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1.2 – Major Open Source Software

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Major Open Source Software Projects

Being able to understand more of the major Open Source Software projects in Linux will help us understand what is on offer. So Linux is the Kernel, the core of the Operating System which we already know. A distribution includes the Linux kernel and other applications. Investigating this topic for the LPI Linux Essentials certification, we look at some major open source applications available in Linux and other Operating Systems. These include those targeted for desktops, servers and mobile devices. Yes, your mobile phone and tablet can well be based on Linux if they are android based. Firstly we can list some Server applications or services:

Server Applications

Major open source software projects working of server will often provides software services. Such as a web server or a database server and clients can connect locally or from across the network.
– Apache HTTPD: web server
– NGINX: web server
– MySQL: Database server
– MariaDB: Database server
– Squid: web proxy server
– SSHD: The Secure Shell remote access server
– BIND: DNS Name resolution
– ISC DHCP: IP Address allocation
– Chronyd: Time Server
– openLDAP: Directory Services
– SAMBA: File and Print Server
– NFS: UNIX and Linux File Sharing
– ownCloud: File Server Storage server
– NextCloud: Team collaboration environment

Desktop Applications

  • Gimp: Graphics and photo editing
  • Openoffice / LibreOffice: Office Apps
  • Firefox: Web Browser
  • Thunderbird: Email client

Online Software Repositories

In general, software for Linux distributions is made available through online Software Repositories. As well as introducing some of these applications, we can additionally view how we manage applications using these repositories or repos.These repos can differ with each distribution but the main tools that we have to manage the software are:
– CentOS/Red Hat: yum/dnf
– SUSE/openSUSE: zypper
– Debian/Ubuntu: apt
Making use of these repositories, software can easily be located and installed onto the desktop or server. We will see more of this in the video. The tools may be GUI based, especially on the Desktop or command line or CLI based. Useful, of course for servers.

The first video looks at software in General in Linux and the second video look at Libre Office.

The first video looks at software in General in Linux and the second video look at Libre Office.

In compiling these tutorials I have to make reference to the LPI objectives. Having added those objectives to a LibreOffice document it is easy to create a table of contents with clickable hyperlinks. The next video shows how this is done and the value in Open Source software, especially when it is available on Linux, Mac and Windows OSs: