Red Hat Linux
Red Hat Linux was a Linux variant distributed by Red Hat, released in 1994. Earlier releases of Red Hat Linux were also called Red Hat Commercial Linux, being designed for general, commercial use. In 2003, Red Hat discontinued development of Red Hat Linux and switched their development focus to RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). The last version of Red Hat Linux, version 9.0, reached its end of life on April 30, 2004.
Red Hat Linux was the first Linux variant to use the RPM (Red Hat Package Manager) system. Although it is officially discontinued, its code continues to be highly influential as the basis of other Linux distributions. These distributions include Yellow Dog Linux, Mandriva Linux, and the community maintained Fedora Project.
On October 28, 2018, IBM announced its plans to acquire Red Hat for approximately $34 billion.