Linux 101: Introduction To Linux Purdue Linux Users Group Speaker: Thor Smith

What is Linux? Linux is a kernel, the core of an operating system. Linux Kernel Created by Linus Torvaldus GNU/Linux is an operating system that uses the Linux Kernel and the GNU applications. Because Linux is just the kernel, there are many different ”distributions” of Linux.

Distributions of Linux Here are some very Debian Ubuntu Mint RedHat Fedora Mandriva well known distros Suse OpenSuse Puppy Linux Arch Damn Small Linux

Desktop Managers A desktop manager manages your desktop applications and provides a pretty background. Examples Include: KDE Gnome Xfce Some desktop managers are designed to be very flashy like KDE and some are designed to provide minimal functionality for slower machines.

Applications (Ubuntu w/ Gnome) Some standard applications that come on an Ubuntu installation with the Gnome Desktop. Firefox Libre Office (formerly Open Office) Gimp (an image editor) Totem (video player) Evolution (mail client) Terminal (command-line access)

Navigating in the Terminal The terminal is your window into the shell. Inside type ”echo $SHELL” to find out what you're using. uname -a General Operating System info lsls -lls -la List files and directories. cdcd ~cd..cd. Change Directory pwd Print the current working directory whoami What is your user name

Creating, Deleting, and Editing Create Files and Dir touch newfilename mkdir newdir Copy, Move/Rename cp orig/path cop/path mv orig/path new/path Remove Files and Dir rm filename Editing: pico, vim, vi, emacs, nano Print file contents: Cat filename Output to a file echo ”this text” > myfile.txt echo ”append this text” >> myfile.txt

Finding Files Search the entire computer locate filename Find files in the current directory using ”find” (recursive) find -lname filename find -lname *keyword* Print the line containing ”keyword” in all files in the current directory recursively. Print the name of the file. grep ”keyword” * -H -R

Miscellaneous and Sudo View excessive output or long files (no editing) cat file | more ls -la | less File Security: Permission and Ownership chmod ugo+wrx file chown newowner file Documentation in Linux man command/topic info command/topic Linux Superpowers (Superhero or Supervillain?) sudo command

No Graphics (TTYs) Just to make a point, I would like to show that Linux can be run without a Desktop. Press Ctr-Alt-F1 Log in Press Ctr-Alt-F7 to go back. Launch graphical programs from the TTY!!! xinit firefox -- :1 xinit gedit -- :1 startx

Questions?

Announcements Linux 101 session 2 will be here on Monday Oct. 3 rd at 7:00pm