User:Owittnan/sandbox/Linux uses

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Uses

See also: Linux range of use

Besides the Linux distributions designed for general-purpose use on desktops and servers, distributions may be specialized for different purposes including:

embedded systems, stability, security, localization to a specific region or language, targeting of specific user groups, support for real-time applications, or commitment to a given desktop environment. Furthermore, some distributions deliberately include only free software. As of 2015, over four hundred Linux distributions are actively developed, with about a dozen distributions being most popular for general-purpose use.[1]

Desktop

widget engines, and some of the more widespread widget toolkits. There are also components not directly visible to end-users, including D-Bus and PulseAudio
.
See also: Desktop environment, Linux adoption: Measuring desktop adoption, and Criticism of desktop Linux

The popularity of Linux on standard desktop computers and laptops has been increasing over the years.

KDE Plasma Desktop, Xfce and GNOME.[3][4][5]

No single official Linux desktop exists: rather desktop environments and Linux distributions select components from a pool of

human–machine interface an important role, not just when doing the graphical design, but also when considering people with disabilities, and even when focusing on security.[6]

The collaborative nature of free software development allows distributed teams to perform

linguists
, and local developers.

Performance and applications

The performance of Linux on the desktop has been a controversial topic;

X11 while enhancing desktop performance, security and appearance.[10]

Many popular applications are available for a wide variety of operating systems. For example,

several companies that have ported their own or other companies' games to Linux, with Linux also being a supported platform on both the popular Steam and Desura digital-distribution services.[12]

Many other types of applications available for Microsoft Windows and macOS also run on Linux. Commonly, either a

Android on other versions of Linux using Anbox
.

Components and installation

Besides externally visible components, such as

Wayland
.

Installing, updating and removing software in Linux is typically done through the use of package managers such as the

Yum Extender
. While most major Linux distributions have extensive repositories, often containing tens of thousands of packages, not all the software that can run on Linux is available from the official repositories. Alternatively, users can install packages from unofficial repositories, download pre-compiled packages directly from websites, or compile the source code by themselves. All these methods come with different degrees of difficulty; compiling the source code is in general considered a challenging process for new Linux users, but it is hardly needed in modern distributions and is not a method specific to Linux.

Netbooks

Linux distributions have also become popular in the

Acer Aspire One shipping with customized Linux distributions installed.[19]

In 2009, Google announced its

Chromebooks, started appearing on the market in June 2011.[22]

Servers, mainframes and supercomputers

Broad overview of the LAMP software bundle, displayed here together with Squid. A high-performance and high-availability web server solution providing security in a hostile environment.

Linux distributions have long been used as server operating systems, and have risen to prominence in that area; Netcraft reported in September 2006, that eight of the ten (other two with "unknown" OS) most reliable internet hosting companies ran Linux distributions on their web servers,[23] with Linux in the top position. In June 2008, Linux distributions represented five of the top ten, FreeBSD three of ten, and Microsoft two of ten;[24] since February 2010, Linux distributions represented six of the top ten, FreeBSD three of ten, and Microsoft one of ten,[25] with Linux in the top position.

Linux distributions are the cornerstone of the LAMP server-software combination (Linux, Apache, MariaDB/MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python) which has achieved popularity among developers, and which is one of the more common platforms for website hosting.[26]

Linux distributions have become increasingly popular on

LinuxONE, a series of mainframes specifically designed to run Linux and open-source software.[29][30]

Linux distributions are also dominant as operating systems for supercomputers.[31] As of November 2017, all supercomputers on the 500 list run some variant of Linux.[32]

Smart devices

Android smartphones
Ubuntu[33][34]

Several operating systems for

Automotive Grade Linux), are based on Linux. Major platforms for such systems include Android, Firefox OS, Mer and Tizen
.

Android has become the dominant mobile operating system for smartphones, running on 79.3% of units sold worldwide during the second quarter of 2013.[37] Android is also a popular operating system for tablets, and Android smart TVs and in-vehicle navigation systems have also appeared in the market.

Although Android is based on a modified version of the Linux kernel, commentators disagree on whether the term "Linux distribution" applies to it, and whether it is "Linux" according to the common usage of the term. Android is a

GNU C Library (it uses Bionic as an alternative C library) and some of other components typically found in Linux distributions.[42] Ars Technica wrote that "Although Android is built on top of the Linux kernel, the platform has very little in common with the conventional desktop Linux stack".[42]

Cellphones and PDAs running Linux on open-source platforms became more common from 2007; examples include the

Motorola ROKR E8. Continuing the trend, Palm (later acquired by HP) produced a new Linux-derived operating system, webOS, which is built into its line of Palm Pre
smartphones.

Samsung Z smartphones will use Tizen instead of Android.[46]

As a result of MeeGo's termination, the Mer project forked the MeeGo codebase to create a basis for mobile-oriented operating systems.[47] In July 2012, Jolla announced Sailfish OS, their own mobile operating system built upon Mer technology.

The PinePhone running Plasma Mobile on postmarketOS.

hardware abstraction layer, a web-standards-based runtime environment and user interface, and an integrated web browser.[48]

Ubuntu. The operating system also provides a full Ubuntu desktop when connected to an external monitor.[49]

The

Mozilla Firefox.[51]

Another smartphone is the PinePhone, made by the computer manufacturer Pine64. The PinePhone can run a variety of Linux-based operating systems such as Ubuntu Touch and postmarketOS.[52]

Embedded devices

See also:
Linux devices
A ubiquitous router running on the Linux kernel.

Due to its low cost and ease of customization,

Linux is often used in embedded systems. In the non-mobile telecommunications equipment sector, the majority of customer-premises equipment (CPE) hardware runs some Linux-based operating system. OpenWrt
is a community-driven example upon which many of the OEM firmware releases are based.

For example, the popular

Korg KRONOS, the Yamaha Motif XS/Motif XF music workstations,[54] Yamaha S90XS/S70XS, Yamaha MOX6/MOX8 synthesizers, Yamaha Motif-Rack XS tone generator module, and Roland RD-700GX digital piano also run Linux. Linux is also used in stage lighting control systems, such as the WholeHogIII console.[55]

Gaming

Main article:
Linux gaming

In the past, there were few games available for Linux. In recent years, more games have been released with support for Linux (especially Indie games), with the exception of a few AAA title games. Android, a popular mobile platform which uses the Linux kernel, has gained much developer interest and is one of the main platforms for mobile game development along with iOS operating system by Apple for iPhone and iPad devices.

On February 14, 2013,

Steam Machines as a gaming and entertainment platform.[58] Valve has also developed VOGL, an OpenGL debugger intended to aid video game development,[59] as well as porting its Source game engine to desktop Linux.[60] As a result of Valve's effort, several prominent games such as DotA 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal, Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead 2
are now natively available on desktop Linux.

On July 31, 2013,

Shield as an attempt to use Android as a specialized gaming platform.[61]

Some Linux users play Windows-based games using Wine or CrossOver Linux.

On August 22, 2018, Valve released their own fork of Wine called

Proton, aimed at gaming. It features some improvements over the vanilla Wine such as Vulkan-based DirectX 11 and 12 implementations, Steam integration, better full screen and game controller support and improved performance for multi-threaded games.[62]

In 2021, ProtonDB, an online aggregator of games supporting Linux, stated that 78% of the top thousand games on Steam were able to run on Linux using either Proton or a native port.[63]

Specialized uses

Due to the flexibility, customizability and free and open-source nature of Linux, it becomes possible to highly tailor Linux towards a specific purpose. There are two main methods to assemble a specialized Linux distribution: building from scratch or from a general-purpose distribution as a base. The distributions often used for this purpose include

JeOS philosophy by including only necessary components and avoiding resource
overhead caused by components considered redundant in the distribution's use cases.

Home theater PC

A

home theater system
. It is normally connected to a television, and often an additional audio system.

OpenELEC, a Linux distribution that incorporates the media center software Kodi, is an OS tuned specifically for an HTPC. Having been built from the ground up adhering to the JeOS principle, the OS is very lightweight and very suitable for the confined usage range of an HTPC.

There are also special editions of Linux distributions that include the MythTV media center software, such as Mythbuntu, a special edition of Ubuntu.

Digital security

Kali Linux is a Debian-based Linux distribution designed for digital forensics and penetration testing. It comes preinstalled with several software applications for penetration testing and identifying security exploits.[64] The Ubuntu derivative BackBox provides pre-installed security and network analysis tools for ethical hacking.
The Arch-based BlackArch includes over 2100 tools for pentesting and security researching.[65]

There are many Linux distributions created with privacy, secrecy, network anonymity and information security in mind, including

Tor
.

System rescue

Linux Live CD sessions have long been used as a tool for recovering data from a broken computer system and for repairing the system. Building upon that idea, several Linux distributions tailored for this purpose have emerged, most of which use GParted as a partition editor, with additional data recovery and system repair software:

  • GParted Live
     – a Debian-based distribution developed by the GParted project.
  • Parted Magic – a commercial Linux distribution.
  • SystemRescueCD – an Arch-based distribution with support for editing Windows registry
    .

In space

radiation hardened parts.[66] As of July 2019, SpaceX has conducted over 76 launches of the Falcon 9 since 2010, out of which all but one have successfully delivered their primary payloads to the intended orbit, and has used it to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. The Dragon 2 crew capsule also uses Linux.[67]

Windows was deployed as the operating system on non-mission critical laptops used on the space station, but it was later replaced with Linux. Robonaut 2, the first humanoid robot in space, is also Linux-based.[68]

The

Ubuntu Linux to "save data from satellites".[69]

Education

Linux distributions have been created to provide hands-on experience with coding and source code to students, on devices such as the Raspberry Pi. In addition to producing a practical device, the intention is to show students "how things work under the hood".[70]

The Ubuntu derivatives Edubuntu and The Linux Schools Project, as well as the Debian derivative Skolelinux, provide education-oriented software packages. They also include tools for administering and building school computer labs and computer-based classrooms, such as the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP).

Others

Instant WebKiosk and Webconverger are browser-based Linux distributions often used in web kiosks and digital signage. Thinstation is a minimalist distribution designed for thin clients. Rocks Cluster Distribution is tailored for high-performance computing clusters.

There are general-purpose Linux distributions that target a specific audience, such as users of a specific language or geographical area. Such examples include Ubuntu Kylin for Chinese language users and BlankOn targeted at Indonesians. Profession-specific distributions include Ubuntu Studio for media creation and DNALinux for bioinformatics. There is also a Muslim-oriented distribution of the name Sabily that consequently also provides some Islamic tools. Certain organizations use slightly specialized Linux distributions internally, including GendBuntu used by the French National Gendarmerie, Goobuntu used internally by Google, and Astra Linux developed specifically for the Russian army.

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