Реферат: Linux 2 Essay Research Paper Table of

Linux 2 Essay, Research Paper

Table of Contents

LINUX

I. Introduction

A. What is Linux

1. Where did Linux came from

2. When was Linux introduced

3. Types of Linux

B. Benefits of Linux

1. Performance

2. Usability

3. Features

4. Cost

II. Getting Started

A. System Requirements

B. Installation

III. Cool Stuff

A. X Windows

B. Networking

C. System Administration

IV. Conclusion

What is LINUX?

LINUX is a free, highly advanced, open-source operating system for PCs and Workstations. Technically, LINUX is an operating system kernel, the core part of an operating system. The LINUX kernel is commonly bundled with many other components to form a complete LINUX System or Distribution. When most people refer to LINUX, they are talking about this complete set of programs needed to run a computer, not just the kernel.

Many people know of, or have at least heard of, UNIX. UNIX is both one of the oldest and one of the most powerful operating systems available today. “How can UNIX be old and yet powerful by today’s standards , you ask. The answer to this question lies in the history of UNIX; UNIX is a sort of subset of a much larger and more complex operating system called MULTICS. Both UNIX and MULTICS were developed decades ago for very large computers; only now, decades later are personal computers finally powerful enough to tackle these multitasking, multi-user systems with advanced features. Getting back to the crux of our first fact, LINUX looks like UNIX. LINUX is not officially UNIX simply because it was not written by the same programmers as was the original UNIX system. However, LINUX runs UNIX programs and shares the UNIX command set. LINUX is, for all general intents and purposes, a full-featured UNIX-type operating system.

Where did LINUX come from?

UNIX is one of the most popular operating systems worldwide because of its large support base and distribution. It was originally developed at AT&T as a multitasking system for minicomputers and mainframes in the 1970’s, but has since grown to become one of the most widely used operating systems anywhere, despite its sometimes confusing interface and lack of central standardization. Many hackers feel that UNIX is the right thing – the one true operating system . Hence, the development of LINUX by an expanding group of UNIX hackers who want to get their hands dirty with their own system. Versions of UNIX exist for many systems, from personal computers to supercomputers like the Cray Y-MP. Most versions of UNIX for personal computers are expensive and cumbersome. A one-machine version of UNIX System V for the 386 costs about $1500. LINUX is a free version of a UNIX-type system, developed primarily by Linus Torvalds at the University of Helsinki in Finland, with the help of many UNIX programmers and wizards across the Internet. Anyone with enough know-how and gumption can develop and change the system. The LINUX kernel uses no code from AT&T or any other proprietary source, and much of the software available for LINUX was developed by the GNU project of the Free Software Foundation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. However, programmers from all over the world have contributed to the growing pool of LINUX software. LINUX was originally developed as a hobby project by Linus Torvalds. It was inspired by MINIX, a small UNIX system developed by Andy Tanenbaum. The first discussions about LINUX were on the Usenet newsgroup, comp.os.minix . These discussions were concerned mostly with the development of a small, academic UNIX system for MINIX users who wanted more. The very early development of LINUX mostly dealt with the task-switching features of the 80386 protected-mode interface, all written in assembly code.

When was LINUX introduced

The very first version of LINUX (version 0.01) was made available by Linus Torvalds around late August of 1991. It was not pretty, it had no floppy driver, and it could not do much of anything. I am not sure if anybody ever compiled that version. No announcement was ever made for LINUX version 0.01. The version 0.01 sources were not even executable. They contained only the bare rudiments of the kernel source and assumed that you had access to a Minix machine to compile and experiment with them. On October 5, 1991, Linus announced the first official version of LINUX, which was version 0.02. At that point, Linus was able to run bash (the GNU Bourne Again Shell) and gcc (the GNU C compiler), but not much else. Again, this was intended as a hacker’s system. The primary focus was kernel development – user support, documentation, and distribution had not yet been addressed. Today, the LINUX community still seems to treat these issues as secondary to real programming – kernel development. After version 0.03, Linus bumped up the version number to 0.10, as more people started to work on the system. After several further revisions, Linus increased the version number to 0.95 in March 1992, to reflect his expectation that the system was ready for an official release soon. (Generally, software is not assigned the version number 1.0 until it is theoretically complete or bug-free.). Almost a year and a half later, in late December of 1993, the LINUX kernel was still at version 0.99. As of May 1999, Red Hat LINUX has officially released a version 6.0 of the LINUX kernel. I have not tried it yet, because it will be available starting on the 26th May 1999 and this paper is due on the 20th May 1999. Anyway, back to LINUX! Most of the major, free UNIX software packages have been ported to LINUX, and commercial software is available. More hardware is supported than in the original kernel versions. Many people have executed benchmarks on 80486 LINUX systems and found them comparable with mid-range workstations from Sun Microsystems and Digital Equipment Corporation. Who would have ever guessed that this little UNIX clone would have grown up to take on the entire world of personal computing?

Types of LINUX

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