1. Introduction to
Linux
By:
Murtala Lawal
Center for Information Technology
Hussaini Adamu Federal Polytechnic
PMB 5004 ,Kazaure
Jigawa State

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

3. What are your
expectations ???
At the end you will ……….

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
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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
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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.

29. Questions
N
Comments

30. Shukuran
Nagode
Thank you