Linux 101

Justin Reock
Chief Architect
Rogue Wave Software
Justin has over 20 years’ experience
working in various software roles and
is an outspoken free software
evangelist, delivering enterprise
solutions and community education
on databases, integration work,
architecture, and technical
leadership.
He is currently the Chief Architect at
Rogue Wave Software.

Bell Labs (AT&T)
BSD (Berkeley S/W Dist)
FreeBSD
NetBSD
OpenBSD
GNU Project GNU Linux
SunOS
Next Step Mac OS X
SVR5
IRIX
HP-UX
Solaris
AIX
SCO UNIX
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Android
iOS

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Hello everybody out there
using minix – I’m doing a
(free) operating system
(just a hobby, won’t be big
and professional like gnu)
for 386(486) AT clones
Tux becomes the
Linux mascot
SCO Lawsuit
(2003)
Invests $1B in
Linux
Top 5 Linux
Contributor
V2

• Powerful command line and tools
• Many options for productivity improvement – scripting, etc.
• Free as in free speech – modifiable, customizable, community-driven
• Ease of prototyping
• Accurate testing by easy recreation of production environments
• Better web development with a natural environment for Apache or nginx
• Hardened security options such as SELinux
• Paved the way for containers and microservices
• Automation through Ansible, etc
• Remote administration through ssh
• Scale to huge sizes without huge license costs
• Linux makes you look cool!

• Linux is the original home of the greatly evolved LAMP stack
– Native support for major tools and frameworks
• Linux is a great web app prototyping environment
– Easily install multiple servers / instances on one machine
– Easy access to error logs for debugging
• Countless other web platforms – WordPress, Node.js, Tomcat . . .

• Too many ways to create “Linux apps”
– A surfeit of APIs, frameworks, run-times and tools
– No clear path to apps and interoperability (cp. Android)
– Result is fragmented app space, ISV confusion and costs
• Orphan desktop
– Still a tiny market share, even in 2019
– Limited hosting of popular commercial apps
– Mixed UX, difficult installation on some notebooks

• Linux is just the kernel surrounded by a suite of supporting software
• It’s that supporting software that differentiates one flavor of Linux from
another
• Pick a flavor that suits your level of expertise, the tools you’re likely to
use, and the hardware environment on which you’ll deploy
• Main differences include package management and ecosystem,
preinstalled software, and current Linux kernel version
• Pay attention to the community as well – quick releases, fast response
to security vulnerabilities, development priorities
• Some distributions are highly focused, such as Kali Linux for Security
Professionals

• Cross platform development
– Cross compiling with gcc and GNU tools
– Cross platform frameworks and libraries
• Emulation and libraries
– Full virtual machines – VirtualBox, QEMU et al
– Libraries and platforms – Wine, Crossover, Cygwin,
Bash-on-Windows, Steam . . .
• File systems
– Samba, NFS, FAT

• Your favorite IDEs are already ported
• Eclipse and IntelliJ both run very well
• UX is nearly identical to other
operating systems
• Editors such as Sublime Text and Atom
are easy to install
• And classic command line editors
such as vim, emacs, and nano let you
edit powerfully from the shell

• Your Linux flavor’s community will provide installation media, usually in the
form of a bootable ISO
• During the install, you’ll be able to configure system, software, and network
options
• Many distros will allow you to choose a particular theme for your
preinstalled software
• Such as in the next slide, where CentOS 7 allows you to choose between
various environments
• From there, you can:
– Use the flavor’s preferred package manager to install additional
software
– Download packages for anything not provided by the package
manager
– Build from source!

Gnome, inspired by
Mac OS

KDE, inspired by
Windows

Embrace the shell

• Everything is a file – if it’s not a file, it’s a process
Everything is a file

• Hardware vendors bring-up on Linux, consumer
hardware can be inconsistent
• Install it on your laptop or desktop computer
(YMMV)
• Or on server hardware in your data center
• GRand Unified Bootloader, or grub, is supported
by most modern flavors
• Makes it easy to dual boot a Windows PC with
Linux
• rEFind for Mac will let you dual boot Linux on Mac
hardware

• Boot from a thumbdrive or CD directly into Linux without modifying
your storage or boot sequence
• ISO files available for many flavors, get started quickly without
installing anything!
• LinuxLive (Lili) USB Creator for Windows
– Fully automated thumbdrive creation
– Includes VirtualBox options as well as USB Boot
– Maintain persistence wherever you run it from
• Easy way to get started right now!

• A full system in a $35 box
– 1.2ghz 64-bit quad-core ARM CPU
– 1GB RAM
– 4 USB Ports
– HDMI / Composite Video
– MicroSD Storage
– 802.11n WiFi / Wired Ethernet
– Bluetooth 4.1 / BLE
• Multiple Linux builds available, easy install
through NOOBS interface

• Wealth of content online
– Tutorials, MooCs, discussion groups, code exchanges
– Online documentation
• Linux Foundation
– Online training, MooCs, workshops, webinars
– LinuxCon and collaboration summits
– Certification and consulting
– Legal training (CLE)

Questions?

Linux 101

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