A Brief Introduction to Linux Cheng-Han Du

History

GNU Founded by Richard Stallman GNU = GNU’s Not Unix Free software GPL, Copyleft

Linux Founded by Linus Torvalds Linux kernel

Linux Distribution Ubuntu Red Hat (Fedora) SUSE Mandriva

Shell A user interface using command lines bash, csh, ksh, …

X Window System (X) It is not required if you run Linux in command-line mode. To use GUI, however, X is definitely necessary. If hardware acceleration of graphics is needed, you need to further configure X.

Linux Desktop: GNOME

Linux Desktop: KDE

Why Linux? Many downloadable packages which are free of charge. Much better computation performance. Less system restriction on resources. Kernel is open-sourced and fully customizable.

Disadvantages of Linux Progress on device driver update  New hardware may not be operational when older Linux is in use. Something not expected may happen. Sometimes, you should work in terminal (command lines). You should “google” to solve your problem.

Recent Development Some companies sell computer with Linux system included.  Dell laptops -- Ubuntu  ASUS EeePC -- Xandros Many guidelines can be found online about installing Linux on desktop PC and laptops.  Example: ThinkWiki for Lenovo ThinkPad

Some More Interesting Trivia For those Micro$oft users, upgrading the OS may be a hard task. In several Linux system such as Ubuntu, it allows users to update their systems without too much work.

You can read and write data into Windows drives. (“ntfs-3g” package needed)

Still Afraid of Linux? Finalized Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) will be released in these days.  However, you can use a beta version. The system will be automatically updated if final release is available. A new function called “wubi” allows you to install Ubuntu in Windows. If you don’t mind slow performance, you can even install Ubuntu without creating a new disk partition!  That is, installation of Ubuntu is just as easy as of general applications.  Uninstalling it is even easier!