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 Linux Distribution Sources |
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| DistroWatch.com | One of the problems a person interested in getting into Linux faces is the huge number of different distributions (which Linux afficiandos call distros). Keeps up with the multitude of the latest versions of Linux - including links to downloads, forums, documentation. An excellent site for finding the right Linux for your purposes. |
| LinuxTracker | Source for bittorrent downloads of Linux distributions. |
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Popular Linux Distributions |
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| debian.org | "Debian GNU/Linux provides more than a pure OS: it comes with more than 8710 packages, precompiled software bundled up in a nice format for easy installation on your machine." Here is a free Debian GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide |
| Fedora Linux | The Open Source version of Red Hat Linux - with links to many Linux resources. |
| Knoppix | "Knoppix is a GNU/Linux distribution that boots and runs completely from cd. It includes recent linux software and desktop environments, with programs such as OpenOffice.org, Abiword, The Gimp, Konqueror, Mozilla, Apache, PHP, MySQL and hundreds of other quality open source programs." Often used as a "rescue CD" for damaged file systems (including Windows!). Here is a HOWTO on "System recovery with Knoppix." Here is a nice free pdf book on "Knowing Knoppix." |
| Kubuntu | Ubuntu, but with KDE instead of Gnome. |
| Mageia | "Mageia is a fork of Mandriva Linux formed in September 2010 by former employees and contributors to the popular French Linux distribution. Unlike Mandriva, which is a commercial entity, the Mageia project is a community project and a non-profit organisation whose goal is to develop a free Linux-based operating system." (From DistroWatch |
| Linux Mint | "Linux Mint is an Ubuntu-based distribution whose goal is to provide a more complete out-of-the-box experience by including browser plugins, media codecs, support for DVD playback, Java and other components. It also adds a custom desktop and menus, several unique configuration tools, and a web-based package installation interface. Linux Mint is compatible with Ubuntu software repositories." (From DistroWatch |
| openSuse.org | "The openSUSE project is a worldwide community program sponsored by Novell that promotes the use of Linux everywhere." |
| Ubuntu | "Ubuntu is a complete Linux-based operating system, freely available with both community and professional support." Principally intended as a desktop. Uses Gnome as GUI. With FAQs and WIKI. See a review here. Now available in a server version. |
| Ubuntu Forums | Useful support forum for Ubuntu. |
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Security/Rescue Linux Distributions |
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| SYSLINUX | "SYSLINUX is a boot loader for the Linux operating system which operates off an MS-DOS/Windows FAT filesystem. It is intended to simplify first-time installation of Linux, and for creation of rescue and other special-purpose boot disks." |
| SystemRescueCd | "SystemRescueCd is a Linux system on a bootable cdrom for repairing your system and your data after a crash. It also aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the partitions of the hard disk." |
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Linux Reference Sites |
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| A quick reference to Linux commands | It’s not a cheat sheet in the traditional sense as it’s more about helping someone to get started with Linux commands then providing some shortcuts to make life easier. |
| JustLinux.com | News and articles on Linux for the Linux novice |
| Knoppix.net | "Knoppix.net is a resource for users, developers, and testers of Knoppix." |
| Linux.Com | "A place for individuals of all experience levels to learn (and teach) the power and virtues of the Linux Operating System." |
| Linux.org | Lots of info on Linux |
| Linuxquestions.org | Many articles, reviews, and forums about downloading and installing Linux distros - a valuable resource. |
| LinuxSecurity.com | News and articles on Linux security issues |
| Linux Today | News and articles on Linux |
| LinuxZoo.net | "Learn Linux from the safety of your chair using a remote private linux machine with root access." |
| LXer Linux News | New/articles on Linux |
| Reallylinux.com | Another Linux novice site |
| Slashdot | "Don't fear the Penguins" - news and articles for Linux users |
| LinuxLinks | "Reviewers at LinuxLinks list the latest Linux sites through exhaustive searches on the net." |
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Linux HOWTOs/Docs |
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| Linux Howtos | "Howtos are written by anyone who has advice to give on a certain topic - It may be an expert in the field, or just someone who has solved a particular problem and wants to share the solution. Howtos form part of the Linux Documentation Project." |
| Linux Clues | Twenty+ Linux howtos, as for instance a guide to Lost Linux Passwords |
| Linux Documentation Project | Free, high quality documentation for the Linux operating system |
| LowFatLinux | A Linux tutorial "for people who want to learn the basics of using Linux
(and thereby Unix) without getting bogged down in too much detail or technobabble." |
| Soup To Nuts | Some useful Linux howto articles |
| Linux Network Administrator's Guide | On-line book |
| HowtoForge | HowtoForge provides discussion forums and howto articles on OpenSource software. |
| NdisWrapper | Your wireless card not working in Linux? NdisWrapper may very well be the solution to your problem. |
| Easy Firewall Generator for IPTables | "This program generates an iptables firewall script for use with the 2.4 or later linux kernel. It is intended for use on a single system connected to the Internet or a gateway system for a private, internal network." |
| Automatic Backups with rsync and Anacron | "How to quickly set up your computer for simple, hassle-free, and transparent backups using only rsync and cron (or Anacron)." |
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Linux Software |
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| RPM.pbone.net | Missing an RPM? Find it here fast! |
| OpenOffice.org | "Mission Statement: To create, as a community, the leading international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format." Available for Windows and Linux. Now includes a database (named BASE) that stores its data in XML (reads and writes Access, DBase, and MySQL files. |
| freecode.com | A Linux software repository carrying a complete set of applications for almost any purpose. |
| sourceforge.net | "The world's largest development and download repository of Open Source code and applications." |
| Apache Server Project | The Apache project is an effort to develop and maintain an open-source HTTP server for various modern desktop and server operating systems. |
| XAMPP | "An easy to install Apache distribution containing MariaDB, PHP and Perl. XAMPP is really very easy to install and to use - just download, extract, and start." |
| Gimp | "The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages." |
| Inkscape | "Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, or Xara X using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format." |
| Rsync | "rsync is an open source utility that provides fast incremental file transfer. rsync is freely available under GPL." |
| Clam AntiVirus | "Clam AntiVirus is a GPL anti-virus toolkit for UNIX. The main purpose of this software is the integration with mail servers (attachment scanning). The package provides a flexible and scalable multi-threaded daemon, a command line scanner, and a tool for automatic updating via Internet." |
| Webmin | "Webmin is a web-based interface for system administration for Unix. Using any browser that supports tables and forms (and Java for the File Manager module), you can setup user accounts, Apache, DNS, file sharing and so on." Here is a forum discussion of setting up Webmin under Ubuntu. |
| osCommerce | Free! "The leading Open Source online shop e-commerce solution that is available for free under the GNU General Public License. It features a rich set of out-of-the-box online shopping cart functionality that allows store owners to setup, run, and maintain their online stores with minimum effort and with no costs, license fees, or limitations involved. osCommerce is able to run on any PHP 4.1+ enabled web server running on Linux, Solaris, BSD, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows environments." |
| Zen Cart | "A free, user-friendly, open source shopping cart system. The software is being developed by group of like-minded shop owners, programmers, designers, and consultants that think e-commerce could be and should be done differently. Some "solutions" seem to be complicated programming exercises instead of responding to users' needs, Zen Cart™ puts the merchant's and shopper's requirements first. Similarly, other programs are nearly impossible to install and use without an IT degree, Zen Cart™ can be installed and set-up by anyone with the most basic computer skills. Others are so expensive ... not Zen Cart™, it's FREE!" Implement in PHP, Apache and MySQL. |
| ploticus | "A free, GPL, non-interactive software package for producing plots, charts, and graphics from data. It runs on various Unix, Linux, and win32 systems. ploticus is good for automated or just-in-time graph generation, handles date and time data nicely, and has basic statistical capabilities." |
| Cygwin | "Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows. It consists of two parts: 1) A DLL (cygwin1.dll) which acts as a Linux API emulation layer providing substantial Linux API functionality and 2) A collection of tools, which provide Linux look and feel." |
[| Xen | "Xen is a virtual machine monitor for x86 that supports execution of multiple guest operating systems with unprecedented levels of performance and resource isolation." |
| LFT | Layer Four Traceroute, is a sort of 'traceroute' that often works much faster (than the commonly-used Van Jacobson method) and goes through many configurations of packet-filter based firewalls. (Binaries available for Linux and Windows.) |
| AWStats | "A free powerful and featureful tool that generates advanced web, streaming, ftp or mail server statistics, graphically. This log analyzer works as a CGI or from command line and shows you all possible information your log contains, in few graphical web pages." |
| GParted LiveCD | "The CD aims to be fast, small in size, and use minimal resources to get that disk partitioned the way you want it. GParted LiveCD is based on Slackware Linux and uses Xfree86's Xvesa, the lightweight Fluxbox window manager, and the lastest 2.6 Linux Kernel." |
| LAMP |
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| XAMPP | "An easy to install Apache distribution containing MariaDB (ala MySQL), PHP and Perl. XAMPP is really very easy to install and to use - just download, extract, and start." |
| WampServer | "WampServer is a Windows web development environment. It allows you to create web applications with Apache2, PHP and a MySQL database. Alongside, PhpMyAdmin allows you to manage easily your databases." |
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Converting to Linux - Running Win Progams under Linux |
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| Successfully making the transition to GNU/Linux | Although this article from April 2003 is obviously dated, it does clearly layout the three major issues that those considering switching to a Linux desktop from Windows should consider - motivation, expectations, preparations. |
| Why Open Source Software? | "This paper provides quantitative data that, in many cases, using open source software / free software is a reasonable or even superior approach to using their proprietary competition according to various measures." |
| The Cathedral and the Bazaar | "Two fundamentally different development styles, the 'cathedral' model of most of the commercial world versus the 'bazaar' model of the Linux world ... these models derive from opposing assumptions about the nature of the software-debugging task ... a sustained argument from the Linux experience for the proposition that 'Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow,' suggest productive analogies with other self-correcting systems of selfish agents, and conclude with some exploration of the implications of this insight for the future of software." |
| Wine HQ | "Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X and Unix [& Linux]. Think of Wine as a compatibility layer for running Windows programs. Wine does not require Microsoft Windows, as it is a completely free alternative implementation of the Windows API consisting of 100% non-Microsoft code, however Wine can optionally use native Windows DLLs if they are available." |
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