Scribd
Upload
121 views

What Is Linux?

Linux is an operating system composed of four main parts: the Linux kernel, GNU utilities, a graphical desktop environment, and application software. The Linux kernel controls hardware and software, allocating resources and executing programs. It manages system memory, processes, hardware devices through drivers, and the filesystem. The GNU utilities provide core operating system functionality like file and process management. A graphical desktop environment provides a graphical user interface.

Uploaded by

john
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as RTF, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
121 views

What Is Linux?

Linux is an operating system composed of four main parts: the Linux kernel, GNU utilities, a graphical desktop environment, and application software. The Linux kernel controls hardware and software, allocating resources and executing programs. It manages system memory, processes, hardware devices through drivers, and the filesystem. The GNU utilities provide core operating system functionality like file and process management. A graphical desktop environment provides a graphical user interface.

Uploaded by

john
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as RTF, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 8

Linux

What Is Linux?
First, four main parts make up a Linux system:
· The Linux kernel

· The GNU utilities

· A graphical desktop environment

· Application software
kernel
The core of the Linux system is the kernel. The kernel controls all the hardware
and software on the computer system, allocating hardware when necessary and
executing software when required.
Linus Torvalds
Linus is the person responsible for creating the first Linux kernel software when
he was a student at the University of Helsinki.
copy of the Unix system

The kernel is primarily responsible for four main functions:


· System memory management

· Software program management

· Hardware management

· Filesystem management

System Memory Management


One of the primary functions of the operating system kernel is memory
management.
Not only does the kernel manage the physical memory available on the server,
but it can also create and manage virtual memory, or memory that does not
actually exist.
It does this by using space on the hard disk, called the swap space.
The memory locations are grouped into blocks called pages.
The kernel locates each page of memory either in the physical memory or the
swap space.
Software Program Management
The Linux operating system calls a running program a process.
A process can run in the foreground, displaying output on a display, or it can run
in the background, behind the scenes.
The kernel controls how the Linux system manages all the processes running on
the system.
The kernel creates the first process, called the init process, to start all other
processes on the system.
When the kernel starts, it loads the init process into virtual memory. As the
kernel starts each additional process, it gives it a unique area in virtual memory
to store the data and code that the process uses.
Some Linux implementations contain a table of processes to start automatically
on bootup.On Linux systems, this table is usually located in the special file
/etc/inittabs.
The Linux operating system uses an init system that utilizes run levels. A run
level can be used to direct the init process to run only certain types of processes,
as defined in the /etc/inittabs file or the /etc/rcX.d folders.
There are five init run levels in the Linux operating system.
At run level 1, only the basic system processes are started, along with one
console terminal process. This is called single-user mode.usually the
administrator can log in to the system.
The standard init run level is 3. At this run level, most application software, such
as network support software, is started.
Another popular run level in Linux is run level 5.This is the run level where the
system starts the graphical X Window software and allows you to log in using a
graphical desktop window.

Hardware Management
Any device that the Linux system must communicate with needs driver code
inserted inside the kernel code.
The driver code allows the kernel to pass data back and forth to the device, acting
as a middle man between applications and the hardware.
Two methods are used for inserting device driver code in the Linux kernel:
1. Drivers compiled in the kernel

2. Driver modules added to the kernel

The Linux system identifies hardware devices as special files, called device files.
There are three classifications of device files:
3. Character

4. Block

5. Network

Character device files are for devices that can only handle data one character at a
time (modems and terminals ).
Block files are for devices that can handle data in large blocks at a time (disk
drives).
The network file types are used for devices that use packets to send and receive
data( network cards and a special loopback device).
Linux creates special files, called nodes, for each device on the system. All
communication with the device is performed through the device node.

Filesystem Management
Linux Filesystems
The GNU Utilities
The GNU organization (GNU stands for GNU’s Not Unix) developed a
complete set of Unix utilities.These utilities were developed
under a software philosophy called open source software (OSS).
While the bundling of the Linux kernel and GNU utilities is often just
called GNU/Linux .
The core bundle of utilities supplied for Linux systems is
called the coreutils package.

The Shell
The GNU/Linux shell is a special interactive utility. It provides a way for
users to start programs, manage files on the filesystem, and manage
processes running on the Linux system.
The core of the shell is the command prompt. The command prompt is
the interactive part of the shell. It allows you to enter text commands,
and then it interprets the commands and executes them in the kernel.
The shell contains a set of internal commands that you use to control
things such as copying files, moving files, renaming files, displaying the
programs currently running on the system, and stopping programs
running on the system.
Besides the internal commands,the shell also allows you to enter the
name of a program at the command prompt. The shell passes the
program name off to the kernel to start it.
You can also group shell commands into files to execute as a program.
Those files are called shell scripts.
Linux Shells
Linux file structure
In Linux everything is a file.
Linux stores files within a single directory structure,called a virtual
directory. The virtual directory contains file paths from all the storage
devices installed on the computer, merged into a single directory
structure.
The Linux virtual directory structure contains a single base directory,
called the root.
On the root drive, Linux can use special directories as mount points.
Mount points are directories in the virtual directory where you can
assign additional storage devices. Linux causes files and directories to
appear within these mount point directories, even though they are
physically stored on a different drive.
Common Linux Directory Names

You might also like