14 DAY TRIAL // After more than five years of using its in-house built Ubuntu-based Goobuntu Linux distribution internally for various things, Google has decided to replace it with a gLinux, based on Debian Testing.
It's no secret that Google users Linux a lot. It's Android and Chrome OS operating systems are powered by Linux, so they need to use a GNU/Linux distro to work on its other OSes for laptops and mobile phones. Until now, the company used Goobuntu Linux, which was based on Canonical's very popular Ubuntu Linux operating system.
However, according to a report from MuyLinux (via It's FOSS), Google decided to ditch its Ubuntu-based Goobuntu distribution and replace with with another one called gLinux, which, apparently, it's based on the Debian Testing repositories. gLinux was even revealed last year during the DebConf17 conference for Debian developers.
gLinux will follow a rolling release model
If you listen to the DebConf17 talk (starting at minute 12), you'll find out a few details about Goobuntu and gLinux, such as the fact that the former was still based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr), and that the latter is now based on the upcoming Debian GNU/Linux 10 "Buster" operating system and it follows a rolling release model.
So why is Google moving to Debian? Well, it would appear that they plan to push their work upstream. In other words, if they patch any security flaws or fix some bugs, these will be immediately available in the Debian repositories for all Debian GNU/Linux users to install them on their computers.
Of course, this is great news for the Debian community, and even better news for the rest of the Linux community as Google is a major contributor to the evolution and adoption of Linux-based operating systems. Google is also currently working a new, universal operating system called Fuchsia OS, but no details were shared for now.