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Linux Basic Knowledge

1. History of Unix
Linux is a sterling pedigree as a child of UNIX. In
the 1960, AT&T, Bell labs partnered with the MIT
(Massachusetts institute of Technology) and general
electronic in developing a multi user operating
system known as MULTICS. Two Bell labs researcher
Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson worked on this
project until Bell labs withdrew from this project.
Bell labs withdrew from the project they determine to
resolve this by re-hosting space travel to run a
little used PDP-7 computer. This new project requires
them to implement a new operating system for the PDP7 which they called UNICS. They somehow eventually
changed the name of the operating system to UNIX. One
of the unique features of UNIX was that Ritchie and
Thompson had implemented its using new programming
language "C". Implementing UNIX in C made it possible
to port UNIX to other computer more easily than
previous operating system. Which were usually written
in assembly language. UNIX was widely distributed
especially to universities, computer scientists and
student the world even studied UNIX, found ways to
improve it and sent their code back to Ritchie and
Thompson. UNIX rapidly grew and improved.

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2.History of Linux
Universities used UNIX for teaching computer science
student about the operating system. When AT&T
asserted its proprietary claim to UNIX. University
need to replacement. Andrew Tannenbaum (Computer
scientist,
Professor
Andy
Tanenbaum
of
Vrije
Universities,
Amsterdam)
created
a
UNIX-like
operating system called MINIX.

In the 1990 finishing computer science student Linus

Torvalds began work on a memory manager for Intel
Architecture PC. At some point he realized that his
work could be extended to operate as a UNIX kernel.
In August 1991 he posted his work-in progress to the
internet newsgroup Comp.os.minix. Torvalds called his
operating system kernel Linux, for Linus's MINIX.
UNIX programmer offered help in developing Linux.
Because Stallman's GNU project had completed almost
all of the component need for its UNIX like operating
system. In 1994 about three years after Torvalds
posting 1.0 was released under the term of GPL.

3. Difference Between Linux and Unix

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Attributes

Linux

Unix

What is it?

Linux is an example
of
Open
Source
software development
and Free Operating
System (OS).

Unix is an operating
system that is very
popular
in
universities,
companies,
big
enterprises etc.

Manufacturer

Linux
kernel
is
developed
by
the
community.
Linus
Torvalds
oversees
things.

Three
bigest
distributions
are
Solaris
(Oracle),
AIX (IBM) & HP-UX
Hewlett Packard. And
Apple Makes OSX, an
Unix based OS..

Price

Free but support is Three

bigest
available
for
a distributions
are
price.
Solaris
(Oracle),
AIX (IBM) & HP-UX
Hewlett Packard. And
Apple Makes OSX, an
Unix based OS..

Processors

Dozens
kinds.

GUI

Linux
typically
provides two GUIs,
KDE and Gnome. But
Linux
GUI
is
optional.

File system support

Ext2,
Ext3,
Ext4, jfs,
gpfs,
hfs,
Jfs, ReiserFS, Xfs, hfs+, ufs, xfs, zfs
Btrfs, FAT, FAT32, format
NTFS

Text mode interface

BASH (Bourne Again

SHell) is the Linux
default
shell.
It
can support multiple

of

different x86/x64,
Sparc,
Power, Itanium, PARISC,
PowerPC
and
many others.
Initially Unix was a
command
based
OS,
but later a GUI was
created
called
Common
Desktop
Environment.
Most
distributions
now
ship with Gnome

Originally
the
Bourne
Shell.
Now
it's compatible with
many
others

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command
interpreters.

including BASH, Korn

& C.

Security

Linux has had about

60-100
viruses
listed
till
date.
None
of
them
actively
spreading
nowadays.

A rough estimate of
UNIX
viruses
is
between
85
-120
viruses
reported
till date.

Examples

Ubuntu,,Red Hat,etc. OS X,
Linux

Solaris,

All

4.Difference Between Linux and Windows

Attributes

Linux

Windows

What is it?

Linux is an example
of
Open
Source
software development
and Free Operating
System (OS).

Windows
is
the
family of operating
system
(OS)
from
Microsoft, which is
the most famous OS
in the world.

Cost

Linux can be freely For desktop or home

distributed.
use, Windows can be
expensive.

Price
Processors

Dozens
kinds.

of

different Intel and AMD, but

WinCE runs on some
additional
processors.
(see:
WinCE)

GUI

Linux
typically
provides two GUIs,
KDE and Gnome. But
Linux
GUI
is
optional.

File system support

Ext2,

Ext3,

The Windows GUI is

an
integral
component of the OS
and
it
is
mainly
influenced by Apple
Macintosh
OS
and
Xerox.

Ext4, FAT, FAT32, NTFS,

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Jfs, ReiserFS, Xfs,

Btrfs, FAT, FAT32,
NTFS
Text mode interface

BASH (Bourne Again

SHell) is the Linux
default
shell.
It
can support multiple
command
interpreters.

Windows
uses
a
command
shell
and
each
version
of
Windows has a single
command
interpreter
with
dos-like
commands,
recently
there
is
the
addition
of
the
optional
PowerShell
that uses more Unixlike commands.

Security

Linux has had about

60-100
viruses
listed
till
date.
None
of
them
actively
spreading
nowadays.

According to Dr. Nic

Peeling
and
Dr
Julian
Satchell's
Analysis
of
the
Impact
of
Open
Source
Software
there have been more
than 60,000 viruses
in Windows

Examples

Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Win-98,Win-2000,WinHat,

Debian, 2007,Win-8,etc.
Archlinux,
Android
etc.

5.GNU Project
In the 1980 AT&T began to recognize the commercial
value of UNIX. They asserted proprietary rights to it
and began charging a substantial license free. The
MIT researcher Richard Stallman launched the GNU
project which focused on creating a UNIX-like
operating system that could be freely distributed in
supports of GNU Stallman and other created the Free
Software Foundation in 1984. The FSF promotes free
software but free software is not necessarily cost
free software the FSF intends the word free in the

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sance of Freedom. Free software is the software with

which you can do the following:

1. Use of any purpose 2. Study to learn how to works

and
adapts
to
meet
your
need.
3.
Copy
and
redistribute. 4. Distribute as part of an improved
software system. GNU GPL (General Public License) The
GPL is a form of copyright known as copy left. Design
to protect not preclude-right to use, study, and copy
and redistribute software. The GPL provides that a
user has the right to use a software program as long
as the user does not attempt to impair other rights
to use it.

6. What is User, Shell, Kernel, Hardware.

User- The means by which the user and a computer
system interact, in particular the use of input
devices and software.
ShellShell is an interface between user and kernel. Shell
interprets your input as commands and pass them and
pass

them to kernel ( C Shell, Sh, K Shell, Bash).

KernelKernel is a main program of Linux system .It controls
hard wares, CPU,memory, hard disk, network card etc.
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The kernel is the heart of the Linux operating

system. It manages the resources of Linux such as:
File management Multitasking Memory management I/O
management
Process
management
Device
management
Networking support including IPv4 and IPv6 The kernel
decides who will use these resources and for how long
and when. It runs your programs or sets up to execute
binary files. The kernel acts as an intermediary
between
the
computer
hardware
and
various
applications.
HardwareComputer hardware is the collection of physical
elements that constitute a computer system. Computer
hardware refers to the physical parts or components
of a computer such as monitor, keyboard, Computer
data storage, hard drive disk, mouse, CPU (graphic
cards, sound cards, memory, motherboard and chips),
etc.

7. Features and Principal of Linux OS

Feature-:
1- virus free
2- more stable, no "blue screen of death"
3- not an extreme memory hog
4- can run on a very simple system
5- 99.99999% of the software for linux is free and
open source, including the OS.
6- more secure
7- very easy to tweak
8- everything you can do on windows, i can do on
linux, faster, better, and... FREE
9- Unix is something developed in 1969 for multi
processor systems (more than one user using the same
computer).
10- Unix can't operate on a x86 based computer. Linux
will work on x86, AND supercomputers.
Principle-:
1- Everything is a file (Including hardware) You can
secure access to hardware in the same way as you
secure access to a document.
2- Small-single-purpose program Linux provides many
small utilities that perform one task very well. When
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new functionality is required the general philosophy

is to create a separate program.
3- Ability to chain program together to perform
complex task The core design to UNIX is that the
output of one program can be input for another
program.
4- Avoid captive user interface Most-command expects
their option and argument to be type on the command
line when the command is lunched.
5- Configuration data store in text Text is a
universal
interface.
UNIX
utilities
exist
to
manipulate text; storing configuration in text allows
a configuration from one system to another system.
*****************************************************
**

REDHAT HISTORY
A Brief History of Red Hat Linux
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the product of a U.S.
company called Red Hat, Inc., based in Raleigh, North
Carolina near the campus of NC State University. The
company was founded in the mid 1990s when Marc Ewing
and Bob Young merged two companies. In 1993 Bob Young
created a company called ACC Corporation that he says
he ran from his wifes sewing closet. The name ACC
was intended to represent a catalog business but was
also an abbreviation of a small business his wife ran
called Antiques and Collectables of Connecticut.
Amongst the items sold through the ACC catalog
business were Linux CDs and related open source
software. Around the same time Marc Ewing had created
his own Linux distribution which he named Red Hat
Linux (after his

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propensity to wear a red hat). In 1995, ACC acquired

Red Hat and adopted the name Red Hat, Inc. Red Hat
went public in 1999 making both owners fabulously
wealthy. Early releases of Red Hat Linux were shipped
to customers on floppy disks and CDs. In later years
Red Hat provided better levels of support tied to
paid subscriptions (and you can now get phone support
24 hours a day). Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 is the
latest commercial offering from Red Hat and is
targeted
at
corporate,
mission
critical
installations. It is an open source product in that
you can download. Red Hat also sponsors the Fedora
Project. The goal of this project is to provide
access to a free Linux operating system in the form
of Fedora Linux. Fedora also acts as a proving ground
for new features that eventually are adopted into the
Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system family. For
users that cannot afford a Red Hat Enterprise Linux
subscription, another option is provided in the form
of the CentOS operating system. CentOS is a community
driven project that takes the source code to Red Hat
Enterprise Linux, removes the Red Hat branding and
subscription requirements, compiles it and provides
the distribution for download. Bob Young left the
company in 1999 and has since gone on to start Lulu,
a company that provides self-publishing services to
book authors.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RHEL-4,5 AND RHEL-6
RHEL-4

RHEL-5

RHEL
4
SELinux RHEL 5
Block
only
13 SElinux
services
services

RHEL-6
Block

RHEL6 has advanced

80 level of security.
SELinux
(Security

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Enhanced
Linux)features
are
improved and a new
set
of
SELinux
rules
has
been
added
to
provide
security to virtual
machines
from
hackers
and
attackers. This new
feature
is
called SVirt.
Ext2 is made the Ext3 is made the Ext4 is made the
default filesystem default filesystem default filesystem
no
virtualization virtualization with RHEL6
introduces
Feature
Hypervisor-V
the
use
of KVM
(Kernel-based
Virtual
Machine) as
its
hypervisor. In the
earlier
releases kenhypervi
sor was used.
In RHEL
no Yum

Date
of
2005-02-14

we

have RHEL 5 we have Yum RHEL 6 we have Yum

available
available

Release- Date
of
Release- Date
of
Release2007-03-15
2010-11-10

Redhat Life-cycle dates

Version
Red Hat
Linux 4

Date Of Release
Enterprise 2005-02-14

(Prior
outside of
Life Cycle)

End
dates

of

2009-03-31 (End of
Production 1)
2011-03-31 (End of
Production 2)
2012-02-29 (End of
Production 3 / End
of
Regular
Life
Cycle)
2015-02-28 (End of

version
Regular

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Extended
Cycle)
Red Hat
Linux 5

Enterprise 2007-03-15

2013-01-08 (End of
Production 1)
Q1
2014
(End
of
Production 2)
2017-03-31 (End of
Production 3 / End
of
Regular
Life
Cycle)
Q1
2020
(End
of
Extended
Life
Cycle)

(Prior version with

varying degrees of
support)

Red Hat
Linux 6

Enterprise 2010-11-10

Q2
2016
(End
of
Production 1)
Q2
2017
(End
of
Production 2)
2020-11-30 (End of
Production 3 / End
of
Regular
Life
Cycle)
Q4
2023
(End
of
Extended
Life
Cycle)

( Current version )

Red Hat
Linux 7

Enterprise Scheduled for the Undisclosed

second half of 2013

( Future version)
*****************************************************
**

INSTALLATION OF THE REDHAT

1. Minimum Requirements of RED HAT RHEL6?

ArchitectureThese
instructions
are
for
installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 (RHEL6) on
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based
system)
(x86_64).

and

Opteron

64-bit

systems

Processor- Pentium IV processor, 2.4 Ghz Minimum

Memory- Red Hat recommends for 32 bit a minimum of
1GB memory/logical CPU, and for 64 bit a minimum of
1GB of memory, 1GB/logical CPU. Minimum Disk Spacedisk size of above 12 GB, and a minimum root
partition ("/") size of about 9 GB. CD-ROM Drive- Red
Hat does not include a floppy version of the boot
images for RHEL6. Your system will need a bootcapable CD-ROM drive, or a BIOS which knows how to
PXE boot

2.Boot the system to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux

From a CD-DVD

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1. Select Install or upgrade an 2. Choose a language

existing system option on
Grub Menu

3. Choose a keyboard type

4. Choose a installation media

5. Skip DVD media test (or 6. Red

Hat
select media test, if you
installer
want to test installation
next
media before installation)

6
graphical
starts,
select

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7. Accept
Installation

Pre-Release 8. Select storage devices

9. Insert computer name

10. Select time zone

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11. Enter
for root user

password 12. Select type of installation

Use All Space - The entire disk drive will be

assigned to the RHEL 6 operating system installation.
Any pre-existing partitions, together with any
existing operating systems and associated data files
contained therein will be deleted to make room for
RHEL. This option should only be used if you are
absolutely sure you no longer need anything that is
currently stored on that disk, or have already backed
up all user files.

Replace existing Linux System(s) - If the drive

was previously configured to support a Windows/Linux
dual boot environment or was devoted entirely to
another Linux installation, this option may be
selected to instruct the installer to delete the preexisting Linux partition and replace it with RHEL 6.
Once again, it is important to backup any user data
that may still be needed.

Shrink Current system - Allows an existing

partition to be reduced in size to make room on the
drive for the RHEL 6 installation. More details on
this option are provided in a later chapter
entitled Installing RHEL 6 with Windows in Dual Boot
Environment.

Use Free Space - If the current partitions on

the drive do not take up the entire disk space

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available, any unallocated space may be assigned to

the RHEL installation using this option.

Create Custom Layout - When selected, this

option displays the disk partitioning tool allowing
each partition on the disk to be manually configured.
Unless you have experience with low level disk
partitioning this option is not recommended.

On this screen, make a selection based on your

requirements. If, for example, the entire disk is to
be used for RHEL 6, select the Use All Space option.
In order to implement a dual boot configuration,
refer to Installing RHEL 6 with Windows in Dual Boot Environment.

13. Review partition layout

Modify
if
needed.
Default
setup with ext4 and LVM looks
good for desktop machine.

14. Accept
disc

write

changes

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15.

Writing changes (creating 16. Configure

options
partitions) to disc

boot

17. Select softwares to install 18.

Customize
and enable repositories
selection

loader

package

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19.

Checking dependencies
installation

for 20.

Starting
process

installation

21. Installation is complete

Click
reboot
computer
remove installation media.

and 22. Booting Red Hat 6

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23. Red Hat 6 Welcome screen

25. Setup date and time

keep up-to-date with NTP

24. Create normal user

and 26. Login Red Hat 6 Gnome

Desktop

27. Red Hat (RHEL) 6 Gnome Desktop, empty and default

look

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REDHAT BASIC
1. Linux Basic
Login Screen1. two types of login screens:

virtual console
graphical login (called display manager)
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2. login using login name and password

3. each user has a home directory for personal file
storage.
Switching between virtual console and graphical
environment1. A linux system will run six virtual consoles and
one graphical console.
2. server system often have only virtual consoles
3. desktop system and workstation typically have
both.
4.
switch
among
virtual
consoles
by
pressing:Ctrl+Alt+F[1-6]
5.
access
the
graphical
console
by
pressing
Ctrl+Alt+F7
Elements of the X Window System1. the X Window System is Linux graphical subsystem
2. Xorg is the particular version of the X Window
System used by Red Hat.
3. look and behavior largely controlled by the
desktop environment
4. two desktop environment provided by Red Hat:GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment )

KDE (K desktop Environment)

Difference Between Gnome and KDE DesktopGnome
KDE
Gnome IMO is better looking. KDE is lighter on resources
All it is is just a different but looks a bit more like
desk top environment.
that
"Other"
operating
system.
Note- Basically Linux Server Uses Virtual Console.
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2. Virtual Console
A virtual console (VC) also known as a virtual
terminal (VT) is a conceptual combination of the
keyboard and display for a computer user interface.
It is a feature of some operating systems such as
BSD, Linux, and UnixWare in which the system console
of the computer can be used to switch between
multiple virtual consoles to access unrelated user
interfaces. Virtual consoles date back at least to
Xenix in the 1980s.

The root user

1. the root user a special administrative account
2. also called superuser
3. root has near complete control over the system
4. and a nearly unlimited capacity to damage it.
5. do not login as root unless necessary
6. normal
limited.

users

potential

to

do

damage

is

more

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[root@localhost ~]#

Difference between a normal user and a root user in

Linux?
Root User

Normal User

A "root" user has the power to A normal user can only gain
do anything on a Linux system. root access with sudo if they
are in the sudoers file
Control all over system

[root@localhost ~]#

[uesr@localhost ~]$

For Example- Admin control all users.

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