Easily find and deploy minimal and hardened installations or specialized Linux distributions for security and GPU workloads. AWS Marketplace has free and paid listings. They're easy to use because there's no hardware to buy, and no infrastructure to maintain and most can be run on the AWS Free Tier. Learn more about Linux by exploring the distributions below:
The Amazon Linux AMI is a supported and maintained Linux image provided by Amazon Web Services for use on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). It is designed to provide a stable, secure, and high performance execution environment for applications running on Amazon EC2. It supports the latest EC2 instance type features and includes packages that enable easy integration with AWS. Amazon Web Services provides ongoing security and maintenance updates to all instances running the Amazon Linux AMI. The Amazon Linux AMI is provided at no additional charge to Amazon EC2 users.
The Amazon Linux AMI comes pre-installed with many AWS API tools and CloudInit. AWS API tools enable scripting of important provisioning tasks from within an Amazon EC2 instance. CloudInit allows passing instance configuration actions to instances at launch time via the EC2 user-data fields, enabling remote configuration of Amazon EC2 instances.
The CentOS Project is a community-driven, free software effort focused on delivering a robust open source ecosystem. CentOS is derived from the sources of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and it aims to be functionally compatible with RHEL.
For users, CentOS offers a consistent, manageable platform that suits a wide variety of deployments. For open source communities, it offers a solid, predictable base to build upon, along with extensive resources to build, test, release, and maintain their code.
The CentOS Project is expanding its mission to establish CentOS Linux as a leading community platform for emerging open source technologies coming from other projects. AWS has several CentOS Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) that you can launch to take advantage of the stability and widespread use of CentOS. Learn more »
Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software and packaged by a group of individuals called the Debian Project. It is licensed primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses.
Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential Linux distribution. It is distributed with access to repositories containing thousands of software packages ready for installation and use.
Popular free programs such as LibreOffice and Firefox web browser are available for Debian. It focuses on stability and security and is used as a base for many other distributions.
Kali Linux is a Debian-based Linux distribution aimed at advanced Penetration Testing and Security Auditing. Kali contains several hundred tools aimed at various information security tasks, such as Penetration Testing, Forensics and Reverse Engineering. Kali Linux is developed, funded and maintained by Offensive Security, a leading information security training company.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a Linux distribution developed by Red Hat and targeted toward the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux commercial development has made possible military-grade security technologies to prevent intrusions and protect your data. Amazon EC2 running Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides a dependable platform to deploy a broad range of applications. By running RHEL on EC2, you can leverage the cost effectiveness, scalability and flexibility of Amazon EC2, the proven reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and AWS premium support with back-line support from Red Hat. Amazon EC2 running Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides seamless integration with existing Amazon EC2 features including Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), Amazon CloudWatch, Elastic-Load Balancing, and Elastic IPs.
Amazon EC2 running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a proven platform for development, test, and production workloads. With more than 6,000 certified applications from over 1,500 independent software vendors, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a versatile Linux platform that provides superior reliability and security. This offering comes with automatic maintenance that keeps the operating system up-to-date with SUSE's most current security patches, bug fixes and new features to deliver peak performance.
Amazon EC2 running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server provides an easily manageable cloud environment and seamlessly integrates with existing Amazon EC2 features like Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), Amazon CloudWatch, Elastic-Load Balancing, and Elastic IPs. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server instances are available in all Availability Zones in all Regions.
Ubuntu is a Debian-based Linux operating system and distribution for personal computers, smartphones, and network servers. The Ubuntu project is publicly committed to the principles of open-source software development. People are encouraged to use free software, study how it works, improve upon it, and distribute it.
Ubuntu is popular because of its robust user interface; you can easily work with Ubuntu from desktop or from the command line. Ubuntu is a favorite platform for Linux stacks; AWS has hundreds of application stacks and application servers based on Ubuntu.