GECH, CS Dept., session on FOSS and GNU/Linux.

1. GNU/Linux installation
and
Usage of FOSS

2. FOSS
FOSS stands for Free and Open Source software.
Satisfy 4 degrees of freedom as stated by FSF-
• Freedom to run the program for any purpose
• Freedom to study how the program works, change it to
make it to do what you wish.
• Freedom to redistribute copies to help others.
• Freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions
to others.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

3. Why use FOSS?
• The availability of the source code.
• The right of code
modification, improvement and
redistribution.
• Large base of developers and users.
• Have an alternative.
• Free marketing and support.

4. Why FOSS is not yet popular?
• General lack of awareness about the Free
Software and its existence.
• Hardware vendors usually bundle
Windows with their systems and do not
offer choice to the customer!
• False thinking of less user friendliness in
FOSS.

5. Benefits of Using FOSS
• Reducing total cost of Ownership.
• Security
• Reliability/Stability
• Piracy, IPR

6. FOSS tools for CS academics
Proprietary Software Free Software* Download
Oracle 11g Database MySQL http://dev.mysql.com/dow
nloads/
Xylinx GNU Electrical- http://www.gnu.org/softw
sophisticated electrical are/electric/
CAD system
IIS Apache httpd.apache.org/downlo
ad.cgi
MS VB Gambas- Development http://gambas.sourceforg
environment based on a e.net/en/main.html
Basic interpreter with
object extensions

7. FOSS alternatives for everyday use
Application area Proprietary Free Software* Download
Operating system MS Windows Fedora GNU/Linux www.fedoraprojec
t.com/download
Office Suite MS Office Openoffice.org download.openoff
ice.org/index.html
Email client Microsoft Outlook Mozilla http://www.mozill
Thunderbird a.com/en-US/
Internet Browser Microsoft Internet Mozilla Firefox http://www.mozill
Explorer a.com/en-US/
Media Windows Media VLC Player http://www.videol
Player an.org/
Graphics Adobe Photoshop GIMP http://www.gimp.
org/downloads

8. GNU/Linux
Many distributions(distros) available to
chose from-
• RedHat
• Fedora
• CentOS
• Debian
• Ubuntu
• OpenSuSe…..
http://distrowatch.com/

9. Installation
First things First
Know about your PC/Laptop/Notebook-
• Processor type and model(Intel family/AMD)
• Processor speed(normally in Ghz)
• RAM size(Physical Memory)
• Hard disk drive size
• Graphics Memory

10. BIOS settings to Boot from media
• Go to BIOS by pressing del key before
boot.
• Go to Advanced BIOS features.
• Select your first boot device.
• If you prefer to boot from CD/DVD
media, select it as your first boot device
followed by HDD or Removable disk.
• Save and reboot by pressing F10
P.S : This setting vary from machine to machine depending upon your vendor.

11. Getting Started
Insert and boot from your media to get this
screen-
Now simply press
Enter to proceed.

12. Wait till the next screen shows up..

13. Select “Skip” and press Enter

14. Wait till the graphical screen loads..

15. From here on, its straight forward..

16. Select language

17. Click next or type your own hostname

18. Select required time zone

19. Enter your Root password

20. Click on Yes and continue..

21. This is important part of installation!
This screen shows up in
fedora 13.
Here you need to select Create custom layout if your installing alongside Windows

22. Make sure you’ve selected proper method
and select “Write changes to disk”.
You may lose your data if you select improper method here..!!

23. Another important stage!!
Select “Customize now” and click “Next”..

24. Don’t forget to select your packages!!

25. Only after finishing the selection of all your
required packages click “Next”..

26. All the selected packages will install on
its own.

27. Okay, this is it.
Now you’re done with all the housekeeping.!
Sit back,
Have a cup of Coffee/tea/whatever you want
and relax.
Comeback after sometime to see the
following screen..

28. Click “Reboot” and eject your installation
media.
Don’t forget to eject installation media before system reboots…

29. And your new GNU/Linux boots..

30. Little Post installation work..
Again, its just straight forward, simply click “Forward” to continue..

31. Create new user by filling required fields.

32. Set correct Date and Time..

33. Now you’re totally done with this! Simply
click “Finish” to load the user login.

34. Select “user” and enter password to
load your home screen.

35. Let your Linux journey begin…

36. Installing Packages/Software
Two ways for RedHat based systems-
• RPM(RedHat Package Manager)
• YUM(Yellowdog Updater, Modified)

37. Using RPM
• Know about your kernel and architecture
type. (Use “uname – a” command)
• Download the required rpm file from
internet(rpm.pbone.net , rpmfind.net)
• Install using command-
$su – c “rpm –ivh filename.rpm”
• Press Enter and give your root password and
wait until the prompt returns.
• Sometimes this may result in dependency
problems if they’re not resolved.

38. Installing freeglut-devel using rpm

39. Using YUM
• More easier way to install any
software/package.
• No need to worry about type of kernel and
architecture.
• But you need internet connection during
installation.
• Command is-
# yum install pkgname

40. Installing freeglut-devel using YUM

41. Installing VLC player in Fedora
Use the following commands-
$ su –
# rpm –ivh
http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rp
mfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
# yum install vlc

42. Virtualization

43. Virtualization
You can use virtualization software to install
an Operating system inside an existing an
Operating System!
Available virtualization software are-
• Virtual Box
• VMware Player

44. Virtual Box
Installing Virtual Box is as simple as installing any simple
software.
But while installing Operating system inside Virtual box, be
sure to allocate space for your virtual drive outside host
machine drive.
You can install as many Operating systems as you wish
unless you won’t run out of memory.!
Only .iso image of the OS is enough to install it and no need
of external cd/dvd while installing in virtual box.

45. Creating new virtual machine in VB

46. Select your OS from top down menu and
give some name to the virtual machine.

47. Set the RAM size for your VM

48. Simply click “Next”

49. Again “Next”..

50. Once again “Next”..!!

51. Here you can set the VM size and
click on folder icon.

52. Store your VM outside Host machine drive.

53. Its done, click on Create to create your VM

54. Now start your VM from Virtual Box main
window to get this first run wizard.

55. Select installation media or browse to your
iso media file by clicking on folder icon.

56. After selecting installation media,
you can start your VM.
From here on, the normal installation of fedora begins.

57. LaTeX

58. LaTeX
• LaTeX is a typesetting system (not a word
processor).
• It is most suited to produce
reports, scientific and mathematical
documents of high typographical quality.

59. Why not MS word?

60. Advantages of LaTeX over WYSIWYG
• Complex structures such as footnotes, references, table
of contents, and bibliographies can be generated easily
• Professionally crafted layouts are available
• Users need only to learn a few simple
commands, which specify the logical structure of a
document
• LaTeX is highly portable and free

61. LaTeX Input Files
• The input for LaTeX is a plain ASCII text
file.
• You can create it with any text editor.
• It contains
– the text of the document
– commands which tell LaTeX how to typeset the text.
• Spaces
• Special Characters
• LaTeX Commands
• Comments

62. LaTeX Commands
• LaTeX commands are case sensitive and
take one of two formats:
– They start with a backslash and have a name
consisting only of letters.
– They consist of a backslash and exactly one special
character.

63. • Some commands take a parameter which has to
be given between curly braces { } after the
command name.
• Some commands support optional parameters
which are added after the command name in
square brackets [ ].
• The below example uses some LaTeX commands.
This is This is emphasized
emph{emphasized} text. text.
Please start a new line Please start a new line
right here!linebreak right here!
Thank you! Thank you!

64. Comments
• When LaTeX encounters a % character
while processing an input file, it ignores
the rest of the present line.
• This is useful for adding notes to the input
file, which will not show up in the printed
version.
This text is processed. % A comment This text is
isn’t processed.

65. A Simple LaTeX Document
documentclass{article}
begin{document}
This is some sample text.
end{document}

66. Sections
section{Section Title}
subsection{Title}
subsubsection{Title}

67. Including Graphics
• LaTeX2e includes a standard package for
including PostScript graphics in your
document. Load it using
usepackage{graphics}
• A figure can be included using, for
example,
begin{figure}[ht]
begin{center}
includegraphics[width=140mm]{mypic.ps}
end{center}
caption{An example of a figure.}
label{fig:example}
end{figure}

68. Sub Script and Super Script
Guide
Dr.K.C.Ravishankar_{B.E. M.Tech., Ph.D.}
x^{2}

69. pagestyle{myheadings}
makeheadrule{myheadings}{textwidth}{0.4pt}
makefootrule{myheadings}{textwidth}{0.4pt}{}
makeoddhead{myheadings}{small{Android
Technology}}{}{small{Chapter thechapter}}
makeoddfoot{myheadings}{small{Dept Of CS & E, GEC,
Hassan}}{}{small{thepage}}

70. Output Formats
• .dvi Device Independent
• .ps Post Script
• .pdf PDF
• .rtf Rich Text Format
• .html HTML
• .xml XML

71. NCTUns
Network Simulator

72. NCTUns
• NCTUns network simulator is a kernel that
needs to be installed alongside the fedora
kernel.
• First, copy the NCTUns tar file onto your
system and extract it.
• cd(change directory) to the directory
where the tar file was extracted.
• Execute the install.sh file in the NCTUns
directory.

73. NCTUns 5.0 in fedora 10
Press Enter if it is prompted anytime in the process of installation and after
installation is completed, reboot the system.

74. NCTUns kernel can be seen alongside fedora
kernel

75. Post installation work with NCTUns
• Login to NCTUns kernel and edit the
/home/user/.bashrc file
• Add the following lines to this file-
export NCTUNSHOME=/usr/local/nctuns
export NCTUNS_TOOLS=$NCTUNSHOME/tools
export NCTUNS_BIN=$NCTUNSHOME/bin
export PATH=${NCTUNS_BIN}:${PATH}
• Clear iptables with this command-
$iptables lo 127.0.0.1
• Reboot the system again and use the
network simulator.

76. When things go wrong

77. File system check error
Black screen shows up saying “Give root
password for maintenance (or type Ctrl D to
Reboot)

78. Enter root password to get the prompt
#
Now simply type “fsck” and press Enter
# fsck
Press y when it asks-
fix errors<y>?
Type “reboot” when the prompt returns
# reboot
Now fedora boots normally if the errors are fixed by
fsck.

79. Rescue the lost Fedora
• This works only if the partition of Fedora is
not formatted or deleted while installing
Windows.
• Need original type of fedora media to
rescue.
• Boot your media to get the following
screen and select “Rescue installed
system”.

80. Select “Rescue installed system”
and press Enter

81. Select continue and press Enter

82. • Start the Grub shell with the grub command:
# grub
• This will show the grub shell like this-
grub>
• Use the find command to locate the partition
containing the boot files by searching
for /boot/grub/grub.conf . Grub will report
the partition using its own syntax:
grub> find /grub/grub.conf
(hd0,0)

83. • Use the root command to configure the
partition from which the boot files are to be
loaded (use the partition ID from last step):
grub> root (hd0,0)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
• Use the setup command with this drive ID to
install the Grub bootloader code:
grub> setup (hd0)
• Quit the Grub shell with quit:
grub> quit
#

84. • Type reboot to get back your Fedora-
# reboot
• Now fedora boots along side with
Windows like it was before.

85. Thank You…
Any questions..??
If there’s any problem with the use of GNU/Linux
and FOSS, then feel free to ask.
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