Linux Module 1 (Revision Series)

Sem 4 BCA/B.Sc. Computer Science MGU

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Module 1 Overview
• What is Linux?
• Linux’s root in Unix
• Common Linux Features
• advantage of Linux
• Overview of Unix and Linux architectures,
• Linux files system,
• hardware requirements for Linux,
• Linux standard directories.
• Commands for files and directories cd, ls, cp, rm, mkdir, rmdir, pwd, file,
more, less, Creating and viewing files using cat, file comparisons.
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What is Linux?
• Linux is an OS or a kernel which provides an environment such that
the user can execute programs in efficient and convenient manner.
• Linux is a free Open Source Operating System.
• Created by Linux Torvalds in 1991.
• Based on UNIX.

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Linux’s root in Unix
• Unix is the operating system which laid foundation to Linux
• Unix is designed for mainframes, enterprises & universities.
• Commands used in both Linux and Unix is same.

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Features of Linux
• Portable – can work on different types of hardware in same way.
• Open Source – Source code of Linux is freely available.
• Multi User Support – Multiple users can access the system resources
at same time.
• Multi Programming - Multiple programs can be run at same time.
• Shell – Special Interpreter program - used to execute commands.
• Application Support – Has it’s own software repository and also
allows user to run Windows Applications.

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Features of Linux (Cont.)
• Hierarchical File System: Provides a standard file structure where the
system/user files are arranged.
• Security – provides user security using authentication such as
passwords, encryption & access control to specific files.
• GUI – Supports GUI by installing GUI Packages.
• Live Boot – All Linux distributions allows user to run OS without
installing it on the system.
• Custom Keyboard Support – Supports different languages keyboards.

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Features of Linux (Cont.)
• Hierarchical File System: Provides a standard file structure where the
system/user files are arranged.
• Security – provides user security using authentication such as
passwords, encryption & access control to specific files.
• GUI – Supports GUI by installing GUI Packages.
• Live Boot – All Linux distributions allows user to run OS without
installing it on the system.
• Custom Keyboard Support – Supports different languages keyboards.

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Features of Linux (Cont.)
• Hierarchical File System: Provides a standard file structure where the
system/user files are arranged.
• Security – provides user security using authentication such as
passwords, encryption & access control to specific files.
• GUI – Supports GUI by installing GUI Packages.
• Live Boot – All Linux distributions allows user to run OS without
installing it on the system.
• Custom Keyboard Support – Supports different languages keyboards.

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Advantages of Linux
• Open Source – Redistribute, free to use
• Low cost – no need to spend time & huge amount to obtain License.
• Stability – More stable compared to other OS.
• Performance – Ability to handle large number of users simultaneously.
• Flexibility – Used for server applications, desktop applications
• Compatibility – Supports all common Unix Software & able to process all
common file formats
• Security – Provides encryption, file ownership and permission.
• Better usage of hard disk – Linux uses its resources well even when hard
disk is almost full.

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Architecture of Linux
• Hardware: Actual parts of computer
• Kernel:
• Responsible for all major activities.
• Interacts directly with hardware
• There is only one Kernel for each system
• Core component of OS
• Has various functionalities such as, file system, memory
management, interrupt handling
• Shell: Acts as mediator between kernel & user. Shell reads
command prompt & send request to execute a program,
Hence known as command interpreter. Shell program stored
at file having extension as sh.
• Tools & Applications: this layer includes user written
application using shell programming, C, C++ applications etc.

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Linux File System
• File System – logic collection of files on a partition / disk
• Defines the way how the files are organized on the disk
• When a disk is formatted, the sectors in the hard disk are first divided into small
groups.
• Group of these sectors is known as blocks.
• Size of each block is 512 bytes.
• All blocks are logically divided into 4 parts.
• Boot Block
• Super Block
• Inode Table
• Data Block

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Linux File System ( Cont. )
• Boot Block
• Located in the first few sectors of a file system.
• Contains the initial bootstrap program – used to load the operating system
• Super Block
• Describes the state of the filesystem
• To access a file in a file system requires access to the super block to get information about the file..
• Contains information about:
• Total size of the partition
• Block size of the file system
• No. of files it can store.
• Inode Table
• Information related to a file (not the contents) is stored in an inode table.
• For each file there is an inode entry in the table.
• Inode is a data structure containing metadata about the files.
• Information stored in inode are: Size of the file, User ID of the owner who owns the fie, Group ID of the file, file
access permission, location

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Linux File System ( Cont. )
• Data Block
• Starts at the send of the inode table
• Contains actual file contents.
• Contains several types of files.
• Contains user files, directory files, symbolic link, block files etc.

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Linux Supported File System
• Ext
• Stands for “Extended file system”
• Created specifically for Linux
• Had 4 major revisions.
• Ext 2,Ext3,Ext4
• Ext2 was default filesystem under 2.2 Kernel
• Ext3 is the default filesystem for RHEL 3 & 4
• Ext3 offers best performance combined with data security of file system, due to it’s journaling
feature
• Ext4 was developed as the successor of ext3.
• Ext4 provides features for large filesystems, performance, reliability.
• XFS
• XFS is designed for high scalability
• provides almost native I/O performance even when the file system spans multiple storage device.

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Linux Supported File System
• OCFS
• Oracle Cluster File System (OCFS)
• It’s a shared file system designed for Oracle Application Cluster (RAC)
• OCFS volumes can span one shared disk or multiple shared disks for redundancy and performance.
• OCFS2
• Next Generation of OCFS
• OCFS2 is a general purpose file system
• Makes management of RAC installations even easier.
• JFS
• Developed by IBM for IBM AIX OS, but later ported to Linux
• enhance low CPU usage & good performance for both large & small files
• Able to dynamically resized, but wont support shrunk
• NFS
• Network filesystem used to access remote disks

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Types of Files in Linux
• Ordinary file – files created by user. User can modify
• Directories
• directory file is automatically created by Linux when you create a directory in Linux.
• User can’t modify it. However Linux will modify it automatically when a file or sub directory is added
• Special files
• Most of the system files in Linux are special files.
• Usually associated with I/O devices.
• Stored in standard Linux directories such as /dev or /etc.
• User can’t modify
• Pipe file
• Pipe act as temporary file which only exist to hold data from one command until it’s read by another.
• Socket File
• Used to pass information between applications for communication purpose
• Symbolic link file
• Used for referencing some other file of the file system
• Two types of link file available in Linux: Soft link & Hard Link
• Soft Link : Actual link to the original file ; Hard Link: acts as a mirror copy of the original file

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Linux standard directories
• Linux filesystem resembles an upside down tree.
• Hierarchy starts from root (Represented by “/”)
• Properties of a file system in Linux:
• Has a root directory that contains other files and directories
• Each file & directory is identified by unique identifier called inode
• By default, root directory has an inode number of 2
• 0 & 1 inode numbers are not used.
• No dependencies between filesystems

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Linux standard directories

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Linux standard directories
• / (root)
• Top level directory in the filesystem
• Contains all other directories & their directories
• Contains all files required to boot the Linux system
• Also contains a file called as Linux which is Linux Kernel itself.
• /bin
• Contains binary files, such as commands that are required by system Admin & normal user.
• Usually contains shells.
• /boot
• Contains boot loader, kernel executable & configuration files required to Boot Linux system
• /dev
• Contains device files for each hardware devices attached to the system.
• Files are those which represents each device in the computer & helps in access to those devices
• Users can access these devices directly though these device files; But some applications hide the actual device names to end
users.
• /etc
• Contains admin configuration files and directories.

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Linux standard directories
• /home
• Home directory storage for user files
• Each user has subdirectory in /home
• /lib
• Contains shared library files & sometimes other kernel-related files that are required to boot the system.
• /media
• Mount points for removable media
• /mnt
• Temporary mount point for regular file systems that can be used while administrator is repairing or working on
a file system
• /opt
• Optional files such as vendor supplied application programs are stored here
• /root
• Home directory for the root user. Home directory for root does not stored in /home due to security issues.
• /sbin
• Contains system binary files.
• Similar to /bin but /sbin contains applications required by super user.
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Linux standard directories
• /tmp
• Used by OS and programs to store temporary files.
• /usr
• Contains user documentation, games and other commands, files that are not required during boot time.
• /var
• Stores variable data files
• Includes files like, log files, MySQL & other database files, server files etc.
• /proc
• Contains information about system resources.
• Contains info about your computer
• /srv
• Contains data for servers. Eg: HTML files etc.
• /sys
• It’s a virtual directory like /proc & /dev. Also contains information from devices connected to the system

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Linux Commands
• man
• Provides detailed description and usage of the commands.
• Syntax: man <commandname>
• cd
• To change directory
• Syntax cd options directory
• cd ~ - Change to home directory
• cd / - Change to root directory
• cd .. - Change to previous directory
• ls
• Used to list the content of specified directory
• Syntax: ls option directory
• ls –a : List all files including hidden files
• ls –d : Lists directory
• ls –r : List in reverse order

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Linux Commands
• cp
• Used to copy content of one file to another
• Syntax: cp options source_file destination_file
• Eg: cp animal.txt birds.txt
• If destination file is an existing one. Then it’s overwritten. If destination is an directory then the file is copied to that directory.
• cp –r : Recursive copy (includes hidden file)
• cp –v : Print information message
• cp –i : Prevents from overwriting existing files. Prompt before overwriting destination file.
• rm
• To remove files or directory.
• Syntax rm options filename
• Options same as cp mentioned above, rm –d : removes empty directories.
• mkdir
• Creates a new directory
• Syntax: mkdir option directory_name
• Can also create multiple directories at once & also able set permissions while creating directory.
• Options
• -m – Set permission mode
• -p – Create parent directories as necessary

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Linux Commands
• rmdir
• Used to remove directory
• Directory should be empty before removing it
• Options,syntax same as mkdir
• pwd
• Displays the current working directory
• Syntax: pwd option
• Options
• -L – Display the content as absolute name
• -P – Displays actual path
• File
• Used to determine the type of a file
• Reports file type in human readable form or MIME type
• Useful to determine how to work or view the file.
• Syntax: file options filename
• -b – brief mode – displays the file type
• -s – used for special files
• -i – to view mime type of a file
• -z – to view compressed files without decompressing

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Linux Commands
• rmdir
• Used to remove directory
• Directory should be empty before removing it
• Options,syntax same as mkdir
• pwd
• Displays the current working directory
• Syntax: pwd option
• Options
• -L – Display the content as absolute name
• -P – Displays actual path
• File
• Used to determine the type of a file
• Reports file type in human readable form or MIME type
• Useful to determine how to work or view the file.
• Syntax: file options filename
• -b – brief mode – displays the file type
• -s – used for special files
• -i – to view mime type of a file
• -z – to view compressed files without decompressing

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Linux Commands
• more
• Used to display output page by page
• Syntax: more filename
• Option: -s – Squeeze multiple blanks lines into one. –num limits line displayed per page
• Controls used while viewing file:
• Enter Key: To scroll down line by line
• Space bar or f key: To go to next page
• B key: to go back one page
• Q key: to quit
• Less
• Used to read contents of text file one page per time
• Faster Access because if the file is large it don’t access complete file but access page by page.
• Option: -s – Squeeze multiple blank lines into one. –u – omits the underlines
• Syntax: less filename

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Creating & viewing files using cat
• Used to create, display the content of text file and combine several files to one.
• Cat command can read & write data from standard input & output devices.
• Used to copy text files into a new document.
• Syntax: cat option filename
• To view content of file: cat filename
• To create a new file: cat > filename
• Once you’re done, just press ctrl + d to save file.
• To copy contents of one file to another: cat filename_source > filename_destination
• To copy contents of multiple files: cat filename1 filename2 file3
• To append the contents of one file to another: cat file1 >> file2

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File Comparisons Commands
1. cmp
• Used to compare two files byte by byte.
• Syntax: cmp options filename1 filename2
• Reports the location of the first mismatch to the screen if difference found & displays no message if files are identical.
• Options:
• -b – Displays the differing bytes in the output
• -i [bytes to skip] – Skip particular number of intial bytes from both the files and then after skipping it compares files
• -i skip1:skip2 – Skip the skip1 bytes of file1 & skip2 bytes of file2
2. Diff
• Used to display the differences in the files by comparing the files line by line.
• Outputs a set of instruction on how to make changes in one file to make it identical to other file.
• Syntax: diff options file1 file2
• Offers two different ways to view the diff command ouput: 1. Context mode (-c) 2. unified mode (-u)
• Diff uses some special symbols and instructions on how to make changes to a file.
• a: Add
• c: Change
• d: Delete
• Options:
• -i – Ignore case differences in file content.
• -b – Ignore changes in amount of white spaces
• -w – Ignore all white space.

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File Comparisons Commands
3. Comm
• Used to compare two sorted files line by line.
• Syntax: comm option file1 file2
• Options:
• -1 – Hide column 1
• -2 – Hide column 2
• -3 – Hide column 3
• Produces three-column output.
• Col1: lines unique to file1
• Col2: lines unique to file2
• Col3: lines common to both files
4. Uniq
• Filter out the repeated lines in a file.
• Syntax: uniq option filename
• Option:
• -d – Displays only duplicate lines
• -u – Displays unique lines

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