cAos Linux is a community maintained and managed, RPM based distribution of Linux. It combines aspects of Debian, RH/Fedora, and FBSD in a manner that ends up with a solution that is stable enough for servers and clusters, utilizes a long term life cycle (3-5 years), and built from current cutting edge packages (as of today). It also includes many of the features that are considered standard for desktops and laptops, which makes it a very good general purpose Linux distribution.

The cAos Project is part of a larger organization (The cAos Foundation) which is a team of open source developers working and leveraging resources together. The Foundation allows us greater flexibility and reliability with all of the hosted projects by providing funding, support, administration, and management/decision making assistance.

There is no hidden agendas in the cAos project. All management decisions, package inclusions, end of life, updates are open, and can be influenced by the developers and users of the project. The distribution itself is considered to be a light weight but fully functional system, capable of being finely tuned and built to solve a particular niche, or use one of our preconfigured roles (ie. Desktop or Server for example).

We are able to do this by building the distribution as two major sections: the core operating system and the extended. The first is a self hosting development core file system. This core is stable and will remain constant throughout the life of the distribution. It is also maintained by the cAos core developers. Utilizing this core, we are able to build all of the extended packages which are maintained not only by cAos developers, but also external community volunteers.

The caos Foundation is a community of open source developers, contributors and users working together to provide community assembled operating systems (CAOS).

The Foundation currently hosts several main projects and offers resources to others. We understand the value of freely available Linux choices, and dont view our projects as competing, in-fact we share developers and leverage our resources together.

Here are some key features of "cAos":

System:
·The Linux 2.6 kernel (initial release with 2.6.9)
·The Gnu Compilers (GCC) version 3.4.3
·X implementation: X.org version 6.8.2
·Scripting languages: Perl-5.8.5 and Python-2.3.3
·Utilizes the UDEV device file system
·The RPM Package Manager version 4.4
·YUM package updater and installer
·File systems: ext2, ext3, xfs, reiser and jfs at install
·Architectures: ia32 (i386-athlon), x86_64 (AMD64 and EM64T)
·Operating System is always self hosting

Desktop:
·Window managers: Gnome, XFCE, Enlightenment
·Desktop apps: Mozilla, Epiphany, Firefox, Abiword, Evolution, Bluefish, Gimp
·Multimedia: Rhythmbox, Xmms, Totem, Vanity, Gnomemeeting

Services:
·File servers: Apache, Apache2, thttpd, tux, VSFTPD, PROFTPD, Samba
·Mail servers: postfix, sendmail, imapd, dovecot, mailman
·SQL server: MySQL-4, PostgreSQL

Clustering:
·Node Management: Warewulf
·Tools: LAM-MPI, pdsh, Torque, PVFS2, Ganglia

Maintenance:
·3-5 year life cycle (from release)
·Maintainers range from many backgrounds, and are dedicated to supporting the OS
·Packages are maintained in CVS, with many developers having access to specific trees

Look and Feel:
·File hierarchy similar to RHL



Whats New in This Release:

· The cAos Foundation and the cAos Linux development team are proud to announce
the public release of cAos Linux version 2. cAos Linux is a community-managed
and openly-maintained distribution of Linux using the LSB standard RPM Package
Manager. This release identifies the stabilization and validation of the core
operating system as well as stabilization of the extended OS. Members of the
community are invited to try, use and love this new Linux Distribution!

· cAos Linux 2 is scheduled to be maintained for the next 3-5 years. During
that time, it will maintain a stable core OS ABI as well as receive prompt
security updates. We are very open to receiving donations not only the form of
money, but also code, testing, development, and package maintainers. If you
want to join in an uprising open source project, then we encourage you to take
a look at cAos.

· cAos Linux is a general purpose Linux distribution that is lightweight,
scalable and fast. It is suitable for not only cutting edge performance, but
also older hardware which is incapable of running some of the other Linux
distribution and operating systems in market. The prerelease has been tested
in the following scenarios: Enterprise level servers, development, professional
workstations, laptops, desktops, and clustering (HPC, HA, web farm, IO, etc.).

Some features of cAos Linux version 2:

- Linux kernel version 2.6
- GCC 3.4.3
- Xorg 6.8.2
- File systems supported at install: ext2, ext3, xfs, reiser and jfs
- Window Managers: Gnome, XFCE, Enlightenment
- RPM 4.4.1 with YUM 2.2.1
- Services included: apache(1&2), thttpd, vsftpd, proftpd, samba, postfix

Background:

· cAos Linux was created out of necessity for a community-managed, RPM based
distribution of Linux. The project exsisted prior to the merging of Red Hat
Linux and the Fedora Project and continues to exsist independently due to our
vastly different goals. It is the intention of the cAos Linux development team
to maintain the distribution as a general purpose system with a reasonable
life expectancy and package version currency. We are also very open to allow
the general public to join in the development and decision making. For these
reasons and others, we are the only RPM based, community-maintained and
managed Linux distribution.

Technical Organization:

· The cAos Linux distribution is divided into two parts: the Core OS
and the Extended OS. The Core OS ("core") is maintained specifically by the
projects Core OS Development Team and provides the base system which is
responsible for not only building itself, but every package in the extended
operating system. The extended OS is maintained by members of the community
which allows us to scale properly horizontally as well as allow experts from
the community to maintain the packages in which they are most familiar.