Clear Linux OS is a

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

distribution, developed and maintained on

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

's 01.org

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

platform, and optimized for Intel's microprocessors with an emphasis on performance and security. Its optimizations are also effective on AMD systems. Clear Linux OS follows a

rolling release Rolling release, also known as rolling update or continuous delivery, is a concept in software development of frequently delivering updates to applications. This is in contrast to a ''standard'' or '' point release'' development model which uses ...

model. Clear Linux OS is not intended to be a general-purpose Linux distribution; it is designed to be used by IT professionals for

DevOps DevOps is the integration and automation of the software development and information technology operations. DevOps encompasses necessary tasks of software development and can lead to shortening development time and improving the development life ...

, AI application development,

cloud computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

, and

container A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

History

In 2015, Intel introduced ''Clear Linux OS'' at OpenStack Summit 2015, Vancouver initially, it was limited to cloud usage. Intel began the ''Clear Containers'' project to address

security. In 2015, originally, ''Clear Linux OS'' was deployed as a single monolithic unit. In May 2019, Clear Linux OS released a new Desktop Installer and started a Help Forum. ''Clear Linux OS'' is available via Microsoft Azure marketplace, and

Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Amazon that provides Software as a service, on-demand cloud computing computing platform, platforms and Application programming interface, APIs to individuals, companies, and gover ...

marketplace.

Requirements

Clear Linux OS supports 2nd generation

Intel Core Intel Core is a line of multi-core (with the exception of Core Solo and Core 2 Solo) central processing units (CPUs) for midrange, embedded, workstation, high-end and enthusiast computer markets marketed by Intel Corporation. These processors ...

(

Sandy Bridge Sandy Bridge is the List of Intel codenames, codename for Intel's 32 nm process, 32 nm microarchitecture used in the second generation of the Intel Core, Intel Core processors (Intel Core i7, Core i7, Intel Core i5, i5, Intel Core i3, i3). The Sa ...

) CPUs and later, Xeon E3 and later, and Silvermont-based Intel Atom C2000 and E3800 processors. An installed system is booted via the EFI boot loader or via systemd-boot. Minimum system requirements are

SSE4 SSE4 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 4) is a SIMD CPU instruction set used in the Intel Core microarchitecture and AMD K10 (K8L). It was announced on September 27, 2006, at the Fall 2006 Intel Developer Forum, with vague details in a white paper;< ...

and CLMUL ( carry-less multiplication), as well as

UEFI Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI, as an acronym) is a Specification (technical standard), specification for the firmware Software architecture, architecture of a computing platform. When a computer booting, is powered on, the UEFI ...

Features

Clear Linux OS uses reference stacks to install images that are optimized and tested together for specific use-cases. It also utilizes a strict separation between User data and System config files, called ''stateless'', so that even a misconfigured system will still boot correctly and then perform a factory reset so it can be reconfigured.

Desktop

By default, Clear Linux OS ships with the

GNOME A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...

desktop environment and most graphical effects are disabled.

KDE Plasma KDE Plasma is a Shell (computing), graphical shell developed by the KDE community for Unix-like operating systems. It serves as the interface layer between the user and the operating system, providing a graphical user interface (GUI) and workspa ...

and

Xfce Xfce or XFCE (pronounced as four individual letters, ) is a Free and open-source software, free and open-source desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Xfce aims to be fast and Lightweight software, lightweight whil ...

are also available for installation.

Package management

Packages are usually installed and updated through bundles with the help of swupd, which is described as an ''OS-level software update program'', using delta updates to minimize update size. Flatpak is also preinstalled and can be used to install and use packages. Mixer is the tool for creating 3rd-party-bundles, which can then be installed using swupd.

Competitors

For containers: * Bare Metal Container * Fedora CoreOS * openSUSE MicroOS * RancherOS *

SmartOS SmartOS is a free and open-source SVR4 hypervisor based on the UNIX operating system that combines OpenSolaris technology with bhyve and KVM virtualization. Its core kernel contributes to the illumos project. It features several technologies: ...

* ResinOS *

Ubuntu Core Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical and a community of contributors under a meritocratic governance model, Ubuntu is released i ...

* VMware Project

Name

''Clear Linux'' was referred to in early documentation as ''Clear Linux OS'', later as ''Clear Linux* OS'' with a corresponding footnote acknowledging that the rights to "

" may be possessed by others. ''Clear Linux OS'' has been referred to, in the literature, as ''Clear Linux™ OS'', ''Clear Linux* OS'', ''Clear Linux OS'', ''Clear Linux*'' and ''Clear Linux''.

References

External links

* * {{Linux distributions Enterprise Linux distributions Independent Linux distributions Linux distributions Rolling release Linux distributions X86-64 Linux distributions