A list of useful terms for the Fedora/CentOS Stream/RHEL ecosystem software and hardware.
A
Anaconda is an OS installer used by Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CentOS Stream and other Linux distributions.
AppImageHub is a build and distribution service for AppImage applications.
Ansible is an open-source software provisioning, configuration management, and application-deployment tool. It runs on many Unix-like systems, and can configure both Unix-like systems as well as Microsoft Windows.
Ansible Semaphore is a modern UI for Ansible. It lets you easily run Ansible playbooks, get notifications about fails, control access to deployment system.
Asahi-Fedora-Builder is a script that builds a minimal Fedora image to run on Apple M1/M2 systems.
Awesome, a highly configurable, next generation framework window manager for X.
B
Btrfs is a modern copy on write (CoW) filesystem for Linux aimed at implementing advanced features while also focusing on fault tolerance, repair and easy administration.
Bottles is a software tool that let's you run Windows software on Linux. It's built-in dependency installation system grants automatic software compatibility access.
Bspwm, a tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning with a focus on resource efficiency.
BuildStream is a flexible and extensible framework for the modelling of build pipelines in a declarative YAML format, written in python.
Budgie Desktop, a feature-rich, modern desktop designed to keep out the way of the user.
C
CentOS Stream is a continuously delivered distro(uses the Fedora OS base) that tracks just ahead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) development, positioned as a midstream between Fedora Linux and RHEL.
Cinnamon Desktop, a Linux desktop which provides advanced innovative features and a traditional user experience.
chronyd is a daemon which runs in background on the system. It obtains measurements (via the network) of the system's offset relative to other systems, and adjusts the system time accordingly.
Copr is a service that builds your application as an RPM and provides you with your own DNF/Yum repository.
CoreOS Assembler (COSA) is a collection of various tools used to build Fedora CoreOS style systems, including RHEL CoreOS. The goal is that everything needed to build and test the OS comes encapsulated in one (admittedly large) container.
D
Discover is an software center that let's you manage software from multiple sources, including your operating system's software repository, Flatpak repos, the Snap store, or even AppImages from store.kde.org.
DNF(Dandified Packaging Tool) is a software package manager that installs, updates, and removes packages on Fedora and is the successor to YUM (Yellow-Dog Updater Modified). DNF makes it easy to maintain packages by automatically checking for dependencies and determines the actions required to install packages.
E
EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) is an free and open source community-based repository project from the Fedora team which provides 100% high-quality add-on software packages for Linux distribution including RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) and CentOS Stream.
F
Fedora is a polished, easy to use operating system for laptop & desktop computers, with a complete set of tools for developers and makers of all kinds.
Fedora Server is a powerful, flexible operating system that includes the best and latest datacenter technologies. It puts you in control of all your infrastructure and services.
Fedora ARM is an initiative to bring versions of Fedora tailored for running on ARM-based systems.
Fedora Silverblue is a variant of the Fedora Workstation that uses rpm-ostree to provide an immutable OS image with reliable updates and easy rollbacks.
Fedora Kinoite is an immutable desktop operating system. It aims to be extremely stable and reliable. It also aims to be an excellent platform for developers and for those using container-focused workflows. Kinoite is a variant of the Fedora KDE Spin.
Fedora CoreOS is an automatically-updating, minimal operating system for running containerized workloads securely and at scale.
Fedora Onyx is an immutable desktop operating system, featuring the Budgie Desktop environment. Fedora Onyx leverages the same foundational technologies as other Fedora immutable variants such as Fedora Silverblue, Fedora Kinoite, and Fedora Sericea (flatpak, rpm-ostree, podman, toolbx).
Fedora Sericea is an immutable desktop operating system, that provides the popular Sway tiling window manager in an immutable fashion. It makes Sway accessible and appealing to both beginners and advanced users who prefer not to use a mouse, touchpad, or other pointing device to interact with their environment.
Fedora Updates System is a place to create, test, and publish package updates for Fedora.
FlatHub is a build and distribution service for Flatpak applications.
Fluxbox is a stacking window manager for the X Window System, which based upon Blackbox.
G
GlusterFS is a free and open source scalable network filesystem. Gluster is a scalable network filesystem. Using common off-the-shelf hardware, you can create large, distributed storage solutions for media streaming, data analysis, and other data- and bandwidth-intensive tasks.
GNOME Desktop, is an easy and elegant way to use your computer, GNOME is designed to put you in control and get things done.
H
Heroic is an Open Source Game Launcher for Linux, Windows and macOS (for both Native and Windows Games using Crossover).
I
init is parent of all Linux processes with PID or process ID of 1. It is the first process to start when a computer boots up and runs until the system shuts down. init stands for initialization.
i3-wm, a tiling window manager for X11.
Itch.io Store is an app that lets you effortlessly download and run games and software from itch.io.
J
K
KDE Plasma Desktop, is a beautiful Windows-like desktop that you use to surf the web, keep in touch with colleagues, friends and family, manage your files, enjoy music and videos; and get creative and productive at work.
L
Linux kernel is the main component of a Linux operating system (OS) and is the core interface between a computer’s hardware and its processes. It communicates between the 2, managing resources as efficiently as possible.
LXQt Desktop,the Lightweight Qt Desktop Environment.
M
MATE Desktop, is the continuation of GNOME 2 desktop environment.
Mesa3D is a 3D graphics library with open-source implementations of OpenGL, OpenGL ES, Vulkan, OpenCL, and more. Mesa 23.1 comes with support for several new Vulkan extensions for the Radeon Vulkan driver (RADV) for AMD Radeon GPUs.
Micro DNF is a lightweight C implementation of DNF, designed to be used for doing simple packaging actions when you don't need full-blown DNF and you want the tiniest useful environments possible. Checkout the Micro DNF GitHub.
Mutter is a Wayland display server and X11 window manager and compositor library. When used as a Wayland display server, it runs on top of KMS and libinput. It implements the compositor side of the Wayland core protocol as well as various protocol extensions.
N
O
OSTree is an upgrade system for Linux-based operating systems that performs atomic upgrades of complete filesystem trees. It is not a package system; rather, it is intended to complement them. Checkout the OSTree GitHub.
Openbox is a lightweight, powerful, and highly configurable stacking window manager with extensive standards support.
OpenShift is focused on security at every level of the container stack and throughout the application lifecycle. It includes long-term, enterprise support from one of the leading Kubernetes contributors and open source software companies.
OpenStack is a free and open-source software platform for cloud computing, mostly deployed as infrastructure-as-a-service that controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a datacenter, managed through a dashboard or via the OpenStack API. OpenStack works with popular enterprise and open source technologies making it ideal for heterogeneous infrastructure.
P
Pantheon Desktop, a GTK desktop based on the GNOME software base maintained by the elementary OS developers.
PipeWire is a server and user space API to deal with multimedia pipelines.It provides a low-latency, graph based processing engine on top of audio and video devices that can be used to support the use cases currently handled by both pulseaudio and JACK.
Podman(the POD MANager) is a tool for managing OCI containers and pods.
Pulp is a software repository platform for Fetching, Uploading, Organizing, and Distributing Software Packages.
Q
Qt is a cross-platform application development framework for desktop, embedded and mobile. Supported Platforms include Linux, MacOS, Windows, Android, and iOS.
R
Red Hat makers of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and sponsors to the Fedora Project.
Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® (RHEL) the world's leading enterprise Linux platform.
Red Hat Universal Base Images (UBI) is a tool that offers a way to build your container images on a foundation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux software. They are OCI-compliant, container-based, operating system images with complementary runtime languages and packages that are freely redistributable. Easily find UBI images in the Red Hat container catalog, and they are buildable and deployable anywhere.
RPM Package Manager (RPM) is a powerful package management system capable of building computer software from source into easily distributable packages installing, updating and uninstalling packaged software querying detailed information about the packaged software, whether installed or not.
RPM Fusion is a software repository provides software that the Fedora Project or Red Hat doesn't want to ship. That software is provided as precompiled RPMs for all current Fedora versions and current Red Hat Enterprise Linux or clones versions; you can use the RPM Fusion repositories with tools like yum and PackageKit.
RPM OSTree is a hybrid image/package system. It combines libostree as a base image format, and accepts RPM on both the client and server side, sharing code with the dnf project; specifically libdnf. Thus bringing many of the benefits of both projects together.
S
SELinux is a security enhancement to Linux which allows users and administrators more control over access control.
systemd is a suite of basic building blocks for a Linux system. It provides a system and service manager that runs as PID 1 and starts the rest of the system.
Steam is a video game digital distribution service and storefront from Valve.
SGDBoop is a tool that automatically applies assets from SteamGridDB directly to your Steam library with a click of a button, removing the need to download and set them manually.
Steam Remote Play Together is a steam service that let's you share your Steam local multi-player games with friends over the internet, for free.
Steamworks is a free suite of tools available to any developer to use in their game or software on Steam and the Steam Deck.
T
Terminal is a powerful and productive application for users of command-line tools and shells.
U
Usermode FTP Server is a tool that let's you start an FTP server as user and transfer files with any FTP client.
V
Valve makers of the Steam, SteamOS, and Steam Deck.
W
Warehouse is a versatile toolbox for viewing flatpak info, managing user data, and batch managing installed flatpaks. Flatpak version
Warpinator is a free, open-source tool for sending and receiving files between computers that are on the same network.
Waydroid is a container-based approach to boot a full Android system on a regular Linux system.
WirePlumber is a modular session / policy manager for PipeWire and a GObject-based high-level library that wraps PipeWire’s API, providing convenience for writing the daemon’s modules as well as external tools for managing PipeWire.
X
XFCE Desktop, a lightweight desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems.
Y
Z
Zsh is a powerful shell that operates as both an interactive shell and as a scripting language interpreter.