San Jose State University From the SelectedWorks of Zhi-Xue Xu June 12, 2014 Five Excellent Linux Operation Systems and Applications Zhi-Xue Xu, San Jose State University Available at: https://works.bepress.com/zhi-xue_xu/3/ Five Excellent Linux Operation Systems and Applications Zhi-Xue Xu Academic Technology San Jose State University June 12, 2014 Linux computer operation system for Intel x86-based personal computers has become a good and stable operation system for desktops and servers since Linux kernel first released on 5 October 1991. Linux operation system has been accepted as a more important computer operation system in the IT fields. Meet Linux operation system, fast, free and incredibly easy to use, the Linux operating system powers millions of desktop PCs, laptops and servers around the world. There are some important areas where Linux has significant advantages over both Windows 7 and Mac OS X. Linux is one of popular version of UNIX operating System. It is open source as its source code is freely available. It is free to use. Linux was designed considering UNIX compatibility. Its functionality list is quite similar to that of UNIX. The Linux has been wildly used to computer desktops and servers. We often used five excellent Linux Operation Systems that included Ubuntu, Debian, CentOs, Fedora and SUSE in the computer professional environments. Linux has provided excellent Internet Applications, Cloud application, Free and Open Ghost, Virtual Computers applications, Video codec and Streaming for Video Captures and other that included Single Sign On (SSO), OpenAM for Authorization and Federation,. 1. Five Good Linux Operation Systems 1.1 Ubuntu Linux Operation System: http://www.ubuntu.com/ Many computer administrators, programmers, and IT engineers choice Ubuntu Linux for desktops and servers first, because Ubuntu Linux System is a typical and stable Linux system. Also, the computer operation will be easier by Graphic User Interface and commends. Ubuntu become favorite Linux Operation System. Ubuntu offers Cloud, Server, Desktop, Phone, Tabet, TV and Management Editions. Ubuntu offers all the software infrastructure, tools and services for cloud you need. Ubuntu Server delivers the best value scale-out performance available. Ubuntu operating system powers millions of desktop PCs and laptops around the world. Ubuntu phone neatly organize content into natural categories like video, music, or integrate web content right at the center of the phone experience. Ubuntu on tablets with unique multi-tasking productivity, secure sharing, and a beautiful interface which scales perfectly from 6.5” to 20” screens and beyond. Ubuntu TV integrates online content providers to offer a diverse catalogue of movies, TV shows and music straight from the Internet. Ubuntu Advantage is the professional 24/7 support and services package from Canonical that included landscape, a systems management tool, built for running large-scale Ubuntu deployments on desktop, server or cloud. I have finished installed Ubuntu 13.04 Server. The Figure 1 showed Server Login screen. 1 Fig. 1 Login screen for Ubuntu 13.04 Server The Ubuntu desktops also have been installed and used in the IT fields. Figure 2 Ubuntu desktop 2 1.2 Debian Linux: https://www.debian.org/ The Debian is a free operating system. The operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make the computer running. Debian systems currently use the Linux kernel or the FreeBSD kernel. Debian comes with over 37500 packages (precompiled software that is bundled up in a nice format for easy installation on the computer). You can be easy getting started. The latest stable release of Debian is 7.5. According to the installation instructions, you can be quick to install it. The documentation and support pages provide to get help in using or setting up Debian. Our World Language and Linguistics Department, SJSU had created Debian Server for Foreign Language Study applications in the Center of World Language and Linguistics Media. Fig. 3 Debian Server for Foreign Language Study Applications Ubuntu builds on the foundations of Debian architecture and infrastructure. Ubuntu is specifically designed to be easy for inexperienced users to use. Initial configuration of Debian may be more difficult. 1.3 CentOs Linux: http://www.centos.org/ The CentOS Linux distribution is a stable, predictable, manageable and reproducible platform derived from the sources of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). CentOS Linux has been a community-supported distribution derived from sources freely provided to the public by Red Hat. CentOS Linux aims to be functionally compatible with RHEL. CentOS Linux is no-cost and free to redistribute. 3 CentOS Linux is developed quickly. The core developers are supported by an active user community including system administrators, network administrators, managers, core Linux contributors, and Linux enthusiasts from around the world. Over the coming year, the CentOS Project will expand its mission to establish CentOS Linux as a leading community platform for emerging open source technologies coming from other projects such as OpenStack. These technologies will be at the center of multiple variations of CentOS, as individual downloads or accessed from a custom installer. CentOS 5 and CentOS-6 is available. You can download these CentOS 5 and 6 from CentOS Webpage to install it. Fig. 4 CentOS 6 desktop CentOS has been installed on Laptops Acer, Asus, Compaq, dell, IBM/Lenovo, HP, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba and so on. Adobe Media Server 5 Professional also has been successful to install on the CentOS Linux Server (64bit). 4 1.4 Fedora Linux operation system: http://fedoraproject.org/ Fedora is sponsored by Red Hat. Fedora is a Linux-based operating system. The Fedora operating system is completely free of cost for you to enjoy and share. The Fedora Project builds open source software communities and produces a Linux distribution called "Fedora." Fedora 20 Desktop Edition is the latest version. You can install Fedora directly to the hard drive straight from the Live Media desktop, but you need a blank CD or DVD or a blank 1GB+ USB stick, 64-bit Intel-compatible PC, 1GB memory (RAM) and at least 10 GB hard drive space (only required for installation). Fig. 5 Fedora 20 “Heisenbug” GDM Login Window Fedora doesn’t have server edition, but you can buy Red Hat Enterprise Linux server. There is difference between server and desktop, all just different kernel and package installations. You can install packages for server, but Fedora is really only aimed at the desktop. You can use CenOS that like paid version Red Hat Enterprise Linux server as server. 1.5 openSUSE and SUSE Enterprise linux system: http://www.opensuse.org/ and http://www.suse.com/ 5 OpenSUSE is a free and Linux-based operating system for your PC, Laptop or Server. openSUSE is different with SUSE Linux Enterprise. SUSE Linux Enterprise is the premier Linux operating system for the enterprise. SUSE is a German-based, multinational, open-source software company. It is also the primary sponsor of the community-supported openSUSE Project which develops the openSUSE Linux distribution. Fig. 6 openSUSE Desktop The openSUSE distribution is a stable, easy to use and complete multi-purpose distribution. The latest release, openSUSE 13.1, features new and massively improved versions of all useful server and desktop applications. It comes with more than 1,000 open source applications. The openSUSE server included Apache web server (SSL-capable), Postfix mail server with SMTP-AUTH and TLS, BIND DNS server, Proftpd FTP server, MySQL server, Dovecot POP3/IMAP, Quota and Firewall. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server provides SAP, Point of Service, VMware, Amazon EC2, Azure and so on. 2. Internet Applications in Linux OS The most Linux Servers support and provide Internet Applications that included Web server, Email Server, Database MySQL server, FTP, firewall and Domain Name Server. 2.1 Open Sources Web server 6 The Web Server in the Linux operation system is an import application of the Internet Application. There are six different web servers freely provided by the open source community for Linux. The six Web Servers are Apache HTTP Server, Nginx, Lighttpd, Cherokee, HTTP Explorer and HFS HTTP File Server. Apache is the most commonly used Web Server on Linux systems. Web Servers are used to serve Web Pages requested by client computers. The Apache HTTP Server Version 2.4 has been installed in the Ubuntu Linux. Now you can test Apache to ensure it is working properly. Open up any web browser and then enter the following into the web address: http://localhost/. You will see a message saying “It works”. Fig. 7 “It works” Web page on Ubuntu Server. Apache HTTP Server is configured by placing directives in plain text configuration files. The main configuration file is usually called httpd.conf. The httpd configuration files contain one directive per line. You can edit these configuration files for Web Server. 2.2 Email Server The sendmail is the oldest and most widely-used mail transfer agent (MTA). Postfix is the default Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) in Ubuntu. It attempts to be fast and easy to administer and secure. It is compatible with the MTA sendmail. By default Postfix will use mbox for the mailbox format. The configuration parameters will be stored in /etc/postfix/main.cf file. Postfix is configured for SMTP-AUTH and a self-signed certificate has been created for TLS (Transport Layer Security) encryption. Postfix supports two SASL(Simple Authentication and Security Layer) implementations Cyrus SASL and Dovecot SASL. To enable Dovecot SASL the dovecot- common package will need to be installed. Postfix for SMTP-AUTH is using the mail-stack- 7 delivery package. This package will install Dovecot and configure Postfix to use it for both SASL authentication and as a Mail Delivery Agent (MDA).