Operating Systems/GNU-Linux

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Portal:Engineering_and_Technology/School:Computer_Science/Topic: Operating Systems/GNU-Linux

Welcome to the Department of Linux

Linux is commonly used to refer to a GNU/Linux operating system. Modern operating systems including both Linux and Windows consist of two main parts. These are the kernel, which talks directly to system hardware, and 'user land' which is where any program users interact with are run. As vital as the kernel is it is still only about 4% of an operating system. The other 96% is provided by the 'user land' tools. In the case of a normal GNU/Linux system Linux refers only to the kernel. The user land tools are mostly provided by the GNU project.

The Linux kernel is a clone of the commercial operating system UNIX. It was created from scratch by Linus Torvalds and is now maintained by a volunteer group of coders distributed around the globe. Linux is now developed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

The GNU Public Licence is also used on all software produced by the GNU project. This is the vast majority of a full GNU/Linux system. This licence states that software can be downloaded, used, and changed by anyone without charge on the condition that anyone distributing a changed version also has to provide the source code to their changes. GNU is a recursive acronym for 'GNU is Not Unix.'

Many Linux system administrators believe the 'open source' model used by GNU/Linux results in more reliable and secure code.

[edit] Distributions

Distributions are full packaged operating systems. You can download them, install them, and use them to run your programs! Here is an ( incomplete ) list of the major players in the Linux distro world:

Red Hat - The largest distributor of Linux, most know it for its enterprise versions, which are are free as in freedom, but not free as in price.
- Fedora Core - A free open source Red Hat sponsored distribution. Red Hat use this to test newer versions of software berfore possible inclusion into Red Hat Enterprise Linux ( RHEL ) sometime later.
- CentOS - A free distribution containing exactly the same software as RHEL, as RHEL is distributed under the GPL this is quite legal as long as the red hat name is not used.
Debian - Large package database, excellent hardware detection.
Ubuntu - One of the latest and widely used. Immensely popular for its easy install process and ease of use. Ubuntu includes some non-free (as in freedom), but convenient software. Based on Debian.
- Kubuntu - Ubuntu running KDE.
- Xubuntu - Ubuntu running Xfce, designed for older computers.
- SimplyMEPIS - Based on Ubuntu.
Knoppix - The best for hardware detection, which makes the whole thing boot slower, still, if you can't get Knoppix installed, then you really must be trying to make things difficult.
SUSE - Like Red Hat, except intended for desktops.
- openSUSE - Novell sponsored free open source distro.
Gentoo - Designed for enthusiasts, professionals, and people who want to squeeze every last ounce of performance out of their machine. Most of the software is provided as source, instead of in a binary form.
Slackware - The oldest distro that is still maintained.
Damn Small Linux - A Linux distro at only 50mb!
rPath Linux - An appliance friendly distro that uses conray for package management. This allows users to have a server running on their desktop or laptop machine completely independently. Many preconfigured server configurations are available for many of the virtural machines, such as VMplayer.