1 PTA Linux Series Copyright Professional Training Academy, CSIS, University of Limerick, 2006 © Workshop I Introduction to Linux Professional Training Academy Linux Series

2 PTA Linux Series Copyright Professional Training Academy, CSIS, University of Limerick, 2006 © What is Linux? Linux is an operating system. Specifically, Linux is the kernel or the core of the system Originally developed by Linus Torvalds at the University of Helsinki, Finland Today, the Linux kernel is more commonly deployed with a set of tools Various distributions of Linux exist which package different sets of tools and environments for the various types of users. For example: – Red Hat: for system administrators – Ubuntu, Fedora: for desktop users – Others include: SuSE, Debian, Knoppix, Slackware, Mandriva, Gentoo, etc.

3 PTA Linux Series Copyright Professional Training Academy, CSIS, University of Limerick, 2006 © Linux History Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

4 PTA Linux Series Copyright Professional Training Academy, CSIS, University of Limerick, 2006 © Linux History By the early 1990s, PCs became powerful enough to start running UNIX Linus started to develop a freely available academic version of UNIX for PC machines (UNIX was developed at AT&T's Bell Laboratories in the early 1970s) Minix (by Andrew Tanenbaum at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam) existed at the time and was a smaller academic version of UNIX for teaching, but new features were not allowed to be added Consequently, Linus started his own project

5 PTA Linux Series Copyright Professional Training Academy, CSIS, University of Limerick, 2006 © Linux Popularity In late 1991, first version of Linux was released Two years after beginning, Linus had 12000 users Today, Linux is well known for its stability and reliability Linux powers the majority of web servers in the world (Apache) The Linux counter project roughly estimates that there are 29 million Linux users (Source: http://counter.li.org/estimates.php)

6 PTA Linux Series Copyright Professional Training Academy, CSIS, University of Limerick, 2006 © Linux Popularity Source: http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html

7 PTA Linux Series Copyright Professional Training Academy, CSIS, University of Limerick, 2006 © Some Common Terms X-Windows: (X11 or X) a toolkit and protocol for developing desktop window environments (modern desktops are built using X) KDE: a free desktop environment, originally developed by Matthias Ettrich in 1996 Gnome: another free desktop environment, originally developed by Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena in 1997 in response to KDE Directory: is another term for a folder

8 PTA Linux Series Copyright Professional Training Academy, CSIS, University of Limerick, 2006 © Some Common Terms Login account: Every Linux user has their own login name and password. When you login, all your files will be stored in your personal home directory Shell: also called the terminal, the command line, the console, or the prompt. This is the program where you type in your commands. It looks like DOS Bash: is a type of shell and stands for the Bourne Again Shell Binary: an executable program. Similar to an.exe file on Windows

9 PTA Linux Series Copyright Professional Training Academy, CSIS, University of Limerick, 2006 © Some Common Terms GUI: is the Graphical User Interface, which is your Desktop with all its windows and icons Kernel: is the main part of the operating system. It looks after the hardware, memory, and sharing of resources, etc. Root: is the most powerful user on the system, and is similar to the Windows administrator. Linux users do not user their root account all the time, only when installing new software, hardware, or configuring Script: a series of shell commands stored in a file which can be run like a program in order to automate a task Widget: a component belonging to the graphical environment, e.g. a scrollbar, button, etc.

10 PTA Linux Series Copyright Professional Training Academy, CSIS, University of Limerick, 2006 © Linux Philosophy Linux exists due to an open and accepting philosophy for learning and exploring This philosophy encompasses new users as well as experienced users Every user and developer is welcome The more users the better, so your problems and experiences are valued Make use of the helpful online forums, mailing lists, irc channels Chances are that somebody else had a similar problem to you and it is already documented A great resource is “ The Linux Documentation Project ” at http://www.tldp.org