Best Linux Distributions of the Decade (2000-2009)

 

We've seen plenty of "Best of the Decade" lists around, but not one is related to Linux distribution. So it's only fitting that we will give credit to the best Linux distros that dominated the last decade (2000-2009), or most part of it.

One of the best ways to measure a Linux distribution's caliber is to look at its popularity. Since Distrowatch is the only site that religiously measures the popularity of distros through its "Page Hit Ranking" system, let's take a look at first at some of its data gathered from 2002-2009.

Distrowatch Distro Rankings (2002-2009)

2002
1. Mandrake (Mandriva)
2. Red Hat
3. Gentoo
4. Debian
5. Sorcerer
6. SuSE
7. Slackware
8. Lycoris
9. Lindows
10. Xandros

2003
1. Mandrake
2. Red Hat
3. Knoppix
4. Gentoo
5. Debian
6. Yoper
7. SUSE
8. Slackware
9. Lycoris
10. Xandros

2004
1. Mandrakelinux (Mandriva)
2. Fedora
3. KNOPPIX
4. SUSE
5. Debian
6. MEPIS
7. Gentoo
8. Slackware
9. PCLinuxOS
10. Damn Small

2005
1. Ubuntu
2. Mandriva
3. SUSE
4. Fedora
5. MEPIS
6. Debian
7. KNOPPIX
8. Damn Small
9. Gentoo
10. Slackware

2006
1. Ubuntu
2. openSUSE
3. Fedora
4. MEPIS
5. Mandriva
6. Damn Small
7. Debian
8. PCLinuxOS
9. Slackware
10. Gentoo

2007
1. Ubuntu
2. PCLinuxOS
3. openSUSE
4. Fedora
5. Sabayon
6. Mint
8. MEPIS
9. Mandriva
10. Damn Small

2008
1. Ubuntu
2. openSUSE
3. Mint
4. Fedora
5. PCLinuxOS
6. Debian
7. Mandriva
8. Dreamlinux
9. Sabayon
10. Damn Small

2009
1. Ubuntu
2. Fedora
3. Mint
4. openSUSE
5. Debian
6. Mandriva
7. Puppy
8. PCLinuxOS
9. Sabayon
10. Arch

With a rough estimate based on the Distrowatch rankings, here are the best Linux distros from 2002-2009:

1. Ubuntu
2. Mandriva
3. openSUSE
4. Fedora
5. Debian
6. Mint
7. Gentoo
8. Slackware
9. Damn Small
10. MEPIS

You may also want to see this graph from Google Trends:

 

Please Participate in this poll :

What's NEW in RHEL 5.5?

 

The next release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is in beta. The release notes give a clue as to what's coming in RHEL 5.5, including improvements to virtualization and support for new platforms from Intel, AMD, and IBM's Power7.

Improvements to virtualization mean better memory management and use of devices. RHEL 5.5 will allow virtual machines running under KVM to use PCI devices as if attached to the guest OS, rather than running as virtualized devices. If deployed on machines using Intel VT-d extensions, PCI devices can be reassigned while a system is running and attached to another guest OS. In addition, RHEL 5.5 will also allow reallocation of memory during runtime, so it won't be necessary to shut down a guest OS under KVM to increase or decrease its allocated RAM.

Kernel updates in RHEL 5.5 will enable AMD's new processors, Intel's new Boxboro-Ex and Boxboro-MC, and IBM's Power7. Power7 has been getting quite a bit of attention and could be a major platform for Linux.

This release also includes a number of updates to drivers, improvements to SystemTap, an update to FreeRADIUS 2, and Samba. A full and detailed list of package updates is available on the Red Hat Website.(The next release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is in beta. The release notes give a clue as to what's coming in RHEL 5.5, including improvements to virtualization and support for new platforms from Intel, AMD, and IBM's Power7.

Improvements to virtualization mean better memory management and use of devices. RHEL 5.5 will allow virtual machines running under KVM to use PCI devices as if attached to the guest OS, rather than running as virtualized devices. If deployed on machines using Intel VT-d extensions, PCI devices can be reassigned while a system is running and attached to another guest OS. In addition, RHEL 5.5 will also allow reallocation of memory during runtime, so it won't be necessary to shut down a guest OS under KVM to increase or decrease its allocated RAM.

Kernel updates in RHEL 5.5 will enable AMD's new processors, Intel's new Boxboro-Ex and Boxboro-MC, and IBM's Power7. Power7 has been getting quite a bit of attention and could be a major platform for Linux.

This release also includes a number of updates to drivers, improvements to SystemTap, an update to FreeRADIUS 2, and Samba. A full and detailed list of package updates is available on the Red Hat Website.

The 5.5 release will also include a fair amount of functionality for technology preview purposes. This includes stateless Linux, the Ext4 filesystem, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), GCC 4.4, and support for the Intel Trusted Platform Module. See a longer list on Dag Wieers site.

Access to the beta requires a subscription to the Red Hat Network. The beta is scheduled to last through March 16, 2010, and the final release date has not yet been announced.

Migrating users in one Linux.

 

Have you ever had a need to migrate current running Linux users from installation to another? That would be a simple task if the user count was low. But  what happens when the user count is in the hundreds? What do you do then? If you’re not using LDAP, you know you will have to migrate the users’ data, passwords, etc from the old machine to the new. Believe it or not, this is just a matter of a few commands – not necessarily simple commands, but it’s not as complex as you would think.

In this article I am going to show you how to make this migration so your Linux users do not loose their data and their passwords are all retained.

What we migrating

The list is fairly simple:

    * /etc/passwd - Contains information about the user.
    * /etc/shadow - Contains the encrypted passwords.
    * /etc/group - Contains group information.
    * /etc/gshadow - Contains group encrypted passwords.
    * /var/spool/mail - Contains users email (the location will depend upon the mail server you use).
    * /home/ - Contains users data.

Unfortunately these files can not simply be copied from one machine to another – that would be too easy.  Just make sure you enter the following commands correctly.

Source machine

These are the commands you will need to run on the machine you are migrating users FROM. I will assume you are doing this on a system that uses a root user (such as Fedora), so all commands will be done as root:

mkdir ~/MOVE

The above command creates a directory to house all of the files to be moved.

export UGIDLIMIT=500

The above command sets the UID filter limit to 500. NOTE: This value will be dictated by your distribution. If you use Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, or Fedora this value is shown in the command above. If you use Debian or Ubuntu that limit is 1000 (not 500).

awk -v LIMIT=$UGIDLIMIT -F: ‘($3>=LIMIT) && ($3!=65534)’ /etc/passwd > ~/MOVE/passwd.mig

The above command copies only user accounts from /etc/passwd (using awk allows us to ignore system accounts.)

awk -v LIMIT=$UGIDLIMIT -F: ‘($3>=LIMIT) && ($3!=65534)’ /etc/group > ~/MOVE/group.mig

The above command copies the /etc/group file.

awk -v LIMIT=$UGIDLIMIT -F: ‘($3>=LIMIT) && ($3!=65534) {print $1}’ /etc/passwd | tee – |egrep -f – /etc/shadow > ~/MOVE/shadow.mig

The above command copies the /etc/shadow file.

cp /etc/gshadow ~/MOVE/gshadow.mig

The above command copies the /etc/gshadow file.

tar -zcvpf ~/MOVE/home.tar.gz /home

The above command archives /home.

tar -zcvpf ~/MOVE/mail.tar.gz /var/spool/mail

The above command archives the mail directory. NOTE: If you are using Sendmail this is the correct directory. If you are using Postfix that directory most likely will be /etc/postfix.

Now it’s time to move everything in ~/MOVE over to the new server. You can do this using the scp command like so:

scp -r ~/MOVE/* USER@IP_OF_NEW_SERVER:/home/USER/

Where USER is the username you will use to send the file and IP_OF_NEW_SERVER is the address of the new server. NOTE: If this server is not on line yet you can always copy these files onto a thumb drive and move them that way.

Target machine

Now we’re working on the new server. Follow these commands (run as the root user):

mkdir ~/newsusers.bak

The above command will create a new directory that will house the backup of the current users.

cp /etc/passwd /etc/shadow /etc/group /etc/gshadow ~/newsusers.bak

The above command will copy the necessary files to the new backup directory.

cd /PATH/TO/DIRECTORY
cat passwd.mig >> /etc/passwd
cat group.mig >> /etc/group
cat shadow.mig >> /etc/shadow
/bin/cp gshadow.mig /etc/gshadow

The above commands will restore all password files onto the new system. NOTE: Where /PATH/TO/DIRECTORY is the location where you copied the files onto the new system.

cd /
tar -zxvf /PATH/TO/DIRECTORY/home.tar.gz

The above commands will first change you to the / directory and then unpack the archived /home directory. NOTE: Where /PATH/TO/DIRECTORY is the location where you copied the files onto the new system.

cd /
tar -zxvf /PATH/TO/DIRECTORY/mail.tar.gz

The above commands will first change you to the / directory and then unpack the archived/var/spool/mail directory. NOTE: Where /PATH/TO/DIRECTORY is the location where you copied the files onto the new system.

You can now reboot your system with the users