Linux is an open-source operating system based on Unix. It is robust, scalable, stable, and secure. Linux was originally developed in 1991 by Linus Torvalds and is freely available. Common Linux distributions include Red Hat, Debian, SUSE, and Gentoo. When installing Linux, important steps include identifying compatible hardware, determining the installation method, configuring partitions, and selecting packages to install based on the intended use of the system.

1. LINUX -101

2. What is Linux?
is an Operating System
is a clone of Unix Operating system
is design to run on a PC
is Multi-tasking / Multi-user

3. What is Linux?
 is robust and scalable
 is stable
 is open-source as are most application
available for it
 is growing in popularity (apache)
 is portable (PDA , cellphones, car and
appliances)
 is secure

4. History of Linux
 In 1991, Linus Torvalds, a student at the
University of Helsinki Finland, developed the
Linux kernel.
 It was released on the internet and was freely
available for download.
 Back in 1983,the Free Software foundation(
www.fsf.org) began developing open source
software to create a free Unix operating system,
this software was called the GNU(guh-noo)
utilities. GNU stands for “GNU’s not unix”

5. History of Linux
 Around 1991, the GNU utilities were combined with the
Linux kernel.
 Today most of people call this operating system Linux.
however, the free software foundation says that this is
incorrect and it should be called GNU/Linux.
 You should know that the Linux source and most
applications for it are free of charge, So any company
charging you for Linux is not charging you for the
software but instead, for the compiling of the software,
the packaging , and support of the software.

6. Licensing Information
 Is the most important part of the Open
Source Software movement.
 Is legally covered by the GNU General
Public License , is also known as GPL.
 GPL allows people to take free software
and distribute their own versions of the
software.

7. Licensing Information
However, the vendors who sell free
software cannot restrict the right s of users
who purchase the software . In other
words, users who buy GPL software can
make copies of it and distribute it free of
charge or for a fee.

8. Licensing Information
Also distributors of GPL software must
make it clear that the software is covered
by the GPL and must provide the complete
source code for the software at no cost.
Linux is the perfect example of how this is
supposed to work.

9. Open Source
 An open source license is
a copyright license for computer software that
makes the source code available for
everyone to use. This allows end users to
review and modify the source code for their
own customization and/or troubleshooting
needs.
 Open Source software is free but is not in the
public domain , it is not shareware either.

10. Open Source
 Open-source licenses are also
commonly free , allowing for
modification, redistribution, and
commercial use without having to pay
the original author. Some open-source
licenses only permit modification of the
source code for personal use or only
permit non-commercial redistribution.

11. Open Source
 All such licenses usually have additional
restrictions such as a requirement to
preserve the name of the authors and a
copyright statement within the code. One
popular set of free open-source
software licenses are those approved by
the Open Source Initiative (OSI) based
on their Open Source Definition (OSD).

12. When Red Hat released its fully packaged
version of Linux with support its popularity
took-off, soon after that commercial vendors
like IBM ,Dell , and HP began pushing Linux
Servers. Linux continues to increase in
popularity more and more mainstream
computer users.

13. Types of Linux
A Linux Distribution is a precompiled and
pre-packaged version of Linux. It may offer
certain features and software applications
that others do not. There over 300 different
Linux distributions. Here are some of the
most popular:
Red Hat/fedora/enterprise
Debian
SUSE(Novell)
Gentoo

14. Linux Clones
A Linux Clone is a Linux version on a
certain distribution , for example , CentOS
and White Box Enterprise Linux(to name a
couple) take the Red Hat Enterprise Linux
source and recompile it . This way users
get the stability and benefits of the Red
Hat Enterprise Linux code but at no cost.

15. Linux vs. Unix
 Linux is a Unix like operating system
 Unix is “the original”
 Unix is broken down into system V and
BSD
 Unix is typically run on a larger mini-
computers and distributed through
commercial variants like IBM’s AIX and
Sun’s Solaris.

16. Linux vs. Unix
 However, you can get free Unix ,Free
BSD
 Linux is made for PC’s and lower end
Servers
 Linux is a type of Unix

17. Comparison of Linux and
Windows
Windows Strengths
Better support
More software available
Easier for new users to use
Professionals & Commercial Teams
Closed source makes it more secure
(debatable).

18. Comparison of Linux and
Windows
Windows Weaknesses
Because of its popularity it is the target
Closed source makes modification
difficult
Cost
Stability

19. Comparison of Linux and
Windows
Linux Strengths
Open Source make it more secure (debatable)
Costs less (free)
Most Applications are free
Highly portable
Highly customizable
The “Networking OS”

20. Comparison of Linux and
Windows
Linux Weaknesses
Challenging to learn how to use
Can be difficult to install applications and
patches
Devices are not always supported (like on a
laptop)
Application aren’t always available

21. Linux Certifications
Topics to cover
Linux + ( Comp TIA ) A+, Net+, Server+
Red Hat RHCT/RHCE
LPI (Linux Professional Institute)
CLP/CLE
Unix Certifications

23. Installing Linux - A
Topics to Cover
Case Scenario
Identify Proper Hardware
Methods for installing Linux
Linux Multimedia Options
Determine a purpose for the Linux machine

24. Installing Linux - B
Topics to Cover
Configuring Linux File systems
Configuring Boot Managers
Configuring Network Options
Configuring Linux Installation
Parameters
Install

25. Identify Proper Hardware for
Installation
Linux + Objective covered:
1.1 Identify all system hardware required
and check compatibility with Linux
distribution.
CPU
Memory
Drive space
Scalability

26. Things to consider first before
proceeding.
 Workstation
 Linux Appliances
 Devices and device drivers in Linux
 Text vs. Graphics installation requirements
 Fedora Linux CPU platforms-
o i386
o x86_64
o ppc

27.  Memory requirements
 Hard Disk requirements
o size
o speed & interface
o controller
 Hard disk requirements vs. partitioning
 Scalability of Linux and of Hardware

28. Sample compatibility
Linux fedora . Red Hat
Site:
http://fedora.redhat.com./docs/release.notes/fc
X86 specifics for Fedora
This section covers any specific information you
may need to know about Fedora Core and the x86
hardware platform.

29. X86 Hardware Requirements
In order to use specific features of fedora
core 5 during or after installation, you may
need to know details of other hardware
components such as video and network
cards.

30. X86 Hardware Requirements
CPU specifications:
Intel processors
AMD
Cyrix
VIA

31. CPU
 Fedora core 5 is optimized for Pentium 4
CPU’s , but also supports earlier CPU’s
such as Pentium , Pentium pro, Pentium II,
Pentium III and compatible AMD and VIA
processors.
 Recommended for text-mode: 200 MHZ
Pentium-class or better
 Recommended for graphical: 400 MHZ
Pentium II or better

32. CPU
 AMD64 processors (both Athlon64 and
Opteron)
 Intel processors with Intel @ extended
memory 64 Technology (Intel EM64)
 Minimum RAM for text mode 128mb
 Minimum Ram for Graphical 192mb
 Recommended for Graphical 256mb

33. Hard Disk Space Requirements
 In practical terms, additional space
requirements may range from as little as
90mb for a minimal installation to as much
as an additional 175mb for an “
everything ” installation . The complete
packages can occupy over 9Gb of disk
space.

34. Determine Installation Method
Appropriate method of installation based on
environment (e.g., boot disk, CD-ROM ,
network ( HTTP,FTP,NFS,SMB).
You must boot Linux to install Linux , cannot
be done from windows or other OS. However,
some distributions have programs that begin
the Linux install from other OS.

35. Determine Installation Method
 #1 most popular install method is CD
 When downloading , there are options to
create a Linux boot floppy from DOS.
 Some older BIOS versions don’t support
CDROM boot.
 DVD-ROMS are also an option(SuSE)
 Another options is a network installation or
hard disk partition installation.

36. Determine Installation Method
 Running Linux from a CD , without ever
installing, is an option . see (
www.slackware.com)
 Downloading Linux
Method of interaction installation
o GUI
o Text
o Scripted

37. Install Multimedia options
Install Multimedia options
Video
Sound
Codecs

38. Install Multimedia options
 When run in Text mode, Linux works with just
about any video card available.
 When run in graphics mode, you need to be very
careful what video card you are using to run Linux.
Specifically you should check the compatibility of
the XFree86 and X.org-X11 server with your video
card. You can do this by going to these websites:
o wwww.xfree86.org
o www.x.org

39. Sounds
About sound cards, Linux supports most
sound cards. The standard Linux kernel
includes two sets of sound drivers.
OSS ( Open Sound System)
ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound System)

40. Codecs
Codecs are computer programs that
compress or decompress audio or video
streams. You may have to download codecs
from the internet to support certain audio or
video types.

41. Identify purpose of Linux
machine
 Based on predetermined customer
requirements (e.g., appliance, desktop
system , database , mail server, web
server, etc.)
 Determined what software and
services should be installed (e.g.,
client applications for workstation, server
services for desired task)

42. Objective and Purpose
 What will this machine be used for?
 In windows, this is usually pretty cut and dry
but not so in Linux.
 Any system can be a workstation or server
based on the installed applications.
 Most all server applications are included in
the standard Linux distribution.

43. Objective and Purpose
 Your requirements will determine what is
installed and the hardware selected.
 When we install Linux, you will see the
variety of applications available and how
can easily install all or selected
applications &application pieces.

44. Partition according to pre-
installation plan using Fdisk
 / boot
 / usr
 / var
 / home
 Swap
 RAID/volume
 Hot-spare
 lvm

46. Partition according to pre-
installation plan using Fdisk
 Unlike windows were the entire OS is inside
one partition (and usually just one directory,
the Linux OS is , typically , more spread
out.
 In windows, a partition corresponds with a
drive letter (such as C: or D:, etc)
 Partitions are logical disks carved out from
the physical disk.

47. Partition according to pre-
installation plan using Fdisk
Linux typically uses the PC partitioning
system, made up of 3 partition types:
Primary Partition
Extended Partition - serves as a placeholder for a
logical partition.
Logical partition - resides in an extended partition

48. Linux partition
 To Linux, these partition types don’t mean
a lot . Primary and extended partitions are
numbered 1 – 4 (such as / dev /hda1) and
logical partitions start at 5 and go up.
 The master boot record (MBR) is where
the partition table is stored.
 Boot loaders ( which we will discuss later,
are also stored in the MBR.

49. Linux partition
 The minimum partition necessary for Linux
is the root, or /,partition.
 The difference between the / (root)
directory and the /root directory

50. Linux partition
When installing Linux , you will be asked if
you want to automatically partition your disk
or manually partition the disk.
LVM – the Logical Volume Manager isn’t a
program but design to allow flexibility of disk
management .

51. Linux partition
To understand LVM, you must understand
the following:
Physical Volume: a physical volume (PV) is
another name for a regular physical disk partition
that is used or will be used by LVM.
Volume Group: any number of physical volumes
(PV’s) on different disk drives can be lumped
together into a volume group (VG).

52. Linux partition
 Logical Volumes: Volume Groups must then be
subdivided into logical volumes. Each logical
volume can be individually formatted as if it were a
regular Linux partition. A logical volume is,
therefore, like a virtual partition on your virtual disk
drive.
The LVM is the disk management design that
provides great flexibility of disk management.

53. Linux “fdisk”
 Linux has a tool called fdisk that can be
used to partition your disk.
 However, when installing in GUI mode,
you wont be using this tool.
 The Linux fdisk program is named
after the DOS fdisk program but the
Linux fdisk program has more
functionality.

54. “fdisk”
Commonly, certain directories are split into
their own file systems. They are:
/boot- /boot holds critical boot files and is typically
5-50MB in size.
/usr- /usr holds most Linux programs and is
typically 500MB to 6GB in size.
/var- /var holds files that can are variable in size
such as log files and mail queues. It is typically
100MB to 200Gb in size.

55. “fdsik”
 /home - /home holds users home directories but
not the root user’s home directory./home is
usually 200MB to 200GB in size.
 Swap – the swap file system is not a mounted
partition. Swap is used to help out the system
when not enough RAM is available. The swap
partition is usually 1.5 to 2 times the system’s
RAM size.

56. “fdsik”
 /usr/local – holds programs that are unique to
this system specially compiled programs.
/usr/local is usually 100MB to 3GB in size.
 /opt – holds 3rd party programs and files (usually
commercial programs). It is about 100 MB to
3GB.
 /tmp –hold temporary files and is usually 100MB
to 200GB.
 /mnt and /media –aren’t partitions but are used
as mount points for removable media.

57. RAID Volumes
RAID( Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disk)
Is when the operating system or a hardware
controller is creating multiple pieces of the
same data for redundancy or for performance.
There are different levels of RAID.
RAID can be configured at installation time but
is not for the new Linux user.

58.  Hot-spare- a hot-spare is a disk is used with
RAID. It is configured such that if a disk is
drive goes out, the data that was stored on
that disk is copied onto the redundant disk
(the hot-spare) and the hot-spare resumes
the job of the disk that failed.

59. Configure File System
When you create a partition, you format that
partition and put a file system on it.
The type of format is selected by the
administrator you generally, have three
choices in Linux:
(ext2)
(ext3)
REISER

60. Configure File System
 Ext2 – the original Linux file system type,
it works fine but if the computer is not
properly shut down , it can take a long time
to be checked when the computer reboots.

61. Configure File System
 Ext3 – ext3 solves this improper shutdown
and checking problem because it provides
journaling. Journaling is a feature that
keeps a record of changes to a file system
so that checking it is very fast after an
improper shutdown.
Ext3 is the most popular type of Linux file
system.

62. Configure File System
 REISER – a Linux file system type that
provides journaling as popular as ext3.
NOTE:
o that there are other types of file system
formats for Linux.
o that the swap file system is not
mounted and is not one of these types of
file systems.

63. Configure a Boot loader
 A boot loader is what loads Linux into memory
when the system starts.
 If all you do is run a single copy of Linux on a
server, you will still use a boot loader but
probably never have to configure one or even
think about it.
 However, if you run more than one copy of Linux
or want to be able to choose which Linux kernel
to run, or run different operating systems ,
besides Linux , you will need to configure a boot
loader.

64. Boot Loader
LILO – stands for Linux Loader
LILO and GRUB are the most common
Linux boot loaders
ELILO – the EFI LILO boot loader, used
to boot 64bit Linux machines.
GRUB – stands for Grand Unified
Boot Loader. GRUB was the first boot
loader to boot above 1024 cylinder.

65. Boot Loader
 The biggest benefit to boot loaders is:
 Being able to run multiple operating
systems(example: Linux & windows or
fedora Linux SuSE Linux)
 Being able to run multiple kernels on the
same machine.