Yellow Dog Linux - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Yellow Dog Linux, also known as YDL, is a free and open source

Free and open source software

Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...

operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

for high performance computing on multicore architectures. It focuses on GPU systems and computers using the Power Architecture

Power Architecture

Power Architecture is a broad term to describe similar RISC instruction sets for microprocessors developed and manufactured by such companies as IBM, Freescale, AMCC, Tundra and P.A. Semi...

(Power7). YDL is currently developed by Fixstars

Fixstars Solutions

Fixstars Solutions, Inc is a software and services company specializing in Multi-core processor, particularly in the Nvidia's GPU and CUDA environment, IBM Power7 and Cell....

(which acquired Terra Soft Solutions in October 2008). Yellow Dog Linux was first released in the spring of 1999 for the Apple Macintosh PowerPC-based computers.

The most recent version, Yellow Dog Enterprise Linux for CUDA

CUDA

CUDA or Compute Unified Device Architecture is a parallel computing architecture developed by Nvidia. CUDA is the computing engine in Nvidia graphics processing units that is accessible to software developers through variants of industry standard programming languages...

, was released on March 2, 2010. It claims to be the first enterprise Linux OS optimized for GPU computing offering end users, developers and integrators a faster, more reliable, and less complex GPU computing experience.

Features

Yellow Dog Linux is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux-based operating system developed by Red Hat and targeted toward the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86, x86-64, Itanium, PowerPC and IBM System z, and desktop versions for x86 and x86-64...

/CentOS

CentOS

CentOS is a free operating system based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux . It exists to provide a free enterprise class computing platform and strives to maintain 100% binary compatibility with its upstream distribution...

and relies on the RPM Package Manager

RPM Package Manager

RPM Package Manager is a package management system. The name RPM variously refers to the .rpm file format, files in this format, software packaged in such files, and the package manager itself...

. Its software includes user applications such as Ekiga

Ekiga

Ekiga /i k ai g a/ is a VoIP and video conferencing application for GNOME and Windows. It is distributed as free software under the terms of the GNU General Public License. It was the default VoIP client in Ubuntu until October 2009, when it was replaced by Empathy...

(a voice-over-IP and videoconferencing

Videoconferencing

Videoconferencing is the conduct of a videoconference by a set of telecommunication technologies which allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously...

application), GIMP

GIMP

GIMP is a free software raster graphics editor. It is primarily employed as an image retouching and editing tool and is freely available in versions tailored for most popular operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, and Linux.In addition to detailed image retouching and...

(a raster graphics editor), Gnash

Gnash

Gnash is a media player for playing SWF files. Gnash is available both as a standalone player for desktop computers and embedded device, as well as a plugin for several browsers. It is part of the GNU Project and is a Free and open-source alternative to Adobe Flash Player...

(a free Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...

player), gThumb

GThumb

gThumb is an open-source image viewer and organizer for the GNOME desktop environment released under the GNU General Public License. It was originally based on GQView, and is designed to have a clean, simple interface.- Features :...

(an image viewer), the Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...

Web browser, the Mozilla Thunderbird

Mozilla Thunderbird

Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy is modeled after Mozilla Firefox, a project aimed at creating a web browser...

e-mail and news client, the OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...

productivity suite, Pidgin

Pidgin (software)

Pidgin is an open-source multi-platform instant messaging client, based on a library named libpurple. Libpurple has support for many commonly used instant messaging protocols, allowing the user to log into various services from one application.The number of Pidgin users was estimated to be over 3...

(an instant messaging and IRC

Internet Relay Chat

Internet Relay Chat is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfer, including file...

client), the Rhythmbox

Rhythmbox

Rhythmbox is an audio player that plays and helps organize digital music. Originally inspired by Apple's iTunes, it is free software, designed to work well under the GNOME Desktop using the GStreamer media framework. However, Rhythmbox functions on desktop environments other than GNOME.-Music...

music player, and the Noatun and Totem

Totem (media player)

Totem is a media player for the GNOME computer desktop environment which runs on GNU/Linux, Solaris, BSD and other Unix and Unix-like systems. It is officially included in GNOME starting from version 2.10 , but de facto it was already included in most GNOME environments...

media players.

Since YDL version 5.0 ‘Phoenix,’ Enlightenment

Enlightenment (window manager)

Enlightenment, also known simply as E, is a stacking window manager for the X Window System which can be used alone or in conjunction with a desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE...

has been the default desktop environment in Yellow Dog Linux, although GNOME

GNOME

GNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...

and KDE

KDE

KDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...

are also included.

Like other Linux distributions, Yellow Dog Linux supports software development with GCC

GNU Compiler Collection

The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...

(compiled with support for C

C (programming language)

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

, C++

C++

C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...

, Java

Java (programming language)

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...

, and Fortran

Fortran

Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...

), the GNU C Library

GNU C Library

The GNU C Library, commonly known as glibc, is the C standard library released by the GNU Project. Originally written by the Free Software Foundation for the GNU operating system, the library's development has been overseen by a committee since 2001, with Ulrich Drepper from Red Hat as the lead...

, GDB

GNU Debugger

The GNU Debugger, usually called just GDB and named gdb as an executable file, is the standard debugger for the GNU software system. It is a portable debugger that runs on many Unix-like systems and works for many programming languages, including Ada, C, C++, Objective-C, Free Pascal, Fortran, Java...

, GLib

GLib

GLib is a cross-platform software utility library that began as part of the GTK+ project. However, before releasing version 2 of GTK+, the project's developers decided to separate non-GUI-specific code from the GTK+ platform, thus creating GLib as a separate product...

, the GTK+

GTK+

GTK+ is a cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces. It is licensed under the terms of the GNU LGPL, allowing both free and proprietary software to use it. It is one of the most popular toolkits for the X Window System, along with Qt.The name GTK+ originates from GTK;...

toolkit, Python

Python (programming language)

Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...

, the Qt

Qt (toolkit)

Qt is a cross-platform application framework that is widely used for developing application software with a graphical user interface , and also used for developing non-GUI programs such as command-line tools and consoles for servers...

toolkit, Ruby

Ruby (programming language)

Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general-purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. Ruby originated in Japan during the mid-1990s and was first developed and designed by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto...

and Tcl

Tcl

Tcl is a scripting language created by John Ousterhout. Originally "born out of frustration", according to the author, with programmers devising their own languages intended to be embedded into applications, Tcl gained acceptance on its own...

. Standard text editors such as Vim

Vim (text editor)

Vim is a text editor written by Bram Moolenaar and first released publicly in 1991. Based on the vi editor common to Unix-like systems, Vim is designed for use both from a command line interface and as a standalone application in a graphical user interface...

and Emacs

Emacs

Emacs is a class of text editors, usually characterized by their extensibility. GNU Emacs has over 1,000 commands. It also allows the user to combine these commands into macros to automate work.Development began in the mid-1970s and continues actively...

are complemented with IDEs

Integrated development environment

An integrated development environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development...

such as Eclipse

Eclipse (software)

Eclipse is a multi-language software development environment comprising an integrated development environment and an extensible plug-in system...

and KDevelop

KDevelop

KDevelop is a free software integrated development environment for the KDE Platform on Unix-like computer operating systems. KDevelop includes no compiler. Instead, it uses an external compiler such as gcc to produce executable code....

, as well as by graphical debuggers such as KDbg

KDbg

KDbg is an open source graphical front-end for the GNU Debugger. KDbg is implemented using the KDE component architecture.- See also :* Data Display Debugger , a Motif debugger front-end* ups...

. Standard document preparation tools such as TeX

TeX

TeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978. Within the typesetting system, its name is formatted as ....

and LaTeX

LaTeX

LaTeX is a document markup language and document preparation system for the TeX typesetting program. Within the typesetting system, its name is styled as . The term LaTeX refers only to the language in which documents are written, not to the editor used to write those documents. In order to...

are also included.

Yellow Dog Linux includes software suitable for running a Web server (such as Apache/httpd

Apache HTTP Server

The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache , is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million website milestone...

, Perl

Perl

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...

, and PHP

PHP

PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...

), database server (such as MySQL

MySQL

MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...

and PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software...

), and network server (NFS and Webmin

Webmin

Webmin is a web-based system configuration tool for Unix-like systems, although recent versions can also be installed and run on Windows. With it, it is possible to configure operating system internals, such as users, disk quotas, services or configuration files, as well as modify and control open...

). Additional software is also included for running an enterprise server or a compute server or cluster, although two separate products from Terra Soft Solutions, called Yellow Dog Enterprise Linux (for enterprise servers) and Y-HPC (for compute servers/clusters), are specifically targeted toward those applications.

YDL version 6.2 was released on 29 June 2009.

Yellow Dog Linux, version 6.0 ‘Pyxis,’ is based on Linux 2.6.23.
It ships with GCC

GNU Compiler Collection

The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...

4.1.1, glibc

GNU C Library

4.1.1, Eclipse

Eclipse (software)

Eclipse is a multi-language software development environment comprising an integrated development environment and an extensible plug-in system...

3.2.2, and over 2000 software packages.
Although several other Linux distributions support the Power Architecture, Yellow Dog Linux was distinguished for its focus on supporting the Apple Macintosh platform before the Apple–Intel transition. Before this transition, Terra Soft Solutions held the unique distinction of being the only company licensed by Apple to resell Apple computers with Linux pre-installed (or for that matter, with any operating system other than Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

). Full support for AirPort

AirPort

AirPort and AirPort Extreme are local area wireless networking products from Apple Inc. based on the IEEE 802.11 standard ....

(Apple’s implementation of the IEEE

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a non-profit professional association headquartered in New York City that is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence...

802.11b-1999

IEEE 802.11b-1999

IEEE 802.11b-1999 or 802.11b, is an amendment to the IEEE 802.11 specification that extended throughput up to 11 Mbit/s using the same 2.4 GHz band. This specification under the marketing name of Wi-Fi has been implemented all over the world...

wireless networking standard), and partial support for AirPort Extreme, are also built into Yellow Dog Linux, as are support for Bluetooth

Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a proprietary open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices, creating personal area networks with high levels of security...

and support for accessing the Internet over cellular phones.

Following Apple’s transition to using Intel processors exclusively in their Macintosh line of computers, Yellow Dog Linux has now been retargeted to support the Sony PlayStation 3 and IBM pSeries platforms extensively, while retaining its longstanding support for PowerPC-based Apple hardware.

Distribution

Yellow Dog Linux is sold by Fixstars who also market Sony

Sony

, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....

PlayStation 3

The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...

consoles, IBM workstations, and servers with Yellow Dog Linux pre-installed. As is the case with most other Linux distribution vendors, a portion of the revenue from the sale of these boxed distributions goes toward development of the Linux operating system and applications, the results of which are made available as source code under various free and open source licenses

Free and open source software

.

As an interesting application of YDL on PlayStation 3

PlayStation 3

consoles: Dr. Gaurav Khanna, a professor in the Physics Department of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth is one of five campuses and operating subdivisions of the University of Massachusetts . It is located in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, United States, in the center of the South Coast region, between the cities of New Bedford to the east and Fall River...

built a message-passing based cluster using 16 PS3s. This cluster was the first such cluster that generated published scientific results. Dubbed as the "PS3 Gravity Grid", this PS3 cluster performs astrophysical simulations of large supermassive black holes capturing smaller compact objects. Khanna claims that the cluster's performance exceeds that of a 100+ Intel Xeon core based traditional Linux cluster on his simulations. The PS3 Gravity Grid gathered significant media attention through 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Releases

The following table summarizes the release history of Yellow Dog Linux:

Source: DistroWatch

DistroWatch

DistroWatch is a website which provides news, popularity rankings, and other general information about various Linux distributions as well as other free software/open source Unix-like operating systems such as OpenSolaris, MINIX and BSD. It now contains information on several hundred distributions...

|-
! Version
! Name
! Release date
! Linux version
! Notes
|-
| 1.1
| ?
| 8 March 1999
| 2.2.15
|
|-
| 1.2
| ?
| 4 March 2000
| 2.2.19
|
|-
| 2.0
| Pomona
| 17 May 2001
| 2.4.10
|
|-
| 2.1
| Fuji
| 17 October 2001
| 2.4.18
|
|-
| 2.2
| Rome
| 22 March 2002
| 2.4.19
|
|-
| 2.3
| Dayton
| 23 June 2002
| 2.4.20
|
|-
| 3.0
| Sirius
| 19 March 2003
| 2.4.22
|
|-
| 3.0.1
| "
| 17 September 2003
| 2.4.22
| Fixes issue with RPMs in ver. 3.0
|-
| 4.0
| Orion
| 29 September 2004
| ?
|
|-
| 4.1
| Sagitta
| 2 February 2006
| 2.6.15-rc5
|
|-
| 5.0
| Phoenix
| 27 November 2006
| 2.6.16 http://news.softpedia.com/news/Free-Download-of-Yellow-Dog-Linux-for-Playstation-3-43285.shtml
| Support for PlayStation 3

PlayStation 3

(Cell

Cell (microprocessor)

Cell is a microprocessor architecture jointly developed by Sony, Sony Computer Entertainment, Toshiba, and IBM, an alliance known as "STI". The architectural design and first implementation were carried out at the STI Design Center in Austin, Texas over a four-year period beginning March 2001 on a...

)
|-
| 5.0.1
| "
| 27 March 2007
| 2.6.17
|
|-
| 5.0.2
| "
| 14 June 2007
| 2.6.22-rc4
| Support for IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

pSeries

IBM System p

The System p, formerly known as RS/6000, was IBM's RISC/UNIX-based server and workstation product line.In April 2008, IBM announced a rebranding of the System p and its unification with the System i platform. The resulting product line is called IBM Power Systems.-History:It was originally a line...

|-
| 6.0
| Pyxis
| 5 February 2008
| 2.6.23
|
|-
| 6.1
| ?
| 19 November 2008
| 2.6.27
|
|-
| 6.1
| Pyxis
| 1 February 2009
| 2.6.28
|> | 6.2
| Pyxis
| 29 June 2009
| 2.6.29
| http://ydl.oregonstate.edu/iso/RELEASE-NOTES> |6.2.1 Enterprise for CUDA
| Pyxis
| 2 March 2010
| 2.6.29
| http://www.fixstars.com/en/company/press/20100302.html>

External links

Reviews

“Software Review: Yellow Dog Linux 5 for PlayStation 3” – BlogCritics Magazine review of YDL version 5.0
“Yellow Dog Linux 5.0 Hands-on” – IGN.com review of YDL version 5.0
“Yellow Dog Linux 4.0: Some Install Notes” – ppcnerds.org review of YDL version 4.0

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.