Revision of Introduction to GNU/Linux for M$ Window$ users from Thu, 13/04/2006 - 1:48am

&gt;preceded with arrows like this. practical problems and solutions, I intend to use heavy referencing to make it easier to jump from different locations in the document; a table of contents is inserted at the top of the document for your "SECTION03010000000000000000">1 The Nature of you know there are companies selling it, and then there is all this kernel; a kernel is the part of the operating system that is for your programs and your hardware. First, it does (or arranges for) the memory management for all of the running programs (processes), and makes sure that they all get a fair (or unfair, if you please) share of the processor's cycles. In addition, it provides a nice, fairly portable interface for programs to talk to your hardware.[<a href= it is now being developed by thousands of developers around the world. still missing a kernel<a name="tex2html3" href="#foot361" id= it also includes lots of applications, libraries and a simplify the installation and configuration of a they're very much similar, most software you use under distributions so applications will look and feel the same no matter what distro you use. The distro however provides you with an easy install script and wizards to automate lots of the configuration tasks, it also provides lots of precompiled packages that you can use directly without having to configure and compile yourself. The companies that make these distros also provide technical support,

• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for
  • The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
    • The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.[<a href= This simply means that you have the right to make any number of you like; even selling it. And it means that you have the right to change it in anyway you like and distribute your changes. legal right to make copies of it; you can't even install it on more than one computer even if its yours. And there is no way you can about it, even if your modification is an important bug fix or a to the source code<a name="tex2html5" href="#foot364" id= software is free, some programs may allow you access to the source code but you can't modify or distribute it as you please[<a href= is the most popular and strongest free software license, it is the GPL that ensures you have all the freedoms described in section a copyleft license, copyleft (as opposed to copyright) means that if you distribute modified GPL software your modifications should be distributed under the GPL too, this ensures that no company can take a GPLed program and turn it into a secret closed one restricting its user's freedoms[<a href= your friends) is considered a criminal act and puts you in the risk that no one can go and make another product and call it "SECTION03017000000000000000">1.7 We've always copied or less true if you are a home user, but large organizations such as companies and government agencies cannot afford to run illegally copied software anymore, with the pressure generated by extra-territorial laws and international agreements such as the GATT. If you are trying to set up a small business then most probably you cannot afford the price of commercial software licenses (think of what will happen to all these offices in development of the software, if you are a computer professional you training. This means more money to be paid for a foreign economy, this way when someone buys your product or request your services country is or how far ahead the rest are, when technology is free we can really own it. If technology isn't free then we have to choose between reinventing the wheel or relying on others to "SECTION03018000000000000000">1.8 I'm not a programmer why do I very important to you, its because the code is open and free that If a anyone finds a bug they can look at the code and fix it, if you find a bug and can't fix it yourself you can report it and someone else will fix it. If there is a feature in a free software package that is missing you can hire someone to develop it for you, and if this feature is useful for many people you can probably find from security problems and trap doors, since the system is heavily peer reviewed by the world best programmers. With you cannot know if it sends data about you compromising your secret undocumented features, for instance all office documents carry a special ID that is unique to your machine, thus other hand is very secure and no known virus was ever able to harm of software will not suddenly die because its author lost interest or got busy, since its free anyone can develop it and release new working at AT&amp;T, it could be considered as the grand daddy of universities, who in turn developed their own versions of it, which "SECTION03022000000000000000">2.2 You still use the command line? users would tell you that the command line is much more powerful and versatile. This power of the command line is an integral part its functionality, to the point that most graphical tools and applications rely on command driven tools to do the real work. This of course give you the best of the two worlds, and most important mind try to learn the command line, its not as scary as it to think of it as a mere OS would be a gross understatement, it is much more than that, it is a complete philosophy specifying that around the idea that writing small programs that do one job but do it perfectly thus becoming tools and not applications gives the user more power since he can combine these tools and use them together to get a result that is greater than the sum of these of a potato and tries to tell you how to do things, "SECTION03024000000000000000">2.4 Multi user &amp; multi the old DOS command line which still lives in the heart of returns you to the command line, now you can run another command Its by adding &amp; at the end of a command that you inform leaving you free to continue your work. system too, since it was designed for a networking environment it allows several users to use the computer and run different programs you can login with a different account, or even open a new session disorders, but on the contrary as you get used to acts as if it is, this multi user nature of confusions to new users, issues like ownership and permissions would make perfect sense when you understand the multi user nature "SECTION03025000000000000000">2.5 Only one tree ! or a look at the where every partition and media has its own drive name (like C: D: E:) and each drive has its own directory tree that begins with a that it could have a much more organized file structure, where files are grouped together by their type and function instead of "SECTION03025001000000000000">2.5.0.0.1 The basic file structure of files, hard disks are files, partitions are files, Internet interesting names, GNU took this to an extreme like the pager culture, which in itself reflects how fun and enjoyable computing weaknesses with obscure technical messages and yet it doesn't try tradition by having one tree only, in this section we study with more details the organization and structure of this tree and of systems, your GNU/Linux file system could access nearly all file systems in use today<a name="tex2html7" href="#foot247" id= worry about what other OSes you or your friends use, for instance you could have all your media files stored in a windows partition then Linux finaly had its own file system called ExtFS which stands "SECTION03032000000000000000">3.2 Linux doesn't know how to utility, yes thats right ExtFS is sooo good and stable it doesn't "SECTION03033000000000000000">3.3 What about scandisk, can I forget handeling the file system, and since it is much more stable, data loss of the harddisk hardly happens without your help, but since nothing is perfect<a name="tex2html8" href="#foot250" id= off course if you ever restart the computer without closing the journalling simply means that the FS keeps track of all changes made and changes that should be made in a special table called the journal, the journal is written to the harddisk frequently, so when harddisk crash or power outage happens, the file system can go back and finish what needs to be done or undo what needs to be stable and giving you the benefit of nearly never running a as EXT2 this means that migrating from EXT2 to EXT3 or back takes "SECTION03035000000000000000">3.5 Files and their windows means that there are some differences in how it handels files and in the properties and attributes of these files, most of "SECTION03035100000000000000">3.5.1 Filenames are case means that files foo, Foo, FOO and fOo are different files. this could cause lots of confusion when you are looking for files or "SECTION03035200000000000000">3.5.2 Linux Does Not Need Filname files. GNU/Linux does not need filename extensions at all, you'll find thousands of files with no extension in your GNU/Linux system<a name="tex2html10" href="#foot256" id= as you can see file is too smart to be fooled by a wrong extension. it can even guess what kind of text file you have as you see, file isn't always accurate, it mistooke my C++ code for C code. have ownership, since you cannot let users read each others email the third column is the file ownership, the fourth column is the group. stands for User ID and Group ID)<a name="tex2html11" href= and it belongs to group mail, the owner of hello_world.cc is foo and it belongs to the group code and finaly the owner of fubar.pdf is root and it belongs to group root<a name="tex2html12" href= or resources, all users belonging to the group mail can send and recieve mail, all users belonging to the group audio can play the first column has the filetype and permission information, the first character __ which happens to be - in the three files listed here __ is the file type, we will ignore it for now, its these strange rwxrwr runes that we are looking for now. Windows uses filename extensions to determine if a file is excutable or not, GNU/Linux uses permissions instead. each set of permissions is represented by three characters and there order is owner permissions, group permissions and world permissions, the first character is the read permission, the second character is the write permission and the third character is the execute permission. if a - is used instead of r,w or x this means no permissions. readable,writable and executable by its owner the user foo, and it is also readable, writable and executable by all members of the group mail. but other users only have read and execute owner foo and all members of the group code. other users are only its owner the user root, other members of the group root can only this means that the permission to delete a file is a write permission to the directory, if you have write permission to the permission to a directory, in that case you have the right to enter the directory but you cannot list its content, you can however read any file in the directory if you have the permission to that file, organizing files based on the content and function of the files, their personal data and configuration files there. It is common to Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, <a href= -show_section_numbers button that looks like a black computer screen clicking on it will that identifies users and groups. to see a listing of files with numerical UID and GID data instead run this