl and Compiz on Fedora Screenshots, screencast, demo video Novell Xgl announcement including video and screenshots Novell Open Audio podcast Xgl with David Reveman 7 April 2006, discusses the basics and future of Xgl and Compiz Videos of Xgl on SUSE Linux Enter prise Desktop 10 Slides, screenshots and a video with more effects the video demonstrating Compiz on Xgl Another Xgl Video Mandriva 3D Video v d e X Window System Architecture Core Protocol Xlib X Window selection X window manager X session manager X display manager X Toolkit X Window authorization Intrinsics X11 color names Window managers Re-parenting Compositing Stacking Tiling Extensions X Image Extension X keyboard extension X video extension Shape extension Shared memory extension AIGLX GLX XRender MPX DPS Notable Implementations Cygwin/X KDrive X11.app X.Org Server X-Win32 X386 XFree86 XGGI XDarwin Xming Xsun Xgl Standards ICCCM EWMH XDS freedesktop.org Applications xcalc xclock xedit xload xterm xeyes Desktop environments Categories: Freedesktop.org | X Window extensions | OpenGLHidden categories: All articles with specifically-marked weasel-worded phrases | Articles with specifically-marked weasel-worded phrases from May 2009 | Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2007 | All articles containing potentially dated statements | Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2006

Linux is one of the most popular operating systems out there after the Windows family. What sets Linux distinctly apart from others is the fact that you can download it for free. Unlike Windows operating systems which come with a hefty price tag, Linux does not cost absolutely anything and Linux setup is quite easy. Even you dont need to use any virus remover as there is very little or no chance of virus infection.

For beginners, it can be quite daunting to decide which distribution would be best for them. This is because there is a plethora of Linux distributions out there from which you can choose from - Ubuntu, Red Hat, Fedora, Mandriva, Opensuse, and so on. Each distribution, or distro, has its own strengths and features unique to it.

The first and foremost concern that you should consider is your hardware. All Linux distros are not built the same. Although most Linux distros try to be as hardware friendly as possible, you might discover that some work better with your hardware than others. So the best way to decide which distro would be right for you is to try out a handful of the most popular distros and see for yourself as to which of them work the best on your hardware. You will discover that some distros will detect all your hardware and work flawlessly, while others may not even boot on your PC or laptop.

The next thing you should consider is codec availability. Some popular distros like Ubuntu and Fedora do not ship with any kind of codecs to play common files like your mp3s or high-definition videos. There are distros based on these very distros that are more usable and ship with support for all of your audio and video files. Linux Mint, based on Ubuntu, is one such distro.

Ubuntu is probably the most popular and widely used Linux operating system that there is. It is based on Debian, another huge distribution with a very loyal fan following. Ubuntu also has one of the largest communities out there and you are more likely to find help on anything related to Ubuntu than any other distro. This is one of the great advantages of using Ubuntu or anything based on it, such as Linux mint. You will find it easy to look for help online should you get stuck with anything.

Fedora, sponsored by the Linux giant red hat, is also quite popular among Linux users. Like Ubuntu, it cannot come with any codecs pre-installed due to patent issues. Not all software companies allow Linux distributions to pre-install their proprietary software. For example, Microsoft license does not allow Linux distributions to contain programs like internet explorer or windows media player codecs. Similarly, popular Linux distros like Fedora, Opensuse and Ubuntu cannot ship flash, java, and other such proprietary software. If this is a concern for you, then download distros like Linux mint or PcLinuxOS, which come with all these necessary programs pre-installed.

So if you have really decided to move on to Linux, just take the plunge and set up Linux on your PC. You will not regret the freedom and liberty that Linux comes with.

There are over three hundred Linux distributions that you can choose from. The choices can be overwhelming. There is no agreement as to what is the best linux distro. We know that Linux Ubuntu is the most popular on the desktop and Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the most popular in enterprise settings. But popularity does not equal best fit.

1. For newbies: If you are new to Linux, I suggest you use Linux Mint or PCLinux. These are the most user friendly distributions.

2. Everyday Linux If you are looking for a distribution that is going to be around a while and is relatively easy to use, then I suggest Fedora or Ubuntu. Fedora is based by Red Hat and Ubuntu is backed by Canonical. Some would also suggest OpenSUSE, which is based by Novell. I don't recommend OpenSUSE because I don't like Novell and their close dealings with Microsoft

3. Light and fast If you have an older system Puppy Linux is the choice for you. It is an amazing distribution for older machine. Puppy Linux enables you to save money while doing more work, even allowing you to do magic by recovering data from destroyed PCs or by removing malware from Windows

4. Server CentOS is simply an unbranded and free version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Debian is also an excellent choice, being well known for its stability

5. Music Production Ubuntu Studio is the most popular music and recording solution out there.Ubuntu Studio is aimed at the GNU/Linux audio, video and graphic enthusiast as well as professional.

6. Multimedia If you are interested in turning your computer into a multimedia station, Mythbuntu is the distro for you. Mythbuntu is focused upon setting up a standalone MythTV based PVR system. It can be used to prepare a standalone system or for integration with an existing MythTV network. The learning curve is a little high, but worth it.

7. Power User: If you really want to learn Linux, then Gentoo or Slackware is the way to go. Slackware just happens to be the oldest Linux distribution still in active development

8. Netbooks If you are think of using Linux on a netbook, EasyPeasy or Jolicloud are both good choices

9. KDE Desktop For those who like the KDE desktop enviroment OpenSUSE or Kubuntu are probably the best.

So what is the best linux distro? It depends on your needs and what you are looking for.

Full article: Best Linux Distro for You