In this post, i'm going to tell you about :
+ Operating System in general.
+ Brief history of Linux.
+ An introduction about Linux and its capability.
+ How you can start trying out Linux
NOTE: In the case of you are familiar with one another operating system ( such as Windows, DOS ) you can only skim this post or even ignore this to come to more pragmatic actions !
1. What is Operating System ( OS ) ?
The knowledge of OS make you interact better with it, especially if you wanna develop application on it.
An OS manages and administrates all the system resources and facilities: read/write HDD, CD drive, ..., keep track of what programs are doing, ...
In other words, you can imagine that OS is an interpreter who sits between you and your PC and help you with talking to hardwares.
2. Linux, where are you from ?
UNIX was born in 1960s by Ken Thompson and now becomes very popular in many universities After that, Unix became comercial and rather expensive.But there's a cheap option was Minix, a limited Unix-like system written by Andrew Tanenbaum for teaching purposes.
In 1991, when started out using Minix, Linus Torval wanted a better and started to write his own. After that, Linux recieved plenty of attention and many companies developed and distributed Linux.
A Linux distribution is a Linux Kenel ( The kernel is the part that makes all other programs run. It implements multitasking, and manages hardware devices, and generally enables applications to do their thing.) plus an installation program plus a set of applications to run on top of the kernel. The difference between distributions is the application set.
There are many distributions which are used for many purposes, but the 3 most well know distributions for general purposes are: RedHat, SuSE, Debian.In my case, i start using Linux with Fedora Core 5 ( this distribution is very easy to install and easy to use, you may wanna try it out ).
3. Linux capabilities:
Linux is an Unix-like operating system.
Linux is an multi-tasking ( you can run many tasks at the same time) , multi-user ( more than one user can login at the sametime) operating system. It's also a network enabled OS, which allows you to access from any where.
Linux can do almost everything you need for your work.
A typical general-purpose distribution includes the Linux kernel, some GNU libraries and tools, command-line shells, the graphical X Window System and an accompanying desktop environment such as KDE or GNOME, together with thousands of application software packages, from office suites to compilers, text editors, and scientific tools.
And many other intesting thing waiting for you to discover.
4. Start out Linux:
Now, you may wanna try it out but your old habits prevent you from install Linux.
There're 2 ways for you to try Linux without worrying of destroy your existing system:
a. VMWare Workstation ( download from softpedia.com )
You can use this tool to install Linux in the virtual machine
b. You can use Knoppix, the single bootable CD, for testing Linux without installing.
Link: http://knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html
Not having to install anything on the hard disk means you can easily switch between Linux and Windows. Also, since all Linux files are on a read-only CD-ROM, you can't break anthing by mistake while you're learning.
Here's Linus Torvald! He's handsome, isn't he? :P
Wish all of you have fun with Linux !
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