With many Linux server distros coming and going in 2016, is tough to know which are worth our time. Even sites like DistroWatch only tend to review and cover changes to the big distros as they don’t have the resources to review them all. So, there are only a handful of small new distros worth keeping an eye on at any given time. These two Linux server operating systems are promising niche distros. Focusing on doing one thing and being the best at it.
OviOS Linux (Enterprise Level Storage OS)
OviOS Linux is an enterprise-level storage OS which combines open source technologies to provide an easy to use. And is a performance-oriented storage system. Developers are aiming to keep OviOS Linux a pure storage appliance-like OS. Also creating the OS for users and admins who need a stable, out of the box iSCSI, NFS, SMB, and FTP server. It also is great for Linux and storage engineers who want to learn to build a system from scratch. With a high focus on stability, they test and build all packages in-house.
The server comes with all needed packages for a stable storage server and can be added or changed by admins. So, users are given complete control over how the system should work. Including the ability to manage running services.
OviOS is also completely independent of other distributions, so it’s not based on or derived from any distro. It contains no unnecessary software or configurations and is extremely lightweight (ensuring top performance from even budget servers)
Open Network Linux (Bare Metal Switch OS)
Open Network Linux is a Linux distribution for “bare metal” switches, that is, network forwarding devices built from commodity components. It is a part of the Open Compute Project and is a component in a growing collection of open source and commercial projects.
ONL is based on Debian Linux, it adds functionality specific to bare metal that’s not included in existing traditional distributions. Relative to a standard server, bare metal switches have expanded infrastructure for their unique hardware including larger I2C buses, GPIO’s, SFP’s, LEDs, fans and temperature sensors. So, components are roughly standardized in the server world. For a variety of reasons, switch vendors do not always use the server-comparable components. As a result, ONL ships with a number of additional drivers to support this collection of hardware. Additionally, there are a number of niceties that make working with a headless switch easier including network booting, cross-compilation workspace, overlayfs tricks to optimize flash writes, and a large collection of build utilities to leverage the ONIE install environment.
More examples
ONL uses ONIE to install onto the onboard flash memory and is a base-level operating system (only including example packet forwarding code.) The main expectation is that you or other projects will write their own packet forwarding code.
So, this as a useful component for building full commercial solutions on top of bare metal switches. For example, Big Switch Network’s SwitchLight OS is based on ONL. As such, the expectation is that someone deploying ONL will build or deploy their own packet forwarding application on top. Additionally, we expect that third parties will contribute binary-only forwarding applications as time goes on. For example, the Open Route Cache or ‘or’ code enables traditional L3 routing. And the Indigo binary works as an OpenFlow agent.
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