2. Who is this Guy ???
Professional
BSc Comp.Sci (UDUSok)
CCNA (BUK/USA)
CTech CI (IIKzr/USA)
Member ngNOG
Member ngICT Forum
Member ISOC
Advocate of FOSS
Private
Married (One Child)
Prolific Hausa Writer
Progressive
4. Operating System ?
OS is the interface between hardware and user
All computers need an OS
OSes are used to run applications and control hardware
Popular OSes include Linux, Mac OSX and Windows
5. What is Linux?
Developed in 1991 by a University of Finland student Linus
Torvalds.
Basically a kernel, it was combined with the various
software and compilers from GNU Project to form an OS,
called GNU/Linux
Linux is a full-fledged OS available in the form of various
Linux Distributions
RedHat, Fedora, SuSE, Ubuntu, Debian are examples of
Linux distros
Linux is supported by big names as IBM, Google, Sun,
Novell, Oracle, HP, Dell, and many more
6. History of Linux
Inspired by the UNIX OS, the Linux kernel was developed as
a clone of UNIX
GNU was started in 1984 with a mission to develop a free
UNIX-like OS
Linux was the best fit as the kernel for the GNU Project
Linux kernel was passed onto many interested developers
throughout the Internet
Linux today is a result of efforts of thousands of individuals,
apart from Torvalds
7. Linux User Interface
Can be controlled through command-line (CLI) or Graphical
User Interface (GUI)
GUI run through Desktop Environments (DE)
KDE, GNOME, Xfce, E17 are popular Desktops
The GUI interface is easy-to-use and much like that of
Windows and Mac OSX
The CLI is similar to that of UNIX/BSD
8. Programming in Linux
Modern languages are cross-platform, like Python, Ruby,
Perl, Java
Most Linux distros support these languages and have their
runtimes pre-installed
GTK+ and Qt are widely used to design applications for
Linux
IDEs like NetBeans, Anjuta, KDevelop, MonoDevelop,
Eclipse are available for Linux too
9. Linux on the Desktop
Linux is desktop computer ready
Large number of distros targeted at Desktop users are
available
Linux desktop distros come with many commonly used preinstalled softwares
The modern Linux interface is user-friendly and makes the
interaction with computer easy
10. Running Windows software on
Linux
It is possible to install/run Windows software on Linux
Wine helps run a wide range of Windows applications
Cedega helps run huge number of Windows games
flawlessly
11. Linux on Servers and
Supercomputers
Linux is the most used OS on servers
5 out of 10 reliable web hosting companies use Linux
Linux is the cornerstone of the LAMP server-software
combination (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python)
which has achieved popularity among developers
Out of top 500 supercomputers, Linux is deployed on 426 of
them
12. Linux on Embedded Systems
16.7% of smartphones worldwide use Linux as OS
Linux poses a major competition to the most popular OS is
this segment – Symbian
Nokia, Openmoko supply Linux on their select smartphones
13. Linux on other devices
Linux can be used on a wide range of electronic
devices, like PC, PDAs, Smartphones, iPods, MP3
Players, PlayStation 2 & 3, mission critical servers
and so on…
14. Adoption of Linux
1983 (September): GNU project was announced publicly
1991 (September): first version of the Linux kernel was released to the Internet
2001 (second quarter): Linux server unit shipments at 15% annual growth rate
2004: Linux shipped on approximately 50% of the worldwide server blade units, and 20% of
all rack-optimized servers
2005: Microsoft representatives accuse Brazilian college using Famelix of pirating Microsoft
Windows
2007: Dell announces it will ship select models with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed
2007: Lenovo announces it will ship select models with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10
pre-installed
2007: HP announces that it will begin shipping computers preinstalled with Red Hat Linux in
Australia
2007: ASUS launches the linux-based ASUS Eee PC
2008: Dell announces it will begin shipping Ubuntu based computers to Canada and Latin
America
2008: Dell is shipping systems with Ubuntu pre-installed in China
2008: Acer launches the linux-based Acer Aspire One
15. Adoption by Governments
Governments of many countries around the world
are shifting to Linux from Windows due to the
many benefits it offer
Countries like India, France, Pakistan, Czech
Reppublic, Brazil, Germany, USA, Austria, Spain,
China, and Peru already use Linux
16. Linux in Education
The widely popular OLPC (One Laptop Per Child)
Project’s XO Laptop runs on Linux
Universities in countries, like USA, Germany,
Netherlands, Philippines, Brazil, Russia,
Switzerland, India, use Linux on their
workstations and servers
17. Why should you use Linux?
No threat of viruses
Linux systems are extremely stable
Linux is Free
Linux comes with most of the required software pre-installed
Update all your software with minimum fuss
Linux never gets slow
Linux does not need defragmentation
Linux can even run on oldest hardware
Adding more software is a matter of a few clicks
Most Windows-only apps have their either their native version or
alternatives for Linux
With Linux, you get the highest degree of possible customizability
18. Forget about viruses.
Security has always been the number one priority
with Linux
Linux has a robust security system
There do not exist viruses for the Linux platform
19. Is your system unstable ?
Have you ever lost your precious work because Windows
crashed? Have you ever gotten the "blue screen of death"
or error messages telling you that the computer needs to be
shut down for obscure reasons?
Crashes or freezes are not prevalent in Linux
20. Linux is Free
Linux is free and always will be as compared to
the very costly Windows and Mac OSX
Using pirated Windows is a bad thing
21. Linux comes with software
built-in
When the system has installed, why would you still need
to install stuff ?
Common software such as music player, web browser, video
player, image editor, PDF reader, chat messenger, office
apps
22. Updating in a single click
Just like Windows’ Update tool, Linux has a more
better alternative to it to update all your system
in a few clicks
23. Linux does not get slow
As Linux is impervious to viruses, trojans,
spywares, which are the main reasons to slow
down the PC, systems based on it do not get
slower
Linux consumes lesser system resources
24. Linux does not need
defragmentation
If you already know what fragmentation
is, and are already used to defragmenting
your disk every month or so, here is the
short version : Linux doesn't need
defragmenting.
Whereas Windows-based system get
fragmented
frequently
and
need
attention in this regard.
25. Linux can run on older
hardware
Windows requires more and more hardware
power as its version number increases (95, 98,
2000, Me, XP, etc.). So if you want to keep running
Windows, you need to constantly buy new
hardware
Linux runs perfectly well on older hardware, on
which Windows XP would probably even refuse to
install, or let you wait 20 seconds after each click
26. Add new software in a few
clicks
With Linux, everything is much simpler. Linux has
what is called a "package manager": each piece of
software is contained in its own "package". If you
need some new software, just open the package
manager, type a few keywords, choose which
software you want to install and press "Apply" or
"OK". Or you can just browse existing software
(that's a lot of choice!) in categories.
27. Linux is extremely customizable
Due to the various options available in Linux, like
a lot of DEs, themes, Window Managers, and the
modular nature of DEs, Linux is very customizable
The extent of customizability is clearly implied by
the fact that some people have gone as far as to
customize their Linux OS to make them look and
feel like Mac OSX and Windows
28. Conclusion
So, what OS a user should opt to choose?
The answer depends on user’s own choice.
