Choosing and Installing a Linux Distribution Tutor: George Papamarkos City University October 5, 2004

How all began August 1991: Linus Torvalds announces his intension to create a free OS as a hobby September 1991: Version 0.01 of the Linux kernel is released by Torvalds, under GNU General Public Licence. He posts this first version in a user group asking for advices and help in order to make the system more workable January 1992: Linus posts the Linux 0.11 Information Sheet. The sheet describes Linux as a "freely distributable UNIX clone". Also, says that Linux has been written from scratch and that complete source code is available via anonymous FTP. March 1994: After 2 ½ years of hard work Version 1.0 of Linux is announced. The main Linux Vendors appear (RedHat, Caldera, SuSe)

Why use Linux ? Stability Rock solid system robustness in the standards of all the Unix systems Security Built having in mind that it will operate in a hostile environment Free of viruses, spywares Free as in “free beer” No purchase cost, no registration, no obligations Free as in “free speech” An Open Source OS. You can read and modify any part of the OS and adapt it to your needs, without any restriction …and, yes we can say, at last, that it is user friendly KDE and GNOME Window Managers provide almost anything necessary for, even a novice user, to manage and work on his/her computer

Choosing a Linux distribution (aka distro) Choice Criteria depend on what we intend to use Linux for. Desktop Workstation Ease of Installation User friendliness – Common User Programs and Devices Support Good Choices: Mandrake, SuSe, Fedora/RedHat Server Distribution Support and Maintainability How are the package updates provided and managed Package Collection Quality Good Choices: RedHat, SuSe, Debian, Gentoo

Linux Installation Methods CD-ROMs/DVD The classical way. Simply put the bootable disk on the drive and boot your machine. The appearing dialogues with guide you through FTP/HTTP server Boot via a diskette or CDROM provided by the distro’s web site Provide on prompt the server you want to connect to Other more Advanced Methods NFS Server Samba Server Local Hard Disk

Starting the Installation Depending on the distribution