CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION TO

LINUX

Linux
1 ITF: Basis
Linux–Essentials
Docenten: LK, CV
Linux Cliënt – Docenten: GVL, FB
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INTRODUCTION

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LINUX: A SUCCESS STORY

• Summer 1991: Linus Torvalds (student computer

science in Helsinki) wrote a terminal emulator,
run on the raw hardware without an operating
system, and which allowed him to access the
university’s Unix system. 
 this program was the first Linux operating system
kernel

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LINUX

“Linux” is just the operating system kernel

namely the program that handles the allocation of
resources to applications
= the central controller of everything that happens on the
computer

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LINUX KERNEL

− defines which program gets which pieces of memory

− starts and kills programs
− handles the display of text on a monitor
− handles switching of applications (small CPU – finite
amount of memory) = multitasking

 so the kernel takes care of running the processes,

starting and stopping them as requested, and handing
out system resources

−  boot loader: loads the kernel and gets it started

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APPLICATIONS

− Kernel is not useful without something to control

− We need applications to work with the computer

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LINUX ISN’T UNIX
• UNIX:

− 1970: operating system

developed at AT&T Bell Labs  
− Many different variants of UNIX
− UNIX is now both
a trademark and a specification, owned by the Open
Group
− Only software that has been certified by the Open Group
may call itself UNIX

− Despite adopting all the requirements of the UNIX

specification, Linux has not been certified, so Linux really
isn’t UNIX! It’s just… UNIX-like.

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LINUX

Since an operating system without applications isn’t

useful, one usually installs a Linux distribution
= a package consisting of “Linux” and a selection
of applications, utilities, documentation and other useful
stuff.

Like Linux itself, most Linux distributions are “freely

available”, meaning free of charge or at very low cost

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LINUX DISTRIBUTION

Many different flavors of distributions:

• Server?
• Client?
• Industry specific tools?

Major players:
• Red Hat
• Debian

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RED HAT

Red Hat Enterprise Linux:

− Server applications
− Long release cycle

Red Hat sponsors the Fedora Project:

- Personal desktop with the latest software
- Shorter release cycle

Making money with the service they offer

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DEBIAN

Debian
- more of a community effort
- It’s own package management system (apt-get)

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UBUNTU

Ubuntu
− most popular Debian derived distribution

We use Ubuntu in the lessons Linux Essentials.

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LINUX: OPEN SOURCE

Open source Closed source

You have the You have the

right to obtain right to use the
the software machine code
 You have the
 You have NO
right to modify
right to modify
You have the it for your own
it for your own
right to use
use
see/adapt the
source code You have NO right
to see/adapt the
You must share
source code
the code of
your changes

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UNDERSTANDING OPEN SOURCE
SOFTWARE AND LICENSING
Two contrasting examples:
• Microsoft Windows:
the Microsoft Corporation = the owner
The license, the End User License Agreement (EULA)
= a document that you must click through, indicating
your acceptance, in order to install the software

- Microsoft keeps the source code and distributes only

binary copies
- You are allowed to install the software on one
computer and are not allowed to make copies of the
disk other than for a backup
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UNDERSTANDING OPEN SOURCE
SOFTWARE AND LICENSING
Two contrasting examples:
• Linux:
Owned by Linus Torvalds

He has placed the code under a license called GNU Public

License version 2 (GPLv2)
 This license says that the source code must be made
available to anyone who asks and
that you are allowed to make any changes you want

If you make changes and distribute them, you must put your
changes under the same license so that others can benefit

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THE GPL (GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE)

• Linux
 distributed under the General Public License (GPL)

• GPL developed by RMS (Richard M. Stallman)

• Software that was originally distributed under the GPL

remains under the GPL
 a copyleft licence

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THE GPL (GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE)

• The GPL does not say anything about the possible price
of the product
 completely legal to give away copies of GPL
software or to ask money for it
as long as you provide the source code or make it
available on request
and
as long as the receiver also gets the GPL rights

=> So GPL software is not necessarily “freeware”

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THE OPEN SOURCE SITCOM

Linus RMS

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OPEN SOURCE APPLICATIONS

Linux software generally falls into one of 3

categories:

• Server software – software that has no direct

interaction with the monitor and keyboard of the
machine it runs on
Its purpose = to give information to other
computers, called clients

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OPEN SOURCE APPLICATIONS

Linux software generally falls into one of 3

categories:

• Client software – a web browser, text editor,

music player, or other software that you interact
with
In many cases (for example a web browser), the
software talks to a server on the other side and
interpretes the data for you

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OPEN SOURCE APPLICATIONS

Linux software generally falls into one of three

categories:

• Tools – software that exists to make it easier to

manage your system
For example: a tool that helps you configure your
display, a tool that provides you a Linux shell, ..

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SERVER APPLICATIONS

Webservers:
• Apache = the dominant web server of today
 originally a standalone project but there is now
a group formed, called the Apache Software
Foundation which maintains more than 100 open
source software projects

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SERVER APPLICATIONS

• nginx (uitspraak: engine-ex)

Nginx focuses on performance by making use of a
more modern UNIX kernel and it only does a subset
of what Apache can do

=> More than 65% of websites are hosted by either

nginx or Apache

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SERVER APPLICATIONS

Mailservers:
Linux for MTA (mail transfer agent):
• The most well known MTA is sendmail, Kmail
• Postfix is another popular one and aims to be
simpler and more secure than sendmail

Linux for MDA (mail delivery agent):

• Dovecot is a popular POP/IMAP server
• Cyrus IMAP is another option

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SERVER APPLICATIONS

Linux for file sharing:

• Samba = the most popular
• Smb = Microsoft sharing protocol
Samba allows a Linux machine to look like a
Windows machine so that it can share files and
participate in a Windows domain

• Netatalk: If you have Apple machines on your

network, Netatalk lets your Linux machine behave
as an Apple file server

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SERVER APPLICATIONS

Linux for file sharing:

• Network File System (NFS): NFS is usually part of
the kernel which means that a remote file system
can be mounted just like a regular hard disk

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SERVER APPLICATIONS

Linux for nameresolving:

• Bind = the most popular DNS server
DNS (domain name system)

 simply called after the name of the process that

runs the service

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SERVER APPLICATIONS
Linux for directory service:
• Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) =
most popular Linux directory
(AD= database with all users and objects in a domain structure)

In LDAP, an object is stored in a tree, and the

position of that object on the tree can be used to
derive information about the object

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SERVER APPLICATIONS
Linux for network service:
• Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) =
When a computer boots up, it needs an IP address
for the local network so it can be uniquely
identified

Linux for database service:

• MySQL and PostgreSQL

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DESKTOP APPLICATIONS
• Office and Productivity Tools:
− OpenOffice
− LibreOffice
− Firefox (browser by the Mozilla Foundation)
− Chromium (Foss variant of the Google browser, Chrome)
− Thunderbird, Evolution, KMail (e-mail client program by the
Mozilla Foundation)
− Blender, GIMP and Audacity (3D movie creation, 2D image
manipulation and audio editing)

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TOOLS - SHELL

You communicate with a Linux system through a

shell

The shell’s job = accept commands, such as file

operations and starting applications, and to pass
those to the Linux kernel for execution

Example:

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TOOLS - SHELL
A user cannot communicate directly with the operating system kernel
Only possible through programs accessing it via “system calls”

Must be able to start such programs

Þ This is the task of the shell
The shell = a special user
program that reads commands KERNEL
from the keyboard
and interprets them as
system calls to be executed SHELL
Tools and applications  commando’s  shell  system calls  kernel 
resources TOOLS AND APPLICATIONS

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TOOLS – SHELL

• Bourne shell
− first shell developed in the mid-1970s for
“Unix version 7” by Stephen L. Bourne
− contains most basic functions and was in very
wide spread use, but is very rarely seen in its
original form today

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TOOLS - SHELL
• Korn shell
− classic Unix shell
− Bourne-shell compatible, but functionally
enhanced
− developed by David Korn

• C shell
− classic Unix shell
− created at the University of California
− based on the C programming language
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TOOLS - SHELL

• Bourne-again shell (bash) (!!)

− standard shell on Linux systems
− developed under the GNU project of the Free
Software Foundation by Brian Fox and Chet Ramey
− unifies many functions of the Bourne, Korn and C
shell

Remark:
Beside the mentioned shells, many more.

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CONSOLE TOOLS - SHELL

Text editors:
A text editor is used at the console to edit
configuration files
• vi (or the more modern vim) and emacs:
Both are very powerful tools to edit text files,
they differ in the format of the commands
But both vim and emacs are complex
• Less complex and available on most systems:
pico and nano

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CONSOLE TOOLS - SHELL

On a Linux system:
you often have to add, remove, and update software

Earlier: you needed to download the source code, to

set it up, to build it and to copy files on each system

But now distributions create packages which are

compressed copies of the application

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CONSOLE TOOLS - SHELL

A package manager takes care of keeping track of

which files belong to which package and even
downloads updates from a remote server called a
repository

On Debian systems the tools include:

- dpkg, apt-get, and apt-cache
On Red Hat derived systems, you use:
- rpm and yum

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