Objectives  Understand the purpose of the superuser account  Outline the key features of the Linux desktops  Navigate through the menus  Getting help  Using Virtual Consoles 1 Click the speaker for audio

 Two different types of programs are executed on a computer: ◦ Applications ◦ Operating system (OS) software  User Interface: An application program that allows the user to interact with the OS and other application programs ◦ GUI ◦ Terminal 2

3 Figure 1-1: The role of operating system software

 Graphical user interface (GUI): Component of an OS that provides a user-friendly interface  System services: Applications that handle system-related tasks ◦ Printing ◦ Scheduling programs ◦ Network access 4

5 A Linux graphical user interface

 OS used to run a variety of applications on a variety of different hardware  Has the ability to manage thousands of tasks at the same time  Allows multiple users to access the system simultaneously ◦ Multiuser and multitasking OS 6

 There is one administrative account that has “all power”. It is called root  This account can make changes to the operating system file system, install and upgrade software  This account can also delete and change critical system files which can potentially disable the system  Linux is literal, and usually results are immediate  Use the root account with care!  You can access root privileges without being logged in a sthe root account by running the command at a terminal prompt su  If you attempt to make changes to system services and configuration when using the Graphical User Interface, you will be challenged for the password for the user root. 7

 We will rarely be looking at the Linux desktop during this course  The textbook examples use the Desktop manager KDE, so I will use the GNOME desktop in my examples. 8

 Click the link below for a short tutorial on the GNOME desktop Desktop Tour Tutorial This will open a web browser and begin a demonstration. 9

 Linux documentation can be found on the Internet ◦ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) ◦ HOWTO documents  Linux Newsgroups  Linux User Group (LUG): Open forum of Linux users who discuss and assist each other in using and modifying the Linux OS 10

 Using Info  Using man  Using --? ◦ Both of these are described in the tutorial at ◦

 Workstation services: Replacing the Windows and Mac computer with the FREE operating system.  Server services: Linux can be found hosting many web servers, DNS servers and other server functions. Google using Linux to run their search engine. 12