What linux system does google use?

The Linux system used by Google: 1. Goobuntu, a Linux distribution used by Google for a long time, is built internally based on Ubuntu LTS; 2. gLinux, a rolling update distribution built on the Debian test branch.

#The operating environment of this tutorial: linux7.3 system, Dell G3 computer.

The Linux systems used by Google: Goobuntu and gLinux.

Goobuntu

Google uses a number of different operating system platforms internally, including Linux. Google chose to build its internal Linux distribution Goobuntu based on Ubuntu LTS, mainly because Ubuntu is user-friendly, easy to use, and provides many excellent features. Additionally, LTS will receive 2+ years of security updates from Canonical.

According to the official introduction, Goobuntu is a Linux distribution that has been used by Google for a long time. But Ubuntu LTS's two-year update cycle means Google must upgrade every one of its more than 100,000 devices before the operating system goes EOL. This is a very difficult and time-consuming job, after all, having all engineers configure their workspaces from scratch every two years is a serious blow to productivity and an irresponsible option from a financial perspective.

During each operating system life cycle, Google also faces the challenge of major version upgrades of software packages, as this may require significant changes to the software configuration. To automate this process, Google engineers wrote an unattended upgrade tool to handle many common problems. This "automated upgrade" means that most Google employees don't have to upgrade manually by reinstalling their machines and recreating all configurations. But in order to achieve this, Google needs to fully test the upgrade process and check that all major packages that have been changed continue to work (in Ubuntu, upgrades between major versions can be as many as thousands of packages). Sometimes it's difficult to provide automation in situations where package deprecation occurs and engineers have to decide how to move forward.

It is said that it usually takes Google a year to complete all Goobuntu upgrades, and the entire process is a huge pressure on the team. And many times some bugs they encounter have been fixed upstream, but these improvements are never merged into the LTS version used.

So Google turned to a rolling update distribution, but it did not choose the well-known rolling update distribution Arch Linux. Instead, it built gLinux Rodete (Rolling Debian Testing) based on the Debian test branch.

#Choose Debian because of its large community and software libraries, as well as the ability to use existing internal packages and tools in the Debian format. Moreover, Ubuntu is also based on Debian, making migration easier and smoother.

Debian’s stable branch also releases a major update almost every two years, but its test branch is updated on a rolling basis. Rolling updates mean that new versions need to be prevented as much as possible from causing disruption to existing workflows. To manage all these complex tasks of building all upstream packages from source code, Google built a workflow system called Sieve. Ensure that neither core components nor developer workflows are broken by new versions of packages by running a virtualization test suite.

gLinux

Google has decided to abandon its Ubuntu-based Goobuntu distribution and replace it with another The version called gLinux, apparently, is based on the Debian test repository.

gLinux will follow the rolling release model

If you listen to the DebConf17 talk (starting at minute 12), you will find some details about Goobuntu and gLinux, such as the former still Based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr), which is now based on the Debian GNU/Linux 10 "Buster" operating system and follows a rolling release model.

So why did Google move to Debian? Well, they seem intent on pushing them upstream. In other words, if they patch any security flaws or fix some bugs, these will immediately be available in the Debian repositories for all Debian GNU/Linux users to install on their computers.

Of course, this is good news for the Debian community, and even better news for the rest of the Linux community, as Google is a major contributor to the development and adoption of the Linux operating system. Google is also currently developing a new general-purpose operating system called Fuchsia OS, but has not shared details yet.

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