Category Archives: Linux

Linux

Building a Linux Ubuntu Computer

If you have been using Microsoft products such as XP and Vista or even the earlier versions sub as Windows 95 or Windows 98, you are probably thinking that building a Linux Ubuntu computer is something only those super geeks can do.

Well, this is certainly not the case.  Building a linux desktop computer is just as straight forward as building a Microsoft PC once you have the software CD ready.  If you have a Ubuntu installation CD, all you have to do is to change the setup in your computer so that it boots first from the CD. Once you have done that, you just pop the CD in the drive, restart the computer, and follow the prompts to get Ubuntu up and running.  

In fact, the Ubuntu installation for the desktop PC takes only a few minutes.  If you have a brand new disk drive in the computer for this system, as I did for this project, the entire system was installed on a computer in approximately 10 minutes.  The nice thing is the fact that I only had to reboot the computer once, right after the install to set the registers.  From that point on adding software does not require rebooting the cmoputer over and over again. 

Installing Ubuntu

about as easy as installing Ubuntu 9.04. It really was as simple as: download the ISO, burn a disk (I have a USB DVD RAM drive), boot the disk, choose install, provide user info and select the simple options for everything else.

Installing Ubuntu 9.04

With previous releases it has been necessary to install a customized Linux kernel to add support for wireless networking, Ethernet, and more. In Ubuntu 9.04, everything is supported by default with the exception of some of the keyboard function keys.

Linux

A Brief History of Linux

Here is a brief history of Linux and how the open source revolution got started.

1971 The first edition of the Unix server operating system emerges from Bell Labs. Although Linux does not include any Unix code, it is a Unix clone, which means it shares a number of technical features with Unix, which might be considered the forerunner of the open-source operating system. During the 1970s, Unix code was distributed to people at various universities and companies, and they created their own Unix varieties, which ultimately evolved into Sun (SUNW) Microsystems’ Solaris, Berkeley (dossier)’s FreeBSD and Silicon Graphics (SGI)’ IRIX.

1985 Richard Stallman publishes his famous "GNU Manifesto" (www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html), one of the first documents of the open-source revolution. Stallman began working on the GNU operating system in 1983, largely because he wanted to create an open-source version of Unix. (GNU stands for "GNU is Not Unix.") Stallman’s Free Software Foundation later created the GNU General Public License (www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html), the widely adopted, fully legal "anticopyright" treatise that today allows Linux and other software to remain completely free.

1987 Professor Andrew S. Tanenbaum invents Minix, an open-source operating system that’s a clone of Unix. Young Linus Torvalds, at the time a computer science student in Finland, is introduced to Minix, and bases his plans for Linux on the Minix example.

1991 In August, Torvalds announces his plans to create a free operating system on the Minix users newsgroup. He modestly notes in his posting that his OS is "just a hobby. [It] won’t be big and professional like GNU." In October, Linux 0.01 is released on the Internet under a GNU public license. In the Minix newsgroup, Torvalds asks his fellow programmers to lend a hand in making the system more workable. He gets enough help to release version 0.1 by December. Over the next several years, Linux developers swell into the hundreds of thousands and work to make Linux compatible with GNU programs. Vendors like Red Hat, Caldera (CALD) and Debian create popular distributions of Linux that bundle the operating system with useful programs and a graphical interface.

1997 Torvalds moves to Silicon Valley and goes to work at Transmeta.

1999 In August, Red Hat completes its initial public offering, making it the first Linux-oriented company to successfully go public. In December, Andover.net, a consortium of Web site resources largely devoted to Linux, and VA Linux, a manufacturer of Linux hardware, have wildly successful IPOs. Linuxcare, a leading Linux service provider, announces alliances with such industry giants as IBM (IBM), Dell (DELL), Motorola (MOT) and Informix (IFMX).

Here is a quote from Linus which really sums this up.

`When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows", people just stare at  you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system, *for free*".’

There is something to be said for someone who developed an operating system for the betterment for everyone and "by everyone" as well.

Linux

What are the different types of Linux?

Currently there are approximately 220 worldwide distributions of linux that are maintained.  There are obviously others that have not been kept up to date.  When you look at Intel compatible platforms which is basically the PC market, there are 208 varieties – too many to go through and too many to choose from. 

However, let’s consider what you are going to use it for.  If it’s a Home Desktop of Office type workstation, then it is best to look at Mandriva, SUSE, Linspire, Xandros, MEPIS, Fedora Core, and Ubuntu.

download linux operating system

If it’s a small to medium business server that you need, well, then take a look at Debian, CentOS, Fedora Core, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, or RedHat Enterprise Linux.  These distributions can server up web pages, handle email, run a network and printers all from one server.

If you have a couple of old PCs lying around, you can convert them into thin clients which would be the Linux Terminal Server Project or PXES.  Another way to use these old PCs is to use them as a firewall or router – for that you would only need FREESCO or Smoothwall.

Okay, so how to choose between all of these different types of linux.  Well, it’s primarily a matter of personal choice in the end.  The operating system and the commands are the same, the difference between all of these different flavors is ease of use and additional tools and scripts that make the setup of your system easier.  The basic deployments of linux are based on RedHat, Debian, Slackware, Mandriva, and Fedora.  Most of the differences between the system is where all of the files are located on the machine.  For this reason, if you want to have a full deployment across a large network of computers, it’s best to use only one of  these distributions for the entire network as there can be differences between machines running different versions in terms of utilizing hardware and network security as well. 

My personal linux flavor of choice is CentOS. It’s easy to use, the server can be set up by booting from a CD and following the easy instructions, and it handles all of the hardware drivers I need to run the business applications.  I started with RedHat years ago and converted to a free open source distribution when RedHat went commercial.  CentOS is RedHat based so everything was basically in the same place on the machine.  I tried Fedora when they first got going, but I never was able to get a clean install from an installation disk so I gave up on that one.  That was quite a few years ago so I would presume that would not be the case today.

For this Open Source PC project that I am undertaking, however, I am going to use the Ubuntu distribution which is a Debian based linux.  The reason for this is that some of the open source applications I am going to use have been built using Ubuntu so I would expect all of the idiosyncrasies of this distribution will have been solved for those applications. 

Whichever distribution you choose, it should run smoothly and effortlessly on the machine get is installed.  With linux, memory leaks are hard to come by and you do not have to reboot the computer every time you turn around.

8 Linux Distributions Compared

Here’s an interesting article comparing 8 Linux distributions. The distros reviewed were Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSuse, Knoppix, Ubuntu, PuppyLinux, Backtrack and ArchLinux.

The Many Flavors of Linux

Debian is regarded as the largest Linux distribution to date in terms of users. It is renowned for its stability and quality and its interoperability with other software. It has a very large following and over 28000 packages you can add.

Portable Ubuntu for Windows

Portable Ubuntu for Windows is a nice tool because it allows to use a Linux distribution on several machines just moving a small, light, and portable USB mass storage device.