Assignment 3 CITA 171: OPERATING SYSTEM USE & ADMIN TECHNOLOGY Royce, Alexander CITA 171 OPERATING SYSTEM USE & ADMIN
Table of Contents Table of Figures... 2 Ubuntu... 3 History... 3 Sustainability... 4 Accessibility... 4 License... 4 GUI... 4 Further Information... 5 Fedora... 6 History... 6 Sustainability... 7 Accessibility... 7 License... 7 GUI... 7 Further Information... 8 SUSE... 10 History... 10 Sustainability... 11 Accessibility... 11 License... 11 GUI... 11 Further Information... 12 Ghost BSD... 13 History... 13 Sustainability... 13 Accessibility... 14 License... 14 GUI... 14 Further Information... 14 Ranking... 15 GUI Comparison... 15 ROYCE, ALEXANDER 1
Speed Comparison... 16 Dedication Comparison... 16 References... 17 Table of Figures Figure 1 Kernel Version: 3.13.0-30... 5 Figure 2 Fedora Application Display... 6 Figure 3 Fedora Project Wiki - Mission Objectives... 7 Figure 4 Release Version... 8 Figure 5 Kernel Version: 3.11.10-301... 8 Figure 6 Evolution Icon... 8 Figure 7 KDE Platform Version... 11 Figure 8 KDE/SUSE File Manager Icon... 12 Figure 9 KInfoCenter... 12 Figure 10 OpenSUSE Kernel Version... 12 Figure 11 Ghost BSD - File Manager... 14 Figure 12 Ghost BSD - Kernel Version... 14 ROYCE, ALEXANDER 2
Ubuntu History The creation of this operating system was started by Mark Shuttleworth and a small team of developers. Shuttleworth founded a company called Thawte, which was sold in 1999 for approximately 575 million dollars. His goal was to create an easy-to-use Linux distribution, to allow everyone access to an operating system. Mark is the most influential player in the creation of this operating system, Ubuntu. He argued to make the name of the operating system Ubuntu because of the word s meaning. In several South African languages, Ubuntu translates to humanity toward others. It s a rough translation to English, but it breaks down to symbolizing sharing, community, and collaboration. Those are the fundamental concepts of their project. Ubuntu releases quality software at no price, allowing everyone access to a great operating system. ROYCE, ALEXANDER 3
Sustainability To fund the developers working on Ubuntu, a private company was created. The goal of this organization would be to pay his developers and find a way to generate income. These employees were being paid by his millions, which cannot last forever. To keep the company running, he needed to find a way to pay his developers. This private company is named Canonical The way around the GPL restriction is by selling other software to support the operating system. The software would be to manage the entire Ubuntu infrastructure via a single interface. This software is now called Landscape. They have many other tools and ideas to generate a profit. They contract their services, which will help the company expand to mobile devices. They sell support services as well. The support is to help companies or users with their operations, using Ubuntu. The company also accepts donations from people who support them. Accessibility This OS (Operating System) can be found via their website, www.ubuntu.com. This website will provide you with all of the information that is required to gain access to the OS. The website has a free download that will replace your current operating system. Another option is to download the OS to a blank DVD or USB stick. You can then use this nonvolatile device to install Ubuntu to your computer. This company is constantly trying to expand its availability. It s currently being launched on HP laptops in China. Dell is also launching Ubuntu in stores in China. The current LTS (Long Term Support) version of Ubuntu is 14.04.1 for desktops. All versions are available to the public. If you wish to download previous versions, you can install them via their website. They provide both 32 and 64 bit versions of the OS. License Linux distributions are protected by the GPL (General Public License) license. The GPL license allows all of the software protected by it to be copied and modified, under one major condition. That condition is that the new developers must adopt the GPL license to their work and cannot distribute it for any price. Ubuntu has to follow this restriction as well, but Mark needed a way to fund his developers to keep working on the operating system. GUI The GUI (Graphical User Interface) of Ubuntu is named Unity. This GUI is a powerful design for the OS. Its design is very attractive and provides plenty of mobility around the screen. Its interface is very easy to use and requires no real technical skills. Unity is actually built around the GNOME GUI. You will find a lot GNOME essence while working with Ubuntu. ROYCE, ALEXANDER 4
Further Information The default file manager in Ubuntu is Nautilus. This file manager can be modified to other versions. This would require some technical skill, but it s possible to implement other file manager. It s not uncommon for this to be done because of the user s preferences. The default web browser name of Ubuntu is Firefox. This is a great fit to the system because it s an amazing browser. I actually prefer to use Google Chrome and Firefox. Internet Explorer is the weakest browser, in my opinion. The default email client for Ubuntu is ThunderBird. This email client has been around for a while, but I have no real experience with it. While viewing it in the Virtual box, I ve decided that it s very functional. Its menus are placed at proper areas around the screen, allowing for very fast access to options. The current Kernel version can be found by typing the commands uname a or uname r into the terminal of the Ubuntu OS. Figure 1 Kernel Version: 3.13.0-30 I m actually a huge fan of this OS. It s a mix between Windows and Apple. I m not a fan of apple technology, but its widget style is impressive. Windows is a more professional OS, which is easy to navigate. Ubuntu seems to be a mix. It has a great widget style, but it s easy to navigate and has a professional presence to it. The only downside about this operating system is its unconventional software. They create their own software which seems to be inferior to Microsoft programs. Overall, this OS would be very attractive to both new and experienced OS users. It has great qualities and few downsides. It s probably one of the best Linux distributions in the world for the average consumer. ROYCE, ALEXANDER 5
Fedora Figure 2 Fedora Application Display History This OS is actually developed by the same organization that owned the Linux distribution Red Hat. It s developed by Red Hat programmers, but it s actually a massive community project. People around the world dedicate a portion of their time upgrading and advances the Fedora technology. They re expanding this OS in order to lead the free culture movement. The project encourages everyone with little to massive amounts of knowledge to help. They can find opportunities for anyone who is willing to help with this free open source OS. ROYCE, ALEXANDER 6
Fedora has a single mission with three elements to lead it. Figure 3 Fedora Project Wiki - Mission Objectives Sustainability There is a partnership between Fedora and Red Hat Linux distributions. They re both very capable operating systems and open source, but there is a major difference. Fedora is an operating system built by the community and receives a lot of feedback from the Red Hat Enterprise. Fedora is constantly being changed and modified with innovation. Red Hat is an enterprise IT platform. Its dedication is to provide huge corporations with support. They have a very stable operating system and they cannot afford to make it unstable. They support, fund, and help Fedora in exchange for quality insurance before incorporating something into their own operating system. Accessibility This OS is available via their website, www.getfedora.org. They provide its workstation completely free and can be downloaded to a DVD, USB flash drive or desktop. License Linux distributions are all very similar when it comes to their licenses. Fedora is under the GPL license, which prevents them from selling the operating system. The loop whole around this is to take in donations, sell other services related to the operating system, and selling support for their software. Fedora doesn t actually make a lot of money from these loop holes. It s actually funded by Red Hat Enterprise and is developed by the community. They re advances from the community are inspected by Red Hat and modified based off their input. GUI The GUI used by Fedora is GNOME, a common user interface for Linux distributions. It s not a very attractive display, but it s powerful. The desktop displays nothing, but if you click on activities, it will give access to executables. The entire style s appearance seems very basic. Ubuntu uses GNOME as a base, which shows how much potential the interface does have. Fedora doesn t take advantage of that potential. ROYCE, ALEXANDER 7
Further Information The file manager used by Fedora is the default GNOME manager, called Nautilus. It s a great system, which involves a nice widget system. I ve always liked the widget appearance of GUI s, but they need some professional aspects applied to them. The current distribution release number of Fedora is 21. I ve searched throughout the documentation given from Fedora s release notes software and their website. It doesn t provide a 21.xx.xx. I m only finding where it goes from 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,etc. If you look in the release notes, it gives detailed information about the changes applied to the new versions. The version may have changed tremendously, but apparently they don t make small changes and apply them to an xx.xx.xx version. It s a community based project, so I d assume that they don t have the organizations to make small changes and rather include them into a major upgrade release. Figure 4 Release Version The kernel version of this operating system can be found via the terminal. You need to use the command uname -a or uname r. Figure 5 Kernel Version: 3.11.10-301 Figure 6 Evolution Icon ROYCE, ALEXANDER 8
Fedora uses many unknown software programs. They re using an email system called Evolution. I ve never heard of this email system before, so I did a little bit of research on it. It s apparently the standard GNOME email system, which provides personal information management. It provides integrated mail, calendaring, and an address book. It seems like it would be a standard expectation for an operating system, show no impressive expansions. It is free software and the source code is released via GNOME s website. The default web browser is very common, it s Firefox. It s a known web browser, which is fast and viable. It seems like its GNOME s default browser integration. This operating system isn t very fast. It may be the virtual box, but I didn t have such slow wait times on Ubuntu. It seemed very sluggish while loading menus. I m not a huge fan of its display. Ubuntu uses a similar display, but Ubuntu has a much more professional impact. Fedora seems to be attached by the most basic ideals for an interface. When I speak about professional impact, I mean that it needs to have some sort of coordination with its menus, software placement, naming, etc. Another way to view the professional aspect is how clean the environment is. Fedora is cleaned up and doesn t seem to have a crowd of icons all over the place. It keeps a basic style. People can find basic very attractive, which I understand. I feel like Fedora is just a basic version of Ubuntu and doesn t have anything to make it stand out. ROYCE, ALEXANDER 9
SUSE History This operating system s company is the original provider of the enterprise Linux distribution. Roland Dyroff, Thomas Fehr, Burchard Steinbuild, and Hubert Mantel developed software for UNIX and decided to dispute it through a new company named SUSE (Software und System-Entwidkulng), which is actually a German name. This company would distribute the OS via Linux distribution, which was the first. After many years of working on SUSE, it was eventually distributed globally. They began expanding its presence in the business world by distributing the OS to major corporations around the globe. It s a very powerful and professional operating system, which is one of the largest distributers of Linux in our modern society. After the created a presence in the market, they were forced to keep their OS fully functional. They needed a way to continue making improvements, but have an environment in which they can fully test their progress. This is when the creation of OpenSUSE was decided. ROYCE, ALEXANDER 10
Sustainability OpenSUSE is the freely available, community project, version of SUSE. SUSE Linux Enterprise is mainly driven by corporations and does not have frequent updates. This relationship is similar to Red Hat & Fedora. OpenSUSE is constantly being developed and released in order to provide feedback, stability testing, and data. SUSE Linux Enterprise is SUSE s tested and dedicated version. OpenSUSE is funded by the profit gained from SUSE Linux Enterprise. Accessibility To gain access to OpenSUSE, you can find it easily via www.opensuse.org. They give quick links on the main page to download it to a DVD, USB Drive, or desktop. There are also links to view tutorials for using and developing the OS. I ve noticed that they actually make it difficult to download their Enterprise version of OS without purchasing their services as well. Their main website is found via www.suse.com. They have a download location via www.suse.com/download-linux/. This location provides all of the software, servers, and systems for download. When you go to their product s section, they re trying to release free trials until you need to purchase their services. It feels like this company is actually finding every way around the GPL license. The GPL license forces them to release the source code. They re not giving users easy access to this source code via their website, it s difficult to find free versions of SUSE Linux Enterprise. OpenSUSE is released in a cycle of every 8 months. Major versions of enterprise are released in an interval of 3-4 years, while minor versions are released every 18 months. OpenSUSE can actually be updated as a rolling release version, this is called Tumbleweed. License Most Linux distributions are under the GPL agreement. OpenSUSE and SUSE Linux enterprise are both under this agreement. OpenSUSE is much more transparent about the license. SUSE Linux Enterprise seems to try to work around GPL as much as possible is order to provide the company with funding. GUI The graphical user interface that is used by SUSE is KDE (K Desktop Environment). This GUI is very efficient. It has a nice mixture of widgets and toolbar representation. It has a main desktop, toolbar at the bottom, widget shortcuts, and easy to access menus. It s probably closer to windows than any other graphic user interface that I ve researched. It has very neat features in its menus, like favorites and recently used under the start menu. KDE was founded in 1996 by Matthias Ettrich, who was a student at the time. Its name changed a few times, but it was quickly decided to be considered KDE. The K actually represents nothing. It was originally considered kool, but for obvious professional reasons, that did not stick. Figure 7 KDE Platform Version ROYCE, ALEXANDER 11
The KDE version can be found in the KInfoCenter. Further Information Figure 8 KDE/SUSE File Manager Icon The File Manager for this operating system is called Dolphin. It s the default File Manager for KDE and seems to be very efficient. There is a lot of different options to change its view. Figure 9 KInfoCenter The current release number of this OpenSUSE is 13.1. The kernel version is 3.11.6-4.This information can be found in the KInfoCenter. We can always verify the kernel number using the Linux terminal. Figure 10 OpenSUSE Kernel Version The mail system used by OpenSUSE is KMail. It s a mail provided by the GUI, KDE. It seems to be a bit more advanced than the average mail system, provided plenty of options and support. The browser installed on this operating system is the same as Fedora. This forced me to do a little bit of research on it. Firefox is famous browser used for all operating systems. It s a free and opensource software, which goes hand and hand with Linux distributions. Firefox is owned by Mozilla Corporation and not OS distributor. Mozilla Corporation also makes Thunderbird which is the browser that Ubuntu uses. It looks like Mozilla is in full support of open source software, similar to the Linux concept. This operating system is very professional and provides a great concept. Its design is sleek, has toolbars, and has widgets, easy mobility, and customizability. I m impressed by its layout and functions. I don t find any downfalls to this operating system. I m a huge fan of it, although I ve never seen it before now. There was no lag or sluggish wait times while operating it. ROYCE, ALEXANDER 12
Ghost BSD History This OS is UNIX-like and is based on FreeBSD. FreeBSD is an open source software which has been developed by the community for more than thirty years. Ghost BSD is a fairly new operating system. It was first released in March 2010 as 1.0. Ghost BSD is a free and open source OS. The project was started to make an amazing free and secure operating system for the public. Sustainability Many Linux distributions are funded by a bigger company making profit around the GPL license. They make profit off from their stable OS then pay developers to work on an un-stable, experimental, version of their stable OS. Ghost BSD does not have this luxury. It is not sustained by any other company. They are dependent on the community, donations, google AdSense, and Sponsors. The community contributes their skills to help develop the OS. Donations are accepted by Ghost BSD, but is not highly supported this way. Google AdSense is a program that generates a website via advertisements. There are advertisements on Ghost BSD s websites, generating a small amount of revenue. Sponsorship is a huge ROYCE, ALEXANDER 13
part of Ghost BSD because companies will use Ghost BSD to advertise their own company. Ghost BSD will advertise these companies for a donation of some amount. Accessibility You can download the operating system from their website, www.ghostbsd.org. It can be downloaded on any desktop, USB Drive or DVD. It can then be downloaded to your desktop. License Unlike the other Linux distributions mentioned in this report, Ghost BSD is licensed under 2- clause BSD license. It was originally under the 3-clause BSD license, but that was changed in 2014 by Eric Turgeon. They also contain some GPL-licensed software. Another difference is that Ghost BSD provides the entire operating system which includes device drivers, kernels, etc. Linux distributions under the GPL agreement are normally requires to only give out the source code. GUI At the start, GhostBSD used GNOME as the desktop environment. The OS now uses MATE. This environment was created based on the source of GNOME 2. When GNOME 3 was released, there was a lot of unhappy users from the develop community. They believed the GNOME 2 had a better interface design and chose to develop MATE. Further Information Figure 11 Ghost BSD - File Manager This environment uses PCManFM File Manager. This is a crazy name extension to the File Manager, so some research needed to be done. PCMan File Manager was developed by Hong Jen Yee and was supposed to replace Nautilus. Hong Jen Yee is nicknamed PCMan. In my opinion, the name is still a little weird to use on software. Ghost BSD is released approximately every 8 months. I ve googled and looked around to find the release version within the operating system and I couldn t find it. Their website says that their newest release version is 4.0. Figure 12 Ghost BSD - Kernel Version ROYCE, ALEXANDER 14
The Kernel version of Ghost BSD is 9.2, which can be found via the terminal using uname a and uname r. Mozilla Corporation appears to be a favorite of all four of these operating systems. Ghost BSD has both Firefox and Thunderbird installed, but Firefox is displayed on the toolbar of the desktop. Thunderbird is its email system. The Thunderbird email system is great software and has plenty of advantages. It can be customized greatly to the user s liking. This Operating System has so many flaws. It does not focus on many widgets, instead has a load of toolbars and menus. The menus have a few organization methods, but you really have to look around to find your goal. They don t even have a search menu that is easily accessed. Their search menu is within a software link in their start menu. Once you launch it, you can search folders. Ghost BSD s interface was created from GNOME2, yet it is so much inferior to GNOME3 in my opinion. I ve no idea why this display would be convenient for users, but it would lose the average desktop user until they have a lot of practice with it. Ranking 1. SUSE 2. UBUNTU 3. FEDORA 4. GHOST BSD This is a ranking based off from my own personal opinions and my own preferences. They all have their own appeal depending on the user. GUI Comparison After researching all four of these operating systems, I ve determined that SUSE leads the pack. I ve a background in Graphic & Multimedia Design. Using my knowledge about public appeal, typography, and design; I ve determined that Ubuntu has the best designed interface for the average user. It uses a widget system and gives the user direct access to the most commonly used applications. They organize everything in a simple way, yet professional way. Fedora has a complete widget display that may appeal to many basic users, but it s not organized very well. They don t get straight to the point with commonly used programs. It seemed very sluggish while going through its menus. On the other hand, SUSE s GUI is designed for more advanced users. It gives quick access to the essentials that advances users will commonly access. Only because an advance user knows more ROYCE, ALEXANDER 15
and uses more of the computer s software potential, doesn t mean we don t use common average user software. I believe SUSE has a great balance that would be the quickest way to navigate. Ghost BSD s interface was the worst of the pack. It honestly had no appeal to it. It relies on an advanced user and doesn t organize anything properly. There are many better options to do with this display. Speed Comparison Ubuntu was very fast to handle. I was able to access menus and files very fast. It had no lag and was comfortable. This was surprising because of the amount of software displayed on its screen. It felt like it should have been slowed more. Fedora was slow and didn t load menus very fast. It took move around its menus. SUSE was great. I was able to navigate it very easily. Everything loaded at a great pace, even with having some widgets implemented in its design. Ghost BSD was very slow to navigate through its menus. It wasn t exactly a lag issue, but it was more of trying to navigate from place to place. It didn t even have a proper search menu to access information faster. Dedication Comparison Ubuntu is a great company, designed with ideal goals of open source software. I believe that the developers are generally trying to advance the world s technology. They re impacting the open source community and helping millions of users. Fedora is just a test runner for Red Hat, it seems to be more dedicated to test out their flaws. They want to develop better concepts for Red Hat and that takes away from the dedication of Fedora itself. SUSE is one of the oldest Linux distributors and know every way to flex around the GPL license. OpenSUSE has a lot of dedication to it and I believe they do put effort into it. They use it a test, but they don t turn it into a joke. They seem like a very greedy company, but isn t everyone trying to get further in this world? They need to find some way to keep their developers working and make a profit from their work. Ghost BSD seems to have a lot dedicated from the community. It s not possible to have this operating systems without getting that extra help from donations and sponsors. They re not trying to get around the BSD agreements, they re just trying to build a professional operating system for users. I feel like Ghost BSD would be wanted by very knowledgeable users. ROYCE, ALEXANDER 16
References http://askubuntu.com/questions/21730/how-does-ubuntu-make-money http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1186095&seqnum=3 https://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/1532.html http://www.canonical.com/ https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/overview https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/download/ https://www.suse.com/company/history/ http://www.ghostbsd.org/4.0-release ROYCE, ALEXANDER 17