Linux Administration

Unit 1
Introduction to Linux

Compiled by Bhavesh Shah

Overview

Introduction to Unix

Introduction to GNU

Introduction to Linux

Linux Distributions

Linux Pros & Cons

Compiled by Bhavesh Shah

Introduction to Unix

Prior to 70's

Every computer had different operating system

Software customized for specific purpose
Software made for one computer didn't run on another
system

In 1969, team of developers at AT&T Bell Labs started

working on a solution to address these compatibility
issues
A new operating system named UNIX was developed
with features

Simple & elegant

Written in C programming & not assembly code
Able to recycle code
Compiled by Bhavesh Shah

Unix Philosophy

Simplicity Unix utilities are simple, small & easy to

understand
Focus Unix focuses on single programs as they are
easier to improve
Reusable Components applications in Unix are
available as libraries. This makes interfaces easily
programmable & flexible
Filters Many Unix applications can be used as filters
Open File Formats It enables users to use standard
tools to change & search for configuration items & to
develop new tools for performing new functions
Flexibility can't anticipate how users will use your
program
Compiled by Bhavesh Shah

Introduction to GNU

Source code of Unix operating system was shared

with rest of world at no cost
By 1975, AT&T started selling Unix commercially
(about half source code was written by others)

This led to legal battle which resulted in 2 versions

of Unix official AT&T Unix & free BSD Unix

The 80's saw many companies emerging with their

own version of Unix

IBM created AIX, Sun created SunOS, HP created

HP-UX and many others
This resulted in mess of Unix dialects & many
different ways to do the same things
Compiled by Bhavesh Shah

GNU & Free Software Foundation

Richard Stallman aimed at ending this era of Unix

separation by starting the GNU project

His goal was to make an operating system that was

freely available to everyone & where everyone could
work together

The Free Software Foundation set up by Richard

Stallman, a pioneer of the free software concept, started
the GNU Project, an attempt to create an operating
system & development environment that would be
compatible with UNIX, but not suffer the restrictions of
the proprietary UNIX name & source code
GNU project provides many software applications under
the GNU General Public License (GPL) which are close
to those found on Unix systems
Compiled by Bhavesh Shah

GNU tools

A few major examples of software from the GNU Project distributed under the GPL
follow:

GCC: The GNU Compiler Collection, containing the GNU C compiler

G++: A C++ compiler, included as part of GCC

GDB: A source codelevel debugger

GNU make: A version of UNIX make

Bison: A parser generator compatible with UNIX yacc

bash: A command shell

GNU Emacs: A text editor and environment

Many other packages have been developed & released using free software principles
& the GPL including

spreadsheets, source code control tools, compilers & interpreters, Internet tools,
graphical image manipulation tools such as the Gimp, and two complete object-based
environments: GNOME & KDE

There is now so much free software available that with the addition of the Linux
kernel it could be said that the goal of a creating GNU, a free UNIX-like system, has
been achieved with Linux
To recognize the contribution made by GNU software, many people now refer to
Linux systems in general as GNU/Linux
Compiled by Bhavesh Shah

Introduction to Linux

Linux was developed by Linus Torvalds at the University

of Helsinki in the 90's
Linus wrote a new POSIX compliant kernel, POSIX is
still the standard for UNIX
Many people embraced this kernel with the GNU tools
Today more than 90 percent of supercomputers
(including the complete top 10), more than half of all
smart phones, many millions of desktop computers,
around 70 percent of all web servers, a large chunk of
tablet computers, and several appliances (DVD-players,
washing machines, DSL modems, routers, ...) run Linux
It is by far the most commonly used operating system in
the world
Compiled by Bhavesh Shah

Linux Distributions

Linux is actually just a kernel, which can be obtained,

compiled and installed on a machine and then many other
freely distributed software programs can be obtained and
installed to make a complete Linux installation
Many people have put together ready-to-install distributions
(often called flavours), usually downloadable or on CD-ROMs
or DVDs, that contain not just the kernel but also many other
programming tools and utilities
Some well-known distributions are Red Hat Enterprise Linux
and its community-developed cousin Fedora, Novell SUSE
Linux and the free openSUSE variant, Ubuntu Linux,
Slackware, Gentoo, and Debian GNU/Linux
The distributions usually come with a setup program and
additional documentation to help you install your own Linux
system
Compiled by Bhavesh Shah

Linux Pros

Linux is free

Linux is portable to any hardware platform

Linux was made to keep on running

Linux is secure and versatile

Linux is scalable

The Linux OS and most Linux applications have

very short debug-times
Compiled by Bhavesh Shah

Linux Cons

There are far too many different distributions

Linux is not very user friendly and confusing for
beginners
Is an Open Source product trustworthy?

Compiled by Bhavesh Shah

Questions?
Please don't keep it to yourself ?

Compiled by Bhavesh Shah