A Brief Introduction to Linux

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A Brief Introduction to Linux

• Cheng-Han Du

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History
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GNU

• Founded by Richard Stallman
• GNU GNUs Not Unix
• Free software
• GPL, Copyleft

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Linux

• Founded by Linus Torvalds
• Linux kernel

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Linux Distribution

• Ubuntu
• Red Hat (Fedora)
• SUSE
• Mandriva

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Shell

• A user interface using command lines
• bash, csh, ksh,

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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.

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Linux Desktop GNOME
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Linux Desktop KDE
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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.

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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.

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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

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Some More Interesting Trivia

• For those Microoft 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.

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

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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 dont 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!

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