What is Linux?
Like Unix, MacOS, Windows and many others, Linux is a computer operating system(OS).
It provides the core program which runs a computer to allow all the other programs and software packages to access and use the physical hardware of the computer itself.
The fundamental difference between Linux and the other operating systems mentioned is that Linux is FREE. Not only free in the sense that you can download a copy and use it without paying any form of license or fee to it's developers. Free also in that you may take the source code for Linux and modify it to your own needs. The only condition is that any changes you make must be made available to every body.
Because of the power and flexibility of Linux, and due to the availability of source code to anyone who needs it, Linux has been adopted by a wide range of users. From the home computer user who just wants to know more about the way their computer works, right through to universities and large government agencies such as NASA who use Linux in many of their research programs.
Linux is a big subject and I cannot cover it fully, there are better qualified people who do that all over the net, google linux and explore the links. I will attempt to give a brief guide and some tips to get you up and running.
Linux is an awesomely powerful operating system for desktops and servers. Over 60% of the internet runs on Linux servers including Google, Amazon and some of my favourite websites.
Let me make it clear that I am not anti Microsoft or Apple. I do object to Microsoft's monopoly practices and Apple's rip-off prices. I use XP on 3 of my 5 computers and apart from the slow boot up I like it. Of course to use it on the internet I use antivirus, antispyware, hardware and software firewalls as well as various tweaking utilities(Registry Mechanic, Ccleaner etc.) to keep it from slowing down. I have a G3 Mac in the loft and just have not got around to setting it up and using it, so much to do and so little time !(and so little space to put the things!) I am not rich! I paid for all the bits and a friend built my main pc and I bought my laptop secondhand, the others I got free from people who upgraded and recycled their old hardware by giving it away.
See - freecyle.org useful for all manner of giving and getting and a great recycling resource.
Anyhow back to Linux with a little background information. In the 1960s computing experienced an explosive growth due in part to the introduction of the minicomputer that reduced machines from the size of a building to the size of a wardrobe. Further development of the technology, mainly at North American universities, lead to the development of the personal computer that we know today. Those early minicomputers used an operating system called UNIX. The computer programmers in those early days freely swapped their work and ideas with one another and colleagues at other universities. They were called 'hackers' as they hacked operating systems and applications to achieve the desired results. The people commonly called 'hackers' these days should really be called 'crackers'. In 1983 the brilliant programmer Richard Stallman announced his intention to quit the famous AI lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT). He had become disillusioned with the change in culture at MIT and other universities where investors had caused a change in the free exchange of ideas as they realised there was money to be made from some of the software developed there by making outsiders pay to use it. He planned to write a replacement for the UNIX operating system. He called his offering GNU, a recursive acronym of GNU's Not UNIX, and he intended to give it away free to anyone who wanted to use it. By 1985 he had a basic system up a running, all that was missing was a kernel. A kernel is the heart of every operating system. It shares slices of processor time, manages virtual memory requirements and communicates with peripherals like discs, printers and keyboards.
At the University of Helsinki in Finland a student called Linus Torvalds had been working on a kernel of his own as a hobby. In 1991 he released it on to the internet under terms that allowed others to develop and improve it as long as these changes were available for every one to see, study and use. This kernel was combined with Stallman's GNU to create the basis of the operating systems that we call Linux. They should really be called GNU/Linux but that's a technicality. There are now over 400 Linux operating systems,some are commercial (mainly for the business market) but most are completely free.
The days of Linux being just for geeks (I say geeks with love and respect!) are long gone. Modern Linux is a lot more user friendly. If my 10 year old son can use Linux then so can you. The learning curve is a little steeper than Windows but it is attainable. Do you remember the first time you sat in front of a Windows or Apple computer ? You were probably as lost as I was, but we learned or you would not be reading this now.
The world's most popular Linux operating system or distribution (distro) is called UBUNTU. Dell is selling computers with Ubuntu pre-installed in North America. Ubuntu can be downloaded for free and burned to a cd for installation or ordered and delivered to your door post and packaging free.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(Linux_distribution)
Ubuntu is fairly easy for those new to Linux to install and use but for your first steps with Linux I would recommend using it as a live cd. A live cd needs no installation and makes no alterations to your hard drive or your pc, yet functions as a full operating system. If you create any files you want to keep you can save them to floppy disc, flash drive or burn them to cd/dvd. It is a great way to get familiar with Linux without committing yourself to a hard drive install and for testing your hardware's compatibility.
Live CD FAQs
Q What is a Live CD ?
It is a distro (complete operating system) that runs directly from a disc in your cd/dvd drive. A Live CD distro usually boots straight into the desktop. There is nothing to install, just boot and run.
Q What are the advantages of a Live CD ?
You can run them anywhere, on any computer capable of booting from a cd. Useful for testing Linux compatibility. Even more useful for disaster recovery and other maintenance. If you make a mistake editing a critical file and your computer won't start up(a regular event with me!), you can boot a Live CD and fix the damage. If you want to swap your hard drive for a larger model, connect both, boot from a Live CD to prepare the new drive and copy over the data you want to transfer.
Q And the disadvantages ?
Limited write ability and the need for a second device to hold any files you want to save. A Live CD is also slower in operation than a normal hard drive installation. The equivalent of your hard drive is held in a large compressed file on the cd, usually around 2Gb of data packed into less than 700Mb. Cds have longer seek times and slower read speeds than hard drives and the data has to be uncompressed. Programs will take longer to load but once loaded will run at normal speed. Some Live CDs have a clever trick up their sleeve in that you can load their entire contents i.e. a complete operating system, into your computer's ram. This allows them to run blazingly fast just as if they were installed to a hard drive. Of course when you switch off or restart your computer the ram is cleared and everything is back to normal. (Tips on this in the booting guides below)
Q Where can I find these Live CDs ?
There are comprehensive lists of Live CDs at:
http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributions/LiveCD/
Booting a Live CD
To boot a Live CD you need to change your computer's BIOS(Basis Input Output System) settings. This may sound intimidating but is really very simple. When you switch on your computer it is the BIOS that runs first. Among other things it checks your system's memory and drives and hands over control to the operating system's boot loader which is usually on a hard drive. All you need to do is set it to hand over control to the boot loader on your Live CD. On most computers you access the BIOS settings by pressing the Del(Delete), F1 or F2 button after turning on the power. Most computers will display which key to press or check your documentation for help. On the screen that pops up navigate to the boot section and set the first boot device to CD ROM. When you have finished with your Live CD repeat the procedure and put things back as they were.
My Favourite Live Cds are:
Ubuntu See above for links to order or download.
PCLinuxOS 2007 http://pclinuxos.com/
Puppy Linux http://www.puppylinux.org/
Knoppix www.knopper.net
But I'm getting too far ahead. Before you can boot a Live CD you have to burn it to a disc.To make it bootable it must be burned as an image/iso file. If you use NERO this is easily ahieved by selecting the burn Image option. For other burning software consult the programs documentation.
Booting Ubuntu Live CD
The latest version is Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition released 24th April 2008, nicknamed 'Hardy Heron'( It's an Ubuntu tradition to give the systems silly nicknames). To run it smoothly your pc should have at least a 1GHZ CPU with 256MB of ram. Put the Ubuntu CD in your cd drive, restart your pc and set the BIOS to boot from CD ROM and that's all. Ubuntu will boot straight to it's desktop . Explore and have fun !
To exit click on the the red button located on the right of the panel at the top of the screen. Don't forget to reset your bios!
Booting PCLinuxOS 2007 Live CD
Boot your pc from the disc and the first screen will give you some boot options. The default option is LiveCD so just press enter and don't worry too much about the screens of scrolling text that you see. If you have at least 1Gb ram then you can scroll down using your keyboard arrows to the 'Copy2ram' option. If chosen there will be a few minutes delay while the entire operating system is copied to ram, be patient while it loads. The next screens will ask for your keyboard layout, time zone, and networking options. You will now be at the log in screen. Enter 'guest' as the user name and password and your desktop will appear! If you have chosen the copy to ram option you can now remove the cd from your drive and use the drive as normal. PCLinuxOS uses the KDE desktop manager which is very similar to windows explorer and easy to use. See screen shot below.
The "pc" button on the left of the task bar works like the start button in windows so just click it and explore. Have fun! To exit click on the pc button, logout, end current session. This will return you to the log in screen. At the bottom of the screen click on System Menu, shutdown, then choose turn off or restart. Don't forget to reset your bios!
Booting Puppy Linux Live CD
Puppy is a fantastic small operating system. It runs totally in ram so even if you only have 128mg you can boot it, ideal for older computers. I use it as my portable OS as it is the easiest distro to install to flash drive. I have installed it to a 128mg flash drive and can run it on any pc that can boot from flash drive a complete operating system in my pocket, the ultimate in portability. Boot your pc from the disc. From the first screen use the arrow keys on your keyboard to select your country. The next screen is for the video mode, select xorg and choose your screen resolution and Puppy will show the desktop. On older computers xorg may be unstable, just restart the video wizard and choose xvesa. To connect to the internet click on the connect icon, then choose your connection type analogue modem or network interface and follow the instructions on the screen. To open the web browser just click on the browse icon. Because Puppy runs in ram by default you can now remove the cd from the drive and use it as normal. To exit click on the menu button and select shutdown or restart. Don't forget to reset your bios!
Booting Knoppix Live CD
Last but not least we have Knoppix, the granddaddy of them all. Knoppix pioneered and popularised the Live CD format when it arrived in 2003. It is widely accepted as one of the best Live CDs on the planet and is my personal favourite. Requires at least a 1GHz processor and 256MB ram.Boot your pc from the disc and press enter at the boot prompt. If you have at least 1GB of ram type 'knoppix toram' then press enter and the entire operating system will load to and run from ram at high speed. The cd can then be removed and the drive used as normal. Click on the 'K' on the left of the taskbar to explore. Have fun!
All the above operating systems are free, legal to download, contain no malware and can be installed on as many computers as you like. I know that you can find pirated copies of XP and Vista all over the net but you are taking a chance. They may contain hidden viruses, spyware, keyloggers, root kits or other nasties and leave you vulnerable to hackers. Linux is also a lot more secure than windows. It takes a very skilled hacker to break into a properly secured Linux computer and even then there is little or no damage they can do.
A Pure Linux Computer
I have a desktop pc that is only Linux. It is my free project. I got the pc from freecycle.org (big thanks to a young man named Oliver). It is a complete system, tower, 15 inch crt monitor, keyboard, optical mouse and speakers. It is not new or powerful but Linux is great for breathing new life into old hardware. It has a 750MHz AMD Duron processor and 512mb ram. It originally came with 128mb ram but I topped this up with ram I got from another freecycle pc that I stripped for parts as the mother board was past it's useful life. The 13Gb hard drive had Windows XP Home which I immediately wiped and installed Debian 4.0, nicknamed 'Etch'(all Debian operating systems are given nicknames from characters in the Toy Story movie). All the text and images on this page are prepared with this computer using free and Open Source software(Open Office, The Gimp, Ksnapshot, Firefox). Windows equivalents(Microsoft Office, Photoshop) would cost hundreds of pounds but Linux gives me everything I need for the cost of a blank cd to burn the operating system on to for installation !
I have a full suite of office programs, text editors, pdf reader, p2p, ftp, audio player, a variety of graphics programs, cd/burner, rss reader, download manager, games and many others all for free.
Debian runs beautifully on this old computer. It's fast, stable, never crashes and I have access to a catalogue of over 18000 free software packages. I use 8 desktops, each with a different background image, so that when I have lots of programs running I can spread them out comfortably. When I go back to XP with it's single desktop it sometimes feels claustrophobic. With Debian I can have up to 20 desktops if I want but 8 is usually enough for my needs.
Desktop screenshots are below. Click on thumbnails to enlarge.
RECYCLING + LINUX = A GREAT COMBINATION
Recycling and Linux have given me a free pc that I can do almost anything with. I used the same approach to get my server, a recycled pc and a free download of a server operating system. Maybe when I have learned to use it properly I will open it up to the internet and host my own website from home. Linux gives me the freedom to learn and have fun at minimal cost. I could do the same things with XP, Vista or Windows Server 2003 but that would mean paying hundreds of pounds that I don't have.
If you have never tried Linux before it could be interesting for you to give it a try. Download or order your Ubuntu cd and load it up. Most of the computer users in the world only know about one operating system and are caught in an expensive upgrade cycle. Escape and embrace freedom with Linux. Teach your children or they will end up spending their lives contributing to a large American corporation's profits even though there are free alternatives that keep getting better and easier to use.