This is a list of

Gentoo Linux Gentoo Linux (pronounced ) is a Linux distribution built using the Portage package management system. Unlike a binary software distribution, the source code is compiled locally according to the user's preferences and is often optimized for ...

derivatives. GentooFamilyTree1210

Calculate Linux

ChromiumOS and ChromeOS

CloverOS

CloverOS GNU/Linux was a Gentoo image (stage4) and binhost optimized for performance that aims to be both minimal and out of the box. It began in 2017. Main website is down as of 2022-02-01, may no longer be active.

Container Linux (formerly CoreOS)

FireballISO

FireballISO (or "Fireball") is a VMware

virtual appliance A virtual appliance is a pre-configured virtual machine image, ready to run on a hypervisor; virtual appliances are a subset of the broader class of software appliances. Installation of a software appliance on a virtual machine and packaging that ...

that builds a security-hardened

Live CD A live CD (also live DVD, live disc, or live operating system) is a complete booting, bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than lo ...

containing a stripped-down custom version of

. The original intent of the project is focused on providing

firewall Firewall may refer to: * Firewall (computing), a technological barrier designed to prevent unauthorized or unwanted communications between computer networks or hosts * Firewall (construction), a barrier inside a building, designed to limit the spre ...

and networking services to a network, but the appliance can be customized in almost limitless ways to build bootable ISOs that can do many different things. When burned to a CD-ROM, it will allow a perhaps otherwise unused, old computer to boot it and act as a network security device. It may also be used in a virtual environment as a secure cloud appliance. Notable features in the generated ISO include: * (Version 1.4) Encryption is now ''truly'' optional (there were issues with how 1.3 handled unencrypted builds). Many updates to Gentoo Hardened files, including compiler-provided increased stack protection. Extensive cleanups to build script; now supports "test" build which can be customized to make a different ISO than the "deployment" build, suitable for testing or other purposes. Many features removed (tunnels, DSL support, etc.) to make appliance more generic. * (Version 1.3) Except for the files required early in the boot process (such as the kernel and initramfs), the contents can now be optionally encrypted, which makes it much more difficult and time-consuming for someone that may steal the ISO to access the contents. Default encryption is 256-bit AES. See th
documentation
for issues related to encryption. * (Version 1.2) All programs updated and recompiled with Hardened Gentoo kernel and compiler toolchain, resulting in increased protection from several kinds of overflows and other security vulnerabilities. *

IPv4 Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the first version of the Internet Protocol (IP) as a standalone specification. It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet and other packet-switched networks. ...

and

IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communication protocol, communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic ...

support *

iptables iptables is a user-space utility program that allows a system administrator to configure the IP packet filter rules of the Linux kernel firewall, implemented as different Netfilter modules. The filters are organized in a set of tables, whi ...

and ip6tables firewalls * SSH server for full command-line access * DNS cache and DHCP server * tcpdump & other networking utilities * Perl and Python scripting languages * NTP client * Extremely customizable, just like a regular Gentoo Linux system * Unnecessary programs removed from generated ISO; can be customized for even smaller size * Low hardware requirements for ISO: Pentium computer with a CD-ROM drive capable of booting, and two network interface cards, or equivalent virtual environment. No hard disk, monitor, or keyboard is needed for the unencrypted configuration (though a monitor and keyboard might be useful for troubleshooting configurations as needed). A keyboard and monitor are required at start-up if encryption is used. The virtual appliance can be updated just like a normal Gentoo system, allowing new Live CD images to be generated with the latest security fixes, bug corrections, additional features, and updated configurations. The Live CD should be re-generated as often as important changes are released by the authors of the various software packages it contains.

Release history

* Fireball Release 1 - March 3, 2009 * Fireball Release 1.1 - June 22, 2009 * Fireball Release 1.2 - December 30, 2010 * Fireball Release 1.3 - January 13, 2012 * Fireball Release 1.4 - March 6, 2015 * Fireball Release 1.5 - June 9, 2017

Funtoo

Funtoo Linux ( ) was a

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

based on

, created by Daniel Robbins (the founder and former project leader of Gentoo Linux) in 2008. It was developed by a core team of developers, and built around a basic vision of improving the core technologies previously used by

History

In early 2008, Robbins proposed to resolve the Gentoo Foundation problems. But he had left the project in 2004, and his offer was refused. The Funtoo project was born as an initiative to implement his vision, with aims to share innovations. On July 26th, 2024, Robbins announced on the official Funtoo website that he would shut down the whole project due to a lack of interest in it.

Features

Funtoo is a source based

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 Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations *Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a varia ...

Core technologies

Funtoo features in addition to native UTF-8 by default include:

Kits

In July 2017 Funtoo switched from plain portage approach to splitting the portage tree into kits. This should tie software updates together and help with the dependency problems of a rolling release distribution. Kits also are gaining maturity status as they are tested and as patches are applied.

Git

Funtoo uses

Git Git () is a distributed version control system that tracks versions of files. It is often used to control source code by programmers who are developing software collaboratively. Design goals of Git include speed, data integrity, and suppor ...

to store the

Portage Portage or portaging ( CA: ; ) is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A path where items are regularly carried between bodies of water is also called a '' ...

tree. The tree is split into kits now with meta-repo being the repo holding all the kits as submodules.

Metro

Metro is an automatable software package for building stages used in installing Funtoo.

boot-update

boot-update provides a unified mechanism for configuring the

GNU GRUB GNU GRUB (short for GNU GRand Unified Bootloader, commonly referred to as GRUB) is a boot loader package from the GNU Project. GRUB is the reference implementation of the Free Software Foundation's Multiboot Specification, which provides a use ...

2 and GRUB Legacy

boot loader A bootloader, also spelled as boot loader or called bootstrap loader, is a computer program that is responsible for booting a computer and booting an operating system. If it also provides an interactive menu with multiple boot choices then it's o ...

versions.

Core networking

Funtoo has its own core networking solution to allow users to simplify the creation of complex network interfaces based on pre-created profiles.

Kernel

Since May 2015 Funtoo offers a pre-built generic kernel with stage3. Although Funtoo is a source-based distribution, it should be possible to use a prebuilt

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a Free and open-source software, free and open source Unix-like kernel (operating system), kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the k ...

. Funtoo no longer encourages the use of the Sabayon kernel; however, with many improvements to Funtoo's design and init process, one should be able to load a binary kernel plus initrd from a preferred distribution hosting a precompiled/preconfigured kernel. Ubuntu's kernel linux-3.2.0-17-generic has been tested and is known to work. This can benefit those who like to avoid building custom kernels. Using a generic kernel from another distribution should be straightforward if usin
boot-update
.

Other differences

The most marked difference between the two would be no systemd support in Funtoo, but still delivering for example a working Gnome desktop without the systemd need.

Incognito

Nova

Pentoo

Sabayon Linux

Redcore Linux

Tin Hat Linux

Tin Hat is a security-focused

distribution derived from Hardened Gentoo Linux. It aims to provide a very secure, stable, and fast

desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...

environment that lives purely in

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

. Tin Hat

boots A boot is a type of footwear. Most boots mainly cover the foot and the ankle, while some also cover some part of the lower calf. Some boots extend up the leg, sometimes as far as the knee or even the hip. Most boots have a heel that is clearl ...

from CD, or optionally from

USB flash drive A flash drive (also thumb drive, memory stick, and pen drive/pendrive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. A typical USB drive is removable, rewritable, and smaller than an optical disc, and u ...

, but it does not mount any file system directly from the boot device. Instead, Tin Hat employs a large

SquashFS Squashfs is a compressed read-only file system for Linux. Squashfs compresses files, inodes and directories, and supports block sizes from 4 KiB up to 1 MiB for greater compression. Several compression algorithms are supported. Squashfs is ...

image from the boot device which expands into tmpfs upon

booting In computing, booting is the process of starting a computer as initiated via Computer hardware, hardware such as a physical button on the computer or by a software command. After it is switched on, a computer's central processing unit (CPU) h ...

. This makes for long boot times, but fast speeds during use.

Design goal

The central design consideration in Tin Hat is to construct an

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

that can hide data from an attacker even if he has physical access to the computer. Physical access to a computer with unencrypted filesystems does not secure the data and an attacker could easily retrieve the data. Encrypting the filesystem provides protection from such an attack, but many implementations of encryption do not hide the fact that data is encrypted on the filesystem. For example, the LUKS encryption system includes metadata which detail the

block cipher In cryptography, a block cipher is a deterministic algorithm that operates on fixed-length groups of bits, called ''blocks''. Block ciphers are the elementary building blocks of many cryptographic protocols. They are ubiquitous in the storage a ...

and block cipher mode used in encryption. This information does not help the attacker

decrypt In cryptography, encryption (more specifically, encoding) is the process of transforming information in a way that, ideally, only authorized parties can decode. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plai ...

the filesystem, but it does reveal that it contains encrypted data and not random data. However, Tin Hat stores its filesystem in the RAM, leaving no data in the computer's hard drive. If the user stores any data via a more permanent means than RAM, the encrypted data is indiscernible from random data. Tin Hat's preferred method of encryption is via loop-aes v3. Beyond these considerations, Tin Hat has to also protect against more common exploits based on networking or security holes in software. The hardening model chosen is PaX/Grsecurity which is already provided by the Hardened Gentoo project. Hardening of the kernel and the

toolchain A toolchain is a set of software development tools used to build and otherwise develop software. Often, the tools are executed sequentially and form a pipeline such that the output of one tool is the input for the next. Sometimes the term is us ...

make most code-borne exploits less likely. A non-modular compiled

kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learnin ...

further frustrates the insertion of malicious kernel modules.

Ututo

VidaLinux

VidaLinux (VLOS) was an

based on

. A GNOME-based OS, VidaLinux installs with the

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. (formerly Red Hat Software, Inc.) is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises and is a subsidiary of IBM. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North ...

Anaconda installer. VidaLinux tries to provide most appropriate tools and support for home and office use, such as PPC support and RealPlayer.

History

As of December 3, 2009, VLOS has been rebuilt with Daniel Robbins' fork of Gentoo Linux called Funtoo.

Versions

Vidalinux comes in two different flavors; one can be downloaded, while the other must be purchased. While the downloaded version technically has all the same software packages as the purchased version, the difference is that the purchased version (which can be bought for 25

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

) contains many binaries of often used programs, while the downloaded version forces the user to download ebuilds of these packages and build the binaries themselves, which requires more time.

Version History

* 1.0 October 4, 2004 * 1.1 December 20, 2004 * 1.2 August 1, 2005 * 1.2.1 January 18, 2006 * 1.2.1-r2 January 30, 2006 * 1.3 18 October 2006

References

External links

* *
List of distributions based on Gentoo
on the Gentoo wiki. {{Linux-distro Gentoo Linux