Another good option is Debian, which is also fairly easy to use and comes with a large number of high-quality networking applications. The CentOS Project is a community-driven free operating system that aims at delivering a robust and reliable open source ecosystem. Based on RHEL, CentOS is a perfect alternative best linux for network engineers to Red Hat Enterprise Linux since it is free to download and install. Where possible, we install each Linux distro to give you an accurate review based on first-hand experience. We look at the installation process, assess ease of use, and explore the main components that have been used to compile the distro.
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Linux is an operating system for system admins, programmers, and coders. Yes, we offer support through our forum/community page where you can ask questions and share insights with other learners. The tutorial starts with basic concepts and gradually moves to more advanced topics, making it suitable for beginners as well as intermediate learners. The best approach would be to use either an old laptop and install Debian based Linux on it or to buy a single board computer such as the Raspberry Pi. Having access to the actual hardware gives you the opportunity to “mess around” with more aspects of the system.
The 6 Best Linux Distros for Network Engineers
The UDP iperf test can also be used to generate multicast traffic and test your PIM infrastructure. Despite its small size, there’s no beating Puppy for out of the box functionality. The distro ships with apps and utilities for virtually all the functions you can perform on a desktop.
Bridging Design and Runtime Gaps: AsyncAPI in Event-Driven Architecture
Solus is special in that it’s one of the few Irish Linux distros, and also because it follows a curated rolling release model. The advantage of this is that once you’ve installed the OS, you can keep running updates rather than a major upgrade. Solus, however, tries to avoid installing extremely recent packages and beta software to maintain system stability. Manjaro is available in multiple editions with different desktop environments.
Console access on NetBeez agents
- However, it’s excellent for those who want to be on the leading edge of Linux development.
- If you have other Linux command line utilities in your toolbox, please feel free to share them in the comment section below.
- Gentoo is a source-based meta distro that can help you create lightning quick bloat-free installation.
- One way to maintain your privacy is to use the Tails operating system, and it offers advanced security for users.
Many of the best Linux distros for developers are built on the framework of more established, general-purpose distros. For example, if you already have experience using RHEL, CentOS or Fedora could be a natural next step for your programming needs. OpenSUSE doesn’t receive the same amount of attention as Ubuntu and Fedora, but the project produces a fantastic Linux distro for developers. The openSUSE project produces two distros; openSUSE Leap is the fixed release cycle regular distro, while openSUSE Tumbleweed is the rolling release variant.
At the core, Kali Linux is Debian-based, and that means that it is constantly updated with new features and tool support. The ip command manages network interfaces, IP addresses, routing etc. Well, I think that having a basic knowledge of Linux is no longer just for students and computer geeks. Network engineers will often run into Linux-based network operating systems and command lines. For the routing process, we first used Zebra and then Quagga (which at the time supported OSPF).
This distribution’s primary goal is to provide the Linux alternative to Windows. Further, it is available for x86-64 processor architecture & desktop environments available are GNOME and Xfce. If you have a decent dual-core machine with 1 GB of RAM and 10 GB of hard disk space, you can run it without any problem. _OS is workflow streamlined where you get the benefits of maximizing real estate. You can manage your workflow with the help of workspace, keyboard shortcuts, and navigations. It also comes with full-disk encryption to protect your important project files and resources.
Take O’Reilly with you and learn anywhere, anytime on your phone and tablet. O’Reilly members get unlimited access to books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers. The arp command displays and modifies the system‘s ARP cache, which maps IP addresses to MAC addresses.
It can set IP addresses, enable/disable interfaces, set MTU sizes etc. Compared to GUI tools, CLI network commands provide finer-grained control, more detailed insights, and flexibility to automate repetitive tasks. For these reasons, networking commands are the preferred tools for many Linux network and system administrators. The distro is complimented by the Raspberry Pi website that hosts some impressive guides on using the credit-card sized computer to learn to program, particularly with Python.
It’s a rolling release distro that’s built using the same packages as RHEL. As a testbed for the commercial RHEL, CentOS Stream gets packages and fixes before they end up in RHEL, which means users can get enterprise-class software at no-cost. Mocaccino Linux is available in multiple editions, based on different desktop environments. The project aims to deliver a fuller out of the box experience and despite being a bleeding edge rolling release, is pretty stable thanks to its Gentoo underpinnings.
Linux’s most significant advantage is the customization it offers. It doesn’t matter in which area of the industry you work in; there are distros that you can use in your work. Some distros work best for doing scientific work, which requires a scientific approach and programming. Linux is built for networking and provides extremely robust networking capabilities. It implements the full TCP/IP networking stack and IPv4/IPv6 protocols. Powerful networking features are deeply integrated into the Linux kernel and most distributions.
It comes in different flavors, and you can choose between Xfce, KDE, GNOME, Cinnamon, and MATE. You are also free to choose from a repository of 30,000 packages. Anyone https://traderoom.info/ can use it, and it is flexible when choosing the desktop environment. That’s why, in this article, we are going to list the Linux distros that you should give a try.
