A Beginner’s Approach Anurag Bhandari Roll No.: CSE, 7 th Semester

 OS is the interface between hardware and user  All computers need an OS  OSes are used to run applications and control hardware  Popular OSes include Windows, Linux, Mac OSX

 Developed in 1991 by a University of Finland student Linus Torvalds.  Basically a kernel, it was combined with the various software and compilers from GNU Project to form an OS, called GNU/Linux  Linux is a full-fledged OS available in the form of various Linux Distributions  RedHat, Fedora, SuSE, Ubuntu, Debian are examples of Linux distros  Linux is supported by big names as IBM, Google, Sun, Novell, Oracle, HP, Dell, and many more

 Inspired by the UNIX OS, the Linux kernel was developed as a clone of UNIX  GNU was started in 1984 with a mission to develop a free UNIX-like OS  Linux was the best fit as the kernel for the GNU Project  Linux kernel was passed onto many interested developers throughout the Internet  Linux today is a result of efforts of thousands of individuals, apart from Torvalds

 Can be controlled through command-line (CLI) or Graphical User Interface (GUI)  GUI run through Desktop Environments (DE)  KDE, GNOME, Xfce, E17 are popular Des  The GUI interface is easy-to-use and much like that of Windows and Mac OSX  The CLI is similar to that of UNIX/BSD

 Modern languages are cross-platform, like Python, Ruby, Perl, Java  Most Linux distros support these languages and have their runtimes pre- installed  GTK+ and Qt are widely used to design applications for Linux  IDEs like NetBeans, Anjuta, KDevelop, MonoDevelop, Eclipse are available for Linux too

 Linux is desktop computer ready  Large number of distros targeted at Desktop users are available  Linux desktop distros come with many commonly used pre-installed softwares  The modern Linux interface is user-friendly and makes the interaction with computer easy

 It is possible to install/run Windows software on Linux  Wine helps run a wide range of Windows applications  Cedega helps run huge number of Windows games flawlessly

 Many native games are available, both 3D and 2D  Wine and Cedega help run Windows-only games  Popular games for Linux are: Quake, Unreal Tournament, Counter Strike, Doom, Cube, CodeRED, Wesnoth, OpenArena, SuperTux, Frozen Bubble, Medal of Honor, and many more.

 Linux is the most used OS on servers  5 out of 10 reliable web hosting companies use Linux  Linux is the cornerstone of the LAMP server-software combination (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python) which has achieved popularity among developers  Out of top 500 supercomputers, Linux is deployed on 426 of them

 16.7% of smartphones worldwide use Linux as OS  Linux poses a major competition to the most popular OS is this segment – Symbian  Nokia, Openmoko supply Linux on their select smartphones

 Linux can be used on a wide range of electronic devices, like PC, PDAs, Smartphones, iPods, MP3 Players, PlayStation 2 & 3, mission critical servers and so on…

 1983 (September): GNU project was announced publicly  1991 (September): first version of the Linux kernel was released to the Internet  2001 (second quarter): Linux server unit shipments at 15% annual growth rate  2004: Linux shipped on approximately 50% of the worldwide server blade units, and 20% of all rack-optimized servers  2005: Microsoft representatives accuse Brazilian college using Famelix of pirating Microsoft Windows  2007: Dell announces it will ship select models with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed  2007: Lenovo announces it will ship select models with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 pre-installed  2007: HP announces that it will begin shipping computers preinstalled with Red Hat Linux in Australia  2007: ASUS launches the linux-based ASUS Eee PC  2008: Dell announces it will begin shipping Ubuntu based computers to Canada and Latin America  2008: Dell is shipping systems with Ubuntu pre-installed in China  2008: Acer launches the linux-based Acer Aspire One

 Governments of many countries around the world are shifting to Linux from Windows due to the many benefits it offer  Countries like India, France, Pakistan, Czech Reppublic, Brazil, Germany, USA, Austria, Spain, China, and Peru already use Linux

 The widely popular OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) Project’s XO Laptop runs on Linux  Universities in countries, like USA, Germany, Netherlands, Philippines, Brazil, Russia, Switzerland, India, use Linux on their workstations and servers

 No threat of viruses  Linux systems are extremely stable  Linux is Free  Linux comes with most of the required software pre-installed  Update all your software with minimum fuss  Linux never gets slow  Linux does not need defragmentation  Linux can even run on oldest hardware  Adding more software is a matter of a few clicks  Most Windows-only apps have their either their native version or alternatives for Linux  With Linux, you get the highest degree of possible customizability

 Security has always been the number one priority with Linux  Linux has a robust security system  There do not exist viruses for the Linux platform

 Have you ever lost your precious work because Windows crashed? Have you ever gotten the "blue screen of death" or error messages telling you that the computer needs to be shut down for obscure reasons?  Crashes or freezes are not prevalent in Linux

 Linux is free and always will be as compared to the very costly Windows and Mac OSX  Using pirated Windows is a bad thing

 When the system has installed, why would you still need to install stuff ?  Common software such as music player, web browser, video player, image editor, PDF reader, chat messenger, office apps

 Just like Windows’ Update tool, Linux has a more better alternative to it to update all your system in a few clicks

 As Linux is impervious to viruses, trojans, spywares, which are the main reasons to slow down the PC, systems based on it do not get slower  Linux consumes lesser system resources

 If you already know what fragmentation is, and are already used to defragmenting your disk every month or so, here is the short version : Linux doesn't need defragmenting.  Whereas Windows-based system get fragmented frequently and need attention in this regard.

 Windows requires more and more hardware power as its version number increases (95, 98, 2000, Me, XP, etc.). So if you want to keep running Windows, you need to constantly buy new hardware  Linux runs perfectly well on older hardware, on which Windows XP would probably even refuse to install, or let you wait 20 seconds after each click

 With Linux, everything is much simpler. Linux has what is called a "package manager": each piece of software is contained in its own "package". If you need some new software, just open the package manager, type a few keywords, choose which software you want to install and press "Apply" or "OK". Or you can just browse existing software (that's a lot of choice!) in categories.

 Due to the various options available in Linux, like a lot of DEs, themes, Window Managers, and the modular nature of DEs, Linux is very customizable  The extent of customizability is clearly implied by the fact that some people have gone as far as to customize their Linux OS to make them look and feel like Mac OSX and Windows

 So, what OS a user should opt to choose?  The answer depends on user’s own choice.