Big Year for Enterprise Linux Distros Includes Major Updates

By Sean Michael Kerner

The first big Enterprise Linux release of 2014 was Ubuntu 14.04, which debuted April 17. On the desktop, multiple usability improvements were made, while on the server, support for OpenStack Icehouse was a key highlight.

One of the most anticipated enterprise Linux releases of 2014 was the Red Hat Enterprise 7 (RHEL) release, which came out June 10. The RHEL 7 update provides support of Docker container virtualization technology among its key highlights. RHEL 7 is the base for both Oracle Enterprise Linux and CentOS, both of which were updated in 2014.

As part of SUSE Linux Enterprise 12, the btrfs file system is included and enables snapshots and system rollback functionality. The SUSE-built snapper tool provides a graphical user interface designed to easily take advantage of btrfs’s capabilities.

Fedora 21 was the first and only release from Red Hat’s community Linux distribution in 2014. The Fedora 21 was built using the new Fedora Next model in which there are distinct workstation, server and cloud products.

Tails (The Amnesic Incognito Live System) is reportedly the Linux distribution used by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. Tails is a privacy-focused, live Linux system that does not need to be installed on a user’s hard drive and can be run from a USB key.

One of the most popular Linux distributions is Linux Mint, which received two milestone updates during 2014: the Linux Mint 17 and 17.1 updates. In the Linux Mint 17.1 release, the Cinnamon desktop edition was enhanced with additional performance and configuration capabilities.

While Linux is the dominant player in the cloud, the desktop has remained a challenge. At the LinuxCon conference on Aug. 20, Linux creator Linus Torvalds said: “I still want the desktop.”

There are multiple desktop environment choices available for Linux users. One of the most popular is the K Desktop Environment (KDE), which was updated to version 5 on July 15.

The default choice for many enterprise Linux desktops has long been the GNOME desktop environment. GNOME 3.14, released Sept. 24, included 28,859 changes made by 871 contributors.

Underpinning all the various enterprise and community Linux distributions that were released in 2014 is the work done on the Linux kernel itself. During 2014, Linus Torvalds announced the release of six new Linux kernels with the first being Linux 3.13 and the last being Linux 3.18.