The Ultimate Linux

Newbie Guide
The ultimate guide for choosing, installing and using Linux for everyday people
 Table of Contents
Choosing, Installing and Using Linux has never been easier!
The Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide is the guide for the
everyday person.
This eBook version of the guide provides the main guide from
the website, as well as a few select articles.

1. Introduction
2. About The Author
3. About the Author (continued)
4. The Guide
5. Chapter 1: What is Linux
6. Chapter 2: Why Linux - What are the Bene ts?
7. Chapter 3: Choosing a Linux Distribution
8. Chapter 4: Preparing to Install Linux
9. Chapter 5: Installing Linux (Ubuntu)
10. Chapter 6: How do I use Linux?
11. Chapter 7: Using Linux Every Day
12. Other Tutorials
13. Linux Command Line Introduction
14. Is there a OneDrive client for Linux?
15. How to use Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, Amazon S3 and
more in Linux
16. How to install Linux on a Macintosh and dual boot with macOS
17. How I got my job in Linux: from Newbie to Pro
Introduction

Since 2001, The Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide has

been helping individuals switch to the Linux
Operating System.

This guide can help both beginners and seasoned computer

users alike learn all the important parts of choosing, using and
installing Linux, a great free operating system for your computer
and help you remove dependency on non-free, closed source
software that is commonplace in Microsoft Windows or Mac OS.
Throughout the guide, you’ll nd out heaps of valuable
information, such as:
How Linux offers a real alternative to other operating
systems,
how you can install Linux on to your computer for free, and
how to get to grips with using Linux on a daily basis without
any techno jargon!
After you've nished reading the book, don't forget to visit
the website. There's also an up to date blog with different
sections including Quick Tips and Examples, In-Depth Tutorials,
Video Guides, and even a more advanced Sys Admin section for
when you want to start with Linux in a career! Please do head
over to www.linuxnewbieguide.org to check out all of the latest
content!
I hope that the Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide helps you into a
new world of freedom when using your computer and hopefully
makes you smile along the way!

Alistair J. Ross, March 2019.

About The Author

Since the 1990's, Alistair

has been working with
Linux in many capacities,
either by using it himself
for his career, by teaching
others, and by making
free software.

Alistair holds a BSC

(Hons.) in Computing, as
well as many
certi cations from
various Linux based
vendors such as Red Hat.
Thanks for reading this
eBook version of the
website, if you enjoy it,
please do let me know.
My contact details are
below in the 'Get in
touch' paragraph.
About the Author

Consultancy Services
With over fteen years of experience in Linux, if you are in
need of Open Source based support or consulting services,
be it remote assistance or in-person (Wellington, New
Zealand only), then look no further than the author of this
website! exposure to Linux in both large corporate
environments such as Amazon, GE as well as small
businesses, Alistair J. Ross has been at the forefront of Linux
for most of his professional life. He loves providing creative
solutions and best of all, it's at a rate suitable to you or your
business.

Results based outcomes with the skills to back

it up!
Alistair has expert knowledge with many open source and
propriatery technologies including LAMP (Linux, Apache,
MySQL, PHP). Web programming and databases is no problem.
From CMS customisation to Kernel performance tuning, Alistair
can help make your visions a reality. Talk to Alistair today about
your open source based personal or business needs and see how
he can match them to a solution that ts your needs.

Training without the Techno-babble!

Alistair prides himself in being a people person, not a techno-
babble speaking geek, so if you need one on one training or class
based sessions for your business, why not discuss your training
needs to nd the perfect programme for you.

Get in touch!
Alistair now operates an open source consulting
business, OpenTech, click the below link to contact OpenTech.

> Contact Alistair today! <

 The Seven Chapters
The following seven chapters form the core part of the
Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide. Following this section there
are a number of example tutorials from the website.

Visit the ULNG Website!

Chapter 1: What is Linux
Welcome along to the Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide! In this chapter we cover the
essentials including: What an Operating System is, What UNIX is and how Linux differs
from UNIX.

Linux, By De nition:
Linux (/ˈlɪnəks/ (listen) LIN-əks) is a family of free and open-source software operating
systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel rst released on
September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux
distribution (or distro for short).
-Wikipedia
The above de nition is probably not going to help you much if you don't know what an
Operating system is, and what this UNIX thing is, so let's start at the rst major point:
What is an Operating system? I promise I won't make it boring!A

ElementaryOS Linux - A typical modern Linux Desktop distribution

What's An Operating System?
Imagine you have a brand new computer. Imagine that nobody had put a disk of any kind
into it, ever. That would mean that there was no software installed on the system. If you
switched the computer on; It would beep a few times and then tell you that it couldn't
start an operating system. The most important software to a computer is one thing: -- the
Operating System.
Without an Operating system, you couldn't surf the web, you couldn't play music, you
couldn't write letters. You can't do anything.
Some of you will have heard of famous operating systems already but may not fully
appreciate it. For example, Microsoft make a well known operating system called
Windows, Apple make two that you may know: MacOS (on most Macintosh computers)
and iOS (on iPhones and iPads). An operating system is the software that sits between
you, the user, and the hardware inside the computer. If you click the mouse on an icon on
your screen, the operating system interprets that you want to load the program that you
are clicking on. For all of this to happen, The Operating system (some times referred to as
the OS or O/S) must know how to use a screen (to show you what's going on), to use a
mouse (so you can move it around and click with it), to use your hard disk drive (to load
up the data from it). It must also need to know pretty much everything else about the
hardware installed inside your computer, ie: RAM (Computer Memory), Hard
disks/USB/CD drives, keyboards, joysticks, sound controllers, graphics controllers,
printers, scanners, etc.
So when you start typing a letter, for example, you have already loaded up a word
processing piece of software. This software is called application software and is running
'on top' of the Operating System, but nonetheless, all of the time whilst the word
processor application is running, it talks constantly to the O/S for vital information.
Okay, we've established that an O/S is necessary, but what else does an O/S do: Probably
the most basic and yet essential tasks of an operating system is the job of managing our
les and data. A basic O/S should be able to do the following with les and folders:
 Create them
Move them to other directories (otherwise known as folders)
Rename them
Copy them
Delete/remove them
Send and receive les to/from other devices such as Printers/Scanners and your Internet
connection.
...and a bit more.

Now you have the idea of what an Operating system is, let's nd out about a speci c type
of operating system called UNIX, the grandfather of Linux...

What is UNIX? (And a little bit of history)

The UNIX operating system began life in 1969, in Bell Labs, a division of the American
telephone rm, AT&T. There are now many different types of UNIX, making it one of the
longest running commercial operating systems available, way longer than Microsoft
Windows or Apple MacOS.

UNIX History Timeline

Linux is just one type of UNIX which is most famously known for being an open source,
free (as in free speech, not always cost), derivative of UNIX. Most of UNIX's different
avours are still being updated and are still in use all over the world today. Most of the
successful ones are based on the AT&T System V (system ve) release, which set a
standard for UNIX back in 1983. Here are just some popular manufacturers and brands
of UNIX, that you may or may not have heard of before:

Developed from 1993, by Sun Microsystems (acquired by Oracle), Solaris was a leader in
the commercial UNIX world until the prevalence of open source software & Linux. Solaris
still exists today, but Oracle seem less interested in the future of Solaris, and so many
organisations have, or are in the process of moving to Linux.
HP's implementation of the UNIX standard System V, called HP-UX was released in 1984
and is still being used today in many enterprise environments.

Which band of big names wouldn't be complete without big blue? Interestingly enough
the recent logo of AIX is now green.... Anyway, IBM released their take on Enterprise
Unix in 1986, dedicated for it's own IBM hardware, so that they didn't miss out on all of
this UNIX malarkey.
AIX actually represents a series of proprietary Unix operating systems. Originally
released for the IBM RT PC RISC workstation, it now supports a vast array of different
hardware platforms.
Like HP-UX, AIX is based on UNIX System V with 4.3BSD-compatible extensions.

Berkley University: NetBSD and FreeBSD. Berkely Systems Distribution (or BSD) is the
closest match to Linux in terms of a direct relationship. Apple macOS and iOS is even
built on a modi ed BSD core (kernel) called Mach. FreeBSD is a fork of BSD which is cost
zero.
Pony Up
With the exception of FreeBSD, there was (and still is) a pretty grand fee to own one of
the above versions of UNIX. Mainly large commercial organisations and universities have
traditionally used these UNIX variants, however Linux appears to be replacing traditional
UNIX on a lot of corporate systems due to it's proven track record, it's growing
reputation as a contender to UNIX, and it's low price tag, which can often be free.
UNIX is good because it is a true multi-tasking, multi-user operating system. This means
that it can do more than one thing at a time (for example, have a word processor and a
music player open and working at the same time) and it can provide all it's services to lots
of users at the same time. Modern day workplaces rely on servers to provide a central
resource of information and connectivity to users. UNIX was also the platform that many
rsts came on: The Internet, the C programming language which is the basis for most
modern computer programming languages. These were all rsts that took the other
operating systems like Windows and Mac OS a long time to catch up to.
So, Unix is pretty clever, huh? Well, yes. It is, but Unix was also traditionally a pretty
boring system that involved learning lots of commands that were tedious to learn.
Why don't we all use UNIX today if it's so good?

The old Microsoft logo from 1982!

In 1981, a small company based in Seattle called Microsoft released an operating system.
Through chance (Digital Research were supposed to get the contract), IBM took them on
to provide an operating system on their new home/small of ce based computer. This was
the IBM PC (or Personal Computer). This operating system was also not graphical. It
required commands, in a similar format to UNIX or CP/M, but they were less powerful.
The main pitfall of MS-DOS - (Microsoft's PC Operating System) was, that it had no
multi-user, multi-tasking or networking support as standard. By the early 1990's, this
was really starting to wear on PC users. UNIX still had far more power than most
operating systems of the time, it was just way too expensive, and legal issues between
UNIX vendors licensing UNIX was causing headaches and therefore did not have much
exposure outside of large organisations, educational establishments and government
of ces. It made a lot of sense for most small and medium sized businesses to continue
using MS-DOS (and later Windows), it ran the software most people needed, even if it
wasn't delivering the bene ts that we all would later take for granted.
Apple Computer, Inc logo.
During the 80's, Apple had released another computer, which was separate from the PC,
and did not run any PC software, because it relied on it's own O/S, named MacOS. This
time, Apple had decided to make an operating system that was graphical, and later,
incorporated colour, pictures, icons and even sounds! Instead of typing everything into
the keyboard as commands, the same actions could be made as clicks and movements
with a mouse. As with all things Apple, this was revolutionary at the time and changed the
face of the world of computing, but still, they hadn't really grasped UNIX's multi-tasking,
multi-user, networked bene ts.

The original macos (System/Finder 1.0)

At around the same time, the UNIX world got it's graphical operating system which
began creating a graphical front-end to it's command-line world, it was called X, or 'The X
Window System'.
 An early example of the X11 windowing server system from around the late 1980s.
In 1990, Microsoft eventually released Windows 3.0 (versions 1 and 2 did not sell well).
Windows at the time was a 16-bit, single-tasking, single user, graphical interface built on-
top of MS-DOS. UNIX still prevailed: it was multi-user, multi-tasking and it worked on 32
or 64-bit platforms.
It took until 1995, with the advent of Microsoft Windows 95 for Windows to nally go 32
bit, multi tasking. It was also sort-of capable of being multi-user, however it was not best
suited: Windows NT came along shortly after, to do that job.

How does Linux differ from UNIX?

During the time from 1991 to 1995, many computing or engineering students were
accustomed to the power of UNIX and X, at university. Many students had wonderful
new things like E-Mail, the web and more. At home, they would have to make do with
their 16 bit computers, waiting for all these powers to come to their homes one day. A lot
of them felt like all this good stuff was being reserved for the computers at Uni. They had
to make do with MS-DOS or Windows 3.1. UNIX was a big, expensive beast.
Enter: Linus Torvalds
Linus was, in 1991, a student in Finland studying Computer programming at The
University of Helsinki. Linus used UNIX at University on a daily basis. He got bored of his
386 PC running MS-DOS, and decided to start his own UNIX kernel. A kernel is the name
for the program at the heart of every operating system that talks to the hardware
directly. He wanted to distribute the kernel software freely, because it was a hobby, not a
commercial product. He also wanted to see what others thought of his work so he
decided to publish it for free on the Internet. He nished the rst Linux kernel in late
1991. In quite a short space of time he had made a 32 bit kernel, in which programs could
be run. At that point he had a kernel, but he didn't really have any useful software to run
on it.
Here is Linus' very rst post to the Internet in 1991, about the creation of what would
become Linux:
"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. This has been brewing since April, and is starting to get ready."
The Free Software Foundation and the GPL
Over in the USA, a fellow by the name of Richard Stallman had created a team (of
programmers) devoted to free software. Richard called this the "Free Software
Foundation". The goal of his organisation was to make software free to distribute, and
free to obtain the source code along with it so that others could make improvements to
the software through the Internet. The FSF created a bunch of tools that mirrored the
functionality of their commercial, proprietary UNIX counterparts. These tools were
called the GNU tools. GNU stands for 'GNU's Not Unix'. Don't ask!
The Free Software Foundation needed a license for the software that they (and anyone
else) could use it. The license was based on the principles of CopyLeft. It was released as
the GNU GPL (General Public License). The GPL is now at version 3, but at the heart of it,
the license still has the same pretenses: That any authors of the software using the GPL
could charge for the software, as long as they are willing for it to be freely distributed. By
creating community-based software, that has open standards and is subject to peer
review, the quality of the software would be good. Richard Stallman may be an eccentric
hippie, but he gave birth to the whole wonderful world of open source, from as far back
as 1984.
Stallman had been busy making a whole suite of software, for example: a text editor
called emacs, and bash (the Bourne Again Shell) which is a command line interface based
upon the original Bourne Shell that comes with the BSD variant of UNIX. The FSF's
software was entirely based upon the UNIX software suite, and generally improved on it.
In 1991, the only thing that the FSF were missing to make it a fully edged operating
system was The Kernel (the brains of the operating system).
Linus managed to ensure that his kernel would work with the GNU's apps. Once Linus
made the combination of the GNU UNIX applications, the code compiler (gcc) and a
working kernel, Linus had something that worked! Linus decided to call his creation
Linux.

This is Tux, the Linux mascot. It was drawn by Larry Ewing in 1996 because Linus liked Penguins,
even though he was bitten by one in Australia!
Linux is pronounced 'Lih-nucks' not 'Ly-nucks'. Here's Linus Torvals pronouncing it!
Now, over twenty ve years on from the original post on the Internet, Linus is still
working on Linux, but it's now an effort which is collaboratively worked upon by millions
of other individuals, corporations and organisations around the world. You probably
don't know it, but Linux is everywhere today. It's on your Android mobile phone, in your
TV and nine out of ten websites run Linux on their servers (think Google, Amazon and
Facebook to name but a few), Linux might even be in your new dishwasher or fridge-
freezer!
Now, visit Chapter Two to see why using Linux instead of Microsoft Windows or MacOS
may be the best thing you ever did with your computer!
Chapter 2: Why Linux - What are the
Bene ts?
So what does Linux actually offer me then?
So, you now know that Linux is a Unix-like operating system, and you know what all that
means now. However, that doesn't really tell you why you would prefer to use Linux,
instead of Windows or Mac OS on your computer. In this chapter, we will discuss just a
few of the bene ts of Linux. Not that it really needs selling! It's free and it'll make your
computing life a whole lot better!
Linux is far more than a Unix-like operating system and is pretty unique because of its
licensing system. Enter 'Open Source':

Linux is an Open Source Operating System (oh, and it's free too!)

What exactly do you mean by 'Open Source'?

Free of charge - The open source GNU General Public License (GPL) that Linux uses means that
you can obtain the software free of charge, and you can obtain the source code to the software
and make changes to it if you want. You can then re-distribute it if you like, provided you supply
the source code with your changes too.
Software stability - Open standards provoke less buggy software because it is worked on by a
global team of developers from many far reaching backgrounds.
Universal Compatibility - Open standards also mean that compatibility across any other
platform. For example, you can be sure that an open source OGG audio le will play on any OGG
player in exactly the same way, because the open standard applies throughout.
No lock-in - Open Source software means no vendor lock-in.
Continual Popularity - No chance of Linux as a whole going out of business, as it is not owned by
any one company. Linux has been growing on the server and desktop market exponentially since
the early 1990s.
 Open, trustworthy computing - as the source code for all software is distributed for free, often
with the applications you obtain. Imagine buying a car, and peering under the hood to nd a black
box that was completely unserviceable by you or your local mechanic. Imagine that it has to be
updated/improved upon or xed by a single garage who charge you extortionate amounts of
money. Open source lets you in at the whole engine and allows anyone to work on improving the
software.
Did we mention that Open Source software is generally FREE in cost? :)

This means that software can be of high quality for everyone, and money can be made
out of support, distribution, training or working with open source software.
It's a revolutionary change in the way we perceive software and do business, however
huge names like IBM, HP and Intel and even non IT rms such as Boeing, Glaxo
Smithkline and thousands more are all using Open Source and Linux. Some of them are
even putting work back into it.

Give your old hardware a new lease of life

Linux is fast and many avours of Linux (called distributions) work on computers that are
pretty old. You'll be amazed at just what sort of old machines you can get to work on
Linux. Even a 20 year old PC could be put to use as a router or basic rewall, for example.
If you have an old PC or laptop kicking around your house and you think it's slow old junk,
you'll be amazed at how much it can do, just by wiping off Windows and starting fresh
with Linux!

Did you know?

Google's Android mobile platform is a Linux variant, and because it runs on mobile
devices, it needs to run in a small memory and CPU footprint. Linux is very good at
running on the most modest of hardware, including that which has low power
requirements. This was one of the main reasons Linux was the obvious choice for Google
when they made Android. When Apple built macOS and iOS, they too didn't hesitate to
choose a Linux-like core from a system called BSD Unix.
Security and privacy is built in by default

Security is a critical point of our modern interconnected world. Linux has your back.

Security is baked in at the heart of a Linux operating system:

Permissions and jails means that only the users that should be accessing data should be able to
get at it.
Each Linux distro also includes a rewall by default and there are literally thousands of other
applications and ways to secure your machine even further.
The Linux community is built up mainly by people who prefer open source and digital freedom.
They don't often like having software that's made to reveal your secrets or information to the
highest bidder on the Internet.
Finally, although not necessarily a security feature, because Linux desktop users represent only
0.6% of the desktop user market, they are not generally targeted by hackers and opportunists -
much easier to go for the billions of Windows users out there!

Customisation and modi cation galore

There are almost unlimited ways you can customise your Linux system
If you are one of those sort of people that love to tinker with things, to make something
appear, or work in a particular way that you want it, Linux allows you to go crazy. There
literally not one element of your desktop that cannot be completely customised to a
manner that you like. For example, I nd it quickest for me to work without a Mouse. My
work laptop almost never needs me to remove my hands from the keyboard to use the
mouse. I use a window manager called i3 to make this happen, it's very bare bones and
has a tiny memory footprint so it's fast. Other users may be simply be content in changing
their desktop wallpapers, icons and themes. Whatever you want to customise, there's an
app or a tool for that!

Some of the greatest software comes from Linux and Open Source
Linux is home to some of the best new software, and best of all, most of it is free.
Installation is a snap these days just by clicking on an icon in the 'Software Center' and
installing it from a banquets worth of great apps. In Chapter 7 we have a detailed look at
some of the fantastic apps out there for Linux, but for starters, have a look at just a few of
these great titles that you may already be familiar with:

LibreOffice/OpenOffice
A fully featured Of ce suite including a Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Drawing Package, Database and
Presentation suite. Compatible with Microsoft Of ce.

Mozilla Firefox
The browser that reloaded the web - all thanks to Open Source! Most other popular web browsers (including
Google's Chrome browser) is also available for Linux.
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Project)
An excellent open source image editor, similar to Photoshop by Adobe. Used to edit many of the images on this
website!

VLC Media Player (VideoLAN)

A great media player, play your DVDs/VCDs/DiVX's on any computer, even stream them to another computer
connected to a network! VLC is one of the most popular media players available today, and it's also available for
Mac OS X and Windows users, too!

Evolution (and Thunderbird).

Evolution is a full-featured Groupware client which includes E-Mail, Calendar, Tasks, Address Books and the ability
to connect to a Microsoft Exchange mail server.

Thunderbird is a very popular email client which was created for use by the Mozilla Foundation.
Games on Linux? Really!?!
Yep, you read it right! Solitaire isn't just the only game Linux does any more! Steam and SteamOS are de facto
Linux platforms now, literally thousands of the games available for Windows/Mac are available on Steam for Linux
and whats more, they are usually released around the same date as their Windows counterparts.

Many Steam games run on Linux natively

And there's more!...

Those are just some of the titles that you may end up using all the time, however there are literally
hundreds of thousands of titles to choose from. Most of them are completely free of charge. Why
not have a sneek peek at Chapter 7 to see more of the most popular titles.

Drivers by default
I'm not going to say that there is plug and play availability for absolutely every device out there, but
in general, most of the devices you can get today, be they wireless adapters, webcams, graphics
cards, printers and scanners, they are very often plug and play. Downloading drivers from the
Internet when you buy a new printer on your Windows PC just seems so painful. Forget that, Linux
did!
How can this make any sense, does anyone make any money?
You might think that as Linux and the associated open source titles that go with it are free in cost
and also free 'as in speech' that this means that there is no money to be had from Linux. Indeed,
many companies originally thought that Linux was nothing more than a hobby or a geeks plaything,
but this perception has diminished over the years, and with Linux going strong since 1991, it's here
to stay. Here are a few reasons why Linux helps businesses and can generate pro t over the
traditional software business model:

Linux is one of the most popular and reliable platforms on earth today, it is this basis that has let
many companies such as Google and Amazon build from that foundation and leverage it to make
solid pro t. Every Android mobile phone or tablet uses Linux, all of Amazon's websites use Linux,
every Google search is powered by Linux and every Tweet uses Linux at the operating system
level.
Many businesses choose to purchase support contracts to obtain help with their Linux systems,
just as they would with a commercial based platform.
Companies like Intel, who invest heavily into Linux can see the return on their investment rapidly
because Linux has the exibility to allow their newest technologies such as new processors to
work straight away via the Open Code/Source model. Typically, Intel would have to wait many
months or years to see support fully phased into releases of Windows or MacOS for their latest
products.
In countries like China, up to 70% of all the computers that ship now ship with Linux on them. The
vast majority of these computers retain their installation of Linux because the Linux installation
allows the user to do what they want to do with their computer, it means no levy for the
manufacturers to pay to companies like Microsoft for copies of Windows and therefore cost
savings to the customer. This in return has shown a rise in computer purchases and sales at a
better margin of pro t.
The majority of companies use Linux for server hosting because it will out-perform its Windows
counterparts and will do it at a near zero-cost. This provides a hefty return on investment to the
company, and also in turn to their customers. This can be stacked up with other cost-saving
methods such as virtualisation, which means that you can have multiple Linux servers all running
on one physical server. This reduces costs in the server room on cooling, power and hardware. For
many companies across the globe, Linux is therefore a no-brainer.
 Well paid jobs: In enterprise IT today, Linux is big. Really big. This means jobs. Hopefully this guide
may pique your interest into rstly starting to use Linux as your everyday desktop, but in time,
you might decide to get more advanced. See the following links if you need proof!
Infoworld: Why are Linux Professionals in such high demand
ZDNet: Linux and Open Source Jobs are in more demand than ever.
Finally, Over time, many companies, universities and hobbyists nd themselves naturally giving
back some things to the Linux community because it helped them with a certain task. This
continued cycle of improvement and collaboration spurs this on. You only have to look at open
source projects like Wikipedia to see that this cycle works very well. Nobody gets paid to make
Wikipedia the best source of information anywhere in the world, but yet people add to it none
the less. Linux works in the same way.

Now, visit Chapter Three to decide on which avour of Linux you want!

Or, if you need more convincing, why not take a sneaky peek at Chapter 7, where we show the
greatest in open source software and detail how Linux helps out with your life on the desktop every
day.
Chapter 3: Choosing a Linux Distribution

With so many Linux distributions, it can be hard to choose, so we help you select one that's right for
you.
As described in the rst chapter, we discovered that Linux was a avour of the UNIX
family of operating systems. This chapter talks about what types of Linux are available in
the market today. These avours are called distributions and all have their own merits
and disadvantages. We will cover the most popular distributions in this chapter.

What Exactly is a Linux Distribution?

If you ever read the IT press, you may have heard of the larger Linux company names
such as Red Hat (RHEL/CentOS/Fedora), Canonical (Ubuntu) and SuSE. There are
literally thousands of other smaller companies and organisations that also make Linux
distributions. Examples of which can be seen on websites like distrowatch.
These are all companies or organisations that have created their own 'distributions' or
avours of Linux, there are distributions to cater to everyone's needs. Probably too many
distributions! In the Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide we will keep it simple by basing it only
on the most popular distributions.
In any distribution, the fundamentals stay the same:
There is always a Linux Kernel. This is the core component of the Linux operating system which
Linus Torvalds wrote back in 1991 (It's got thousands of contributors now!). The kernel is the
interface between the hardware on your computer (keyboards, mice, displays, etc) and the
software.
The default GNU software (tools like bash - ls, rm, etc). These are mainly command-line based
utilities which make a core (but critical) part of any UNIX system. Think of it as if the kernel is the
bus between the hardware and the software, think of these like the tool-kit you need to keep the
bus on the road!
General software to be expected of a desktop Linux distribution. Usually this would include
software such as text editors, web browser, email client and probably a word processor or of ce
suite, etc.

What differs from distribution to distribution?

General software: (Of ce Apps, Prog. Languages, Games, Graphics software, etc). Some
distributions are built to be lightweight and deliberately don't ship with much software. Some are
quite the opposite. It all depends upon what you need as a user. Most of the time you can install
more software very easily if it isn't pre-bundled (more on this in a later chapter)
"Some distributions are built with older computers in mind, such as Lubuntu (top) and Bodhi
Linux (bottom). The quantity and quality of the software pre-bundled can be varied. This is
often because corners have been cut to ensure the desktop experience runs smoothly on PCs
that have as little as 512MB RAM and a 700MHz CPU. That's less than the minimum
requirements for Windows 7!"
 Cost - whether you pay nothing, a little, or a lot for a distribution depends on what you need from
it and the business model the distributor works to. For example, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
and SuSE are both commercial Linux distributions which have business level support contracts.
They offer telephone hotlines and round-the-clock service level based support for businesses
that rely on their Linux systems right up to mission-critical needs. Note however, that just
because you have paid for the software, doesn't necessarily mean that it's better. You are paying
for licensing, documentation, salaried staff, end-user feature enhancements and telephone
support and other matters of that nature
Quality of software - (buggy or not buggy software, latest versions of software)
Documentation and Manuals - (Quality of, Lack of, Quantity of)
Installation Software - Distributions often use different methods of 'packaging up' their software.
For Red Hat based systems like RHEL, CentOS, Fedora and SuSE, this is the RPM standard (used
by tools such as YUM and DNF). Debian based systems like Ubuntu and Linux Mint use one called
APT. Effectively, this is mostly irrelevant these days, however they still work in slightly nuanced
ways
Current - Some distributions go months or even years without being updated. They might
consider the release 'stable' and therefore don't provide an update unless it's a major security x,
or until they are good and ready to update. Some distributions, generally the more niche ones
also wind up and shut down.
Support - Many of the more common distro's have well established community support on web
forums or chat channels). Some of them also offer a free Linux installation and software, but you
can also opt-in for a support contract (Ubuntu offers this)
Ease of Use - How easy it is to use overall.

So in summary, whatever distribution you choose you may get a better range of options
with distribution X over distribution Y. However Y may suit your speci c needs more
than X in some cases. The choice is for you to decide. As Linux is almost always free to
download, it lends itself to be evaluated until you nd just the one you are looking for.

Trying Linux before you install it

There are two main ways you can evaluate Linux before you commit to putting it on your
machine permanently. One is to use virtualisation software like 'Virtualbox', or to use a
'Live distribution' on a USB stick or CD. You might ask why you'd want to ever install
Linux fully onto your computer if you can simply use these methods to run them
alongside your computer. The main reason is the performance overhead makes using
them feel like you are running a sluggish machine. The methods of how to evaluate Linux
are described below.
Virtualbox and other virtualisation software
If you have a reasonably powerful computer, you can install a piece of free software
called 'VirtualBox'. This software allows you to run Linux (or any other operating
system) inside your normal computer (Windows or Mac). It's not great for everyday use
due to its performance (you are running an operating system inside an operating system),
but it does serve as a great springboard for you to evaluate the perfect distribution for
your needs because you are effectively evaluating the entire system as if it was fully
installed.

Here you can see Virtualbox running on a mac. You can see that Ubuntu is running inside the window
to the right hand side.
'Live' distributions
Live distributions can be downloaded and 'burnt' to a USB stick or CD. Even the 'full fat'
Linux distributions like Ubuntu will offer you to select from 'Install Linux' or 'Try Linux'
when you start them up. You usually get most of the main functionality of the distribution
so you can really evaluate if the distribution is for you before you choose to install it for
real. See Chapter 5 on how to put Linux on a USB stick.
Linux may be free, but can't you also buy Linux? Why would I do
that if I can get it for free?
Buying Linux can provide bene ts that downloaded versions do not provide, such as:
Physical manuals (SuSE & Red Hat Enterprise Linux are particularly good) to help you out when
you need a 'covers-all' reference
Vendor support for a particular period of time
Distributions like Red-Hat Enterprise give corporations a guaranteed support Service Level
Response
Sometimes you may get more software than with other distributions (eg extra DVDs instead of
downloads)
Commercial software titles can be included (as it is non-free), these can include copyrighted or
patented technologies such as DVD and MP3 players, as well as commercial software like Adobe
Flash Player and so forth.

What Linux Distribution should I choose?

Choosing a Linux distribution is a personal thing. It greatly depends on what you want to
do with it.
This is a short collection of some of the more popular distributions out there. For more
in-depth information on the differences between each 'distro', we would recommend
visiting distrowatch.com
Here is an example of just some of the more popular Linux vendors today:
Ubuntu and Linux Mint

Suitable for: Beginner to Advanced/Server

Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux Distributions today. It is built on a Debian core,
but has a more regular release cycle. It is arguably more polished than Debian, is easier to
use and has major nancial backing. Ubuntu is a completely free distro, therefore
copyrighted materials such as DVD & MP3 playing 'codecs' do not come as standard with
Ubuntu, you must download and install it separately, but can be done easily. Due to
Ubuntu's prevalence and ease of use, I have based the later chapters on installing and
using Ubuntu.
Canonical, the company that make and back Ubuntu, also offer enterprise level support
for Ubuntu. There are three main versions, Desktop, Server and Core. However, there
are lots of other 'spins' available such as 'Edubuntu', made speci cally with primary and
secondary education in mind and Kubuntu (KDE version), Lubuntu (a lightweight
version). In addition to the of cial spins, there are over 40 third-party versions in
circulation today!
Ubuntu is released twice a year (in April and October). Every two years a 'Long Term
Support' release is provided in the April release. These offer ve years support at no
extra cost. This includes security patches and bug xes. Normal 'intermediary' releases
offer 9 month support, but upgrading from one release to the next is an easy process.
If you don't like the look and feel of the Ubuntu desktop, Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu,
it is made for beginners and still offers a GNOME, KDE and 'Cinnamon' version. Linux
Mint works very similarly to Ubuntu.
Fedora/Red Hat/CentOS

Suitable for: Beginner to Advanced/Server

The company Red Hat was founded around 1993. They have become arguably the most
commercially successful Linux based company in the world and are now owned by IBM.
Red Hat Linux had nine major (free) releases until Red Hat decided to take a more
corporate approach to Linux in 2003. They then created Red Hat Enterprise Linux
(RHEL). This product is used by businesses around the world and is a fully supported,
commercial Linux distribution. Most users of RHEL use it as a server operating system,
rather than a desktop one.
CentOS is the free version of RHEL and it is said to be 'binary compatible' (meaning it has
the exact same software). A lot of businesses use CentOS if they don't need the
commercial support or backing from Red Hat.
When Red Hat moved to a more corporate model in 2003, it also released Fedora. Fedora
is Red Hat's cutting edge, completely free desktop Linux distribution. It uses the GNOME
desktop by default, however just like Ubuntu, there are many 'spins' on this and a
dizzying number of different Fedora versions exist to be downloaded. As Fedora is
bleeding-edge, it can also suffer from less stability than their enterprise-grade
counterparts as well as other distributions like Debian or Ubuntu LTS releases. I also nd
that all of the Red Hat system installers are counter-intuitive and needs a good user
experience person to give it a once over!
"Fedora has a reputation for focusing on innovation, integrating new technologies early
on and working closely with upstream Linux communities."
distrowatch.com

Elementary OS / Solus / Zorin

Suitable for: Beginner to Intermediate
elementary OS is an Ubuntu-based desktop distribution. I really like it because it's
incredibly intuitive for a new user coming from another system (especially from macOS!).
Some of its more interesting features include a custom desktop environment called
Pantheon which takes cues from the look and feel of macOS. It has many custom apps
including Photos, Music, Videos, Calendar, Terminal, Files, and more. It has swapped out
some of the standard apps. For example, Firefox has been swapped out for the Epiphany
web browser and the email app has been changed for a customised email app based on
Geary, much of this is done for aesthetic reasons; if you want Firefox or Thunderbird, for
example, you can simply install them through the Software Centre.

If you like distros which have a common look and feel to Windows or Mac, or perhaps just
something with a really polished, but familiar look and feel, also be sure to check out
Zorin, Solus, and Deepin. These distributions are highly customised to give experiences
unlike other distributions. For example, Solus has its own window manager called Budgie,
and it was built completely from scratch, not derived from Ubuntu or Fedora.
elementaryOS certainly brings the eye candy. It feels reminiscent of macOS.

OpenSuSE

Suitable for: Beginner to Advanced/Developer

SuSE was once an independent German Linux distribution, which later was purchased by
Novell, who were acquired by Micro Focus. They have since been acquired and sold a
number of times and have a net worth of over $USD 2.5 billion.
Like RedHat, SuSE split its distribution models into a fully enterprise version. SuSE is an
excellent all-rounder which is geared up for the Enterprise which includes support and
has corporate partnerships with companies such as SAP. The corporate model isn't the
only thing SuSE shares with Red Hat, SuSE was originally based on Red Hat Linux and
therefore shares the same RPM based package management system, but over the years
it has changed itself enough to make it clearly a distribution in its own right. It's YAST
con guration management system makes con guration of services a breeze.
The completely free version of SuSE is called OpenSuSE. OpenSuSE has a lot of
interesting features including a 'bleeding-edge' software package system called
Tumbleweed. There are a lot of Developer tools baked in too, openQA is built for
automated software testing, while Kiwi creates Linux images for deployment on real
hardware. OpenSUSE uses the KDE desktop by default.
If you are a developer, de nitely give OpenSuSE a try, however I have found recent
versions to be buggy and the installation process a bit harder than it should be.

Arch Linux, Manjaro and Slackware

Suitable for: Advanced to Server Users

Arch Linux, unlike most, is not derived from a parent Linux distribution like Red Hat or
Debian. It stands alone and is revered by geeks for being a blazing fast distro because it is
based on a simple (yet solid) base. Everything else can be added through its pacman
packaging system.
Manjaro is a separate distribution that has an Arch based core. It claims to be a user-
friendly and desktop based distribution. Both Arch and Manjaro run on a rolling-release
mechanism, meaning as long as you keep the system updated, you are always running the
very latest version of the distro; there is no need to download the newest version from
the website every time a new release comes out.
It's also worthy to mention Slackware here too. Slackware was probably the rst real
Linux distribution, starting back in 1993! Similarly to Arch and Manjaro, it uses .tar.gz
packages rather than more popular APT or YUM systems. If you fall into the more
advanced camp, but don't like the sound of compiling everything, perhaps Arch or
Mandriva is for you, as it still offers similar levels of customisation as Slackware.
If you are starting out with Linux, then I believe that Arch, Manjaro and Slackware are
probably not the best choice. Once you get into Linux, you may want something that is at
the bleeding edge and is very fast. You might nd yourself a fan of tweaking 'all the
things' like a car enthusiast might.
Debian
Suitable for: Intermediate to Advanced Users

Debian is the grandaddy Linux distro of so many offshoots, including Ubuntu. It was
originally released in September 1993. The early distinctions that Debian had over Red
Hat based systems was that it had a massive (~50,000 software package library) and
secondly that it has an auto-dependency software packaging system called apt. This
meant that rather than having to download loads of application packages individually,
you could simply tell Debian what app you wanted and it would down the rest for you
automatically. It took Red Hat etc a long time to get up to pace with this! . Traditionally
known for being further behind than some other distros in terms of having the most up to
date packages, it offsets by this by having good stability as the main packages are well
tested.

Tux tip!
Note: If a distribution is at release 10 (ie: Slackware), but another distribution is only at 4.1
(ie: Debian), this does not indicate that Debian is an old version of Linux.
Check out The DistroWatch Linux distribution popularity rank (Page Hit Ranking) for a
good idea on what's hot in the world of Linux Distributions right now, it's updated daily!

What's next?
If you think you may have found the right distribution for you and you are ready to start
preparing to install Linux on your computer, then move forward to Chapter 4
Chapter 4: Preparing to Install Linux
What sort of computer will I need for Linux?
This question has a lot of answers. The bottom line is: depending upon what you want to
do with Linux, the system requirements can range from an old Intel 386 to a state of the
art PC.
This section of the chapter will go through all the major parts of hardware attached to a
typical computer and detail what is expected to run a typical modern Linux desktop,
starting rst, with the CPU.

CPU (Central Processing Unit)

The brains of your computer de nes the speed which Linux will run at. Linux was
originally devised on an Intel 386 back in the early 90's, and believe it or not, it will still
work on a 386! It is worthy to note that Linux is a truly cross-platform system. A Macs
computer (PPC or Intel) can run Linux, You can even run Linux on some stranger
hardware including ARM based machines like Raspberry Pi's and more. Today's Linux
desktop is most popular on 64 bit (x64) Intel or AMD PPC (G3-G5) and AMD processors,
therefore, most of the common software is actively developed for these platforms. If you
have another platform such as a Sparc, Amiga or ARM based processor, Linux will no
doubt be different in that many software titles may not exist for that given platform, or
software is older than that of the most popular platforms, but it is still possible to run
Linux on them.
Minimum Speci cation: 2GHz Intel Pentium 4/AMD K6, ideally with a dual-core processor. It is
possible to run Linux on even more modest hardware, however the the desktop experience will
be limited.
Recommended Speci cation: Intel Core i5/AMD A10 or better.
RAM (Memory)

Most Modern day Linux distributions will require a minimum of around 2GB to use it to a
reasonable degree, but if you wish to use Linux for non-graphical based uses, such as web
page hosting, or a rewall, you can run a basic installation of Linux from almost nothing.
Some of the most basic installations will run on 8 MB (yes megabytes, not gigs!). If you're
going to be serious about Linux, and want optimal performance, then as with any
software, the more RAM you have for it, the better it runs. Ideally, if you reckon you're
going to be a fairly standard home user, 4GB RAM is a reasonable minimum. If you want
to do demanding stuff like perform movie editing, edit artwork or edit lots of audio, then
we're probably talking about 8GB+. Server users who want to serve up hundreds of
websites may want 4GB, 8GB or even more, but again, if you want to make a small server
with only a website or two and a low number of users, then you can get away with 1GB or
less.
In summary, If you have the RAM, Linux will use it, and it will be used well, thanks to the
superb memory and process management within the Linux kernel a modern-day 64-bit
version of Linux will support up to 64 TB (terabytes) of RAM.
Minimum Speci cation: 512MB-1GB
Recommended Speci cation: 4GB+

Hard Disk Drive (HDD) & Partitioning your disk for Linux

As with all things Linux, it's possible to do it in the smallest of setups. Using

distributions such as Puppy Linux, you can achieve a fully working Linux setup in a few
hundred megabytes. However, if you want to install a standard desktop installation of
any up-to date distribution, you will probably want at least 20-40GB (gigabytes) free
hard disk space. If you are going for the plunge and will convert your entire system over
to Linux, then the more the better - 100GB+ in order to store all of your stuff: Apps,
MP3s, Movies, Documents, emails etc and over time, it uses up quite a lot of drive space.
Modern Linux distributions easily support new drive technologies such as software RAID
and SATA out of the box. Enterprise grade iSCSI or bre channel disk arrays, are
supported by distributions like Ubuntu Server edition or RHEL.
SSD (Solid State Drives) have become commonplace on higher end laptops and PCs these
days and increase read and write speed signi cantly, making the whole system feel faster.
This bene t is mirrored in Linux with an SSD.
Another option is to purchase a new hard disk to install Linux on or recycle an old hard
drive if you have one spare! The reason for using a seperate disk is because you are likely
to be using another Operating System already such as Microsoft Windows or Mac OS. If
you wish to use both Linux and Windows/Mac OS (so you can see if Linux is for you), then
the easiest way to set it all up is if you have another drive to put Linux onto. You won't
have to mess around with resizing partitions and the like.
Minimum Speci cation: 5 GB (although some distributions can be smaller).
Recommended Speci cation: Minimum of 25GB, or as much as you can afford to give Linux.

(Re)-Partitioning
Typically, Windows/Mac OS will allocate 100% of your computer's hard drive to it's own
use, meaning there is no space left for Linux. If you don't want to buy a new hard drive for
Linux, then you will somehow have to re-allocate some of the unused (free) space on your
Windows/Mac OS drive for Linux. The act of slicing up the space on a hard drive into
distinct segments is called Partitioning.
Thankfully, recent versions of popular Linux distributions now make it a snap to re-
partition your disk. They work by utilising the free space that you have in your Windows
drive (say your C: Drive) and creating a partition out of some or all of that free space for
Linux. Although not necessary, you can also use something like the freely available
GParted or commercially available Acronis Disk Director (for Windows). This allows you
to split your disk into partitions as well as resize existing partitions before you even start
to install Linux. It gives you absolute control of the whole process.
Give Linux as much breathing room as you can afford to!
If you are resizing your Windows partition to accommodate the installation of Linux, try
and devote as much space to Linux as you can manage. If for example you have 100GB
unused/free space on an 500GB drive, resize your windows partition down from 500GB
to 410GB, leaving 90GB for linux and 10GB 'breathing room' spare for windows. This
way you probably won't have too much concern about free disk space in the future.

Example: You can split it any way you like, here is an example of how your hard disk would look, if
drawn as a sideways graph. This shows an example of roughly 30% Windows, 70% Linux. You would
resize the Windows partition down to the size you want, which would give you the remainder of the
disk as unallocated space. You can then use that unallocated space for Linux. Note in this example,
most of the 70% Linux space is 'EXT4', however a small amount (say 8GB) is dedicated as 'SWAP'.
SWAP is the area which if the memory lls up on your machine, it will use the disk instead. This is
useful if you only have limited RAM (Memory), however on higher RAM specs, you probably won't
need it.

The GParted tool is great for partitioning your hard drive. In this example you can see two Windows
NTFS partitions (sda1 and sda2), then two linux partitions (sda5 and sda6).
Although the process of re-partitioning and dual-booting your PC with Linux and
Windows is far easier than it used to be, to a computer novice it can still appear to be a
daunting task. Don't worry though, I've got it all covered in Chapter 5.

Video Card (Graphics Adaptor)

Any bog standard graphics adaptor will do for linux. Optimally you will want to have an
SVGA adaptor in your PC that has enough RAM to support resolutions of at least
1024x768. Graphics Accelerator cards of many types are supported by today's modern
distributions for even faster graphics. If you're looking for really good graphics
performance under Linux, the NVidia range are an excellent choice, because they are well
supported under Linux by Nvidia. ATI cards are also popular, however their driver
support for Linux does not appear to be as good as NVidia's, which seems to be an
ongoing issue with ATI. If you don't know what card you have in your machine, visit your
device manager in Windows, or System Preferences in Mac OS. Integrated graphics
chipsets such as the Intel i Series or Cirrus Logic on board chips like those found in
modest-price laptops generally work well, however if you need 3D graphics performance,
or intend on playing games, you are best using a 3D accelerated graphics card/chip from
the likes of Nvidia or ATI.
Minimum Speci cation: A standard graphics card capable of 1024x768 resolution
(pretty much all graphics cards since the mid-late 1990s).
Recommended Speci cation: 3D Accelerated Graphics card with at least 256MB
graphics RAM.
Using Wireless & Wired Network Adapters and (Broadband)
Modems with Linux

Wireless card support in Linux is generally good. Standard desktop PCI

based WiFi adapters will work out of the box without any need to install a driver. WiFi
adapters that work out of the box include Broadcom, TP-Link and ASUS. For more
information on Wireless compatibility under Linux, see the Linux Wireless LAN wiki.
Some vendors have made cheaper soft-pci, mini-pci 'wintel' based adapters which are
proprietary in nature and won't work out of the box. This can usually be resolved by
loading a Windows driver inside Linux, using a tool called ndiswrapper (see this wikipedia
link for further information).
Almost every wired network adapter available should be quite happy with Linux. Modern
PCI or integrated based options such as those manufactured by Intel and Realtek range
will automatically plug and play.
Internet routers or ADSL & Cable modems are usually one of two breeds, either they
either plug into the USB port of your computer directly or they are fully blown Ethernet
routers, today these mostly contain WiFi radio as well. Thankfully, most ISPs are now
providing 'proper' Ethernet based routers which simply plug and play with Linux either
over WiFi or via an Ethernet cable. If you do have a USB modem from your ISP, consider
shelling out for a proper router as the USB modems support under Linux is somewhat hit-
or-miss and you will often nd that performance from a USB modem is less than you
would get from a router (regardless of whether you are using Windows, Linux or a Mac).

Let's get this show on the road!

Hardware changes so rapidly, it's hard to keep up, especially if the hardware vendors
aren't willing to help out the Linux community. Fortunately, more and more vendors are
these days and most installations of Linux I have seen recently have 'just worked'.
Now that you have a rough idea of whether your hardware is t to run Linux in a manner
that you want it to perform for the tasks you need, let's get started on installing Linux.
Chapter ve shows you all the steps you need to know to install Linux safely and
properly.
Chapter 5: Installing Linux (Ubuntu)
Although this example shows the installation of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, installing
most other Linux distributions is a similar process. I have chosen Ubuntu as it is a friendly,
free, highly compatible distribution of Linux and at the point of writing, it has been one of
the most popular Linux distributions for quite some time.
This example shows how to install Ubuntu alongside Windows. You can also select an
option to just install Ubuntu on its own (shown later).
Also see: Linux Mint 18.3 Installation & Review
Please also note that this tutorial details the installation of Ubuntu Linux on a PC, if you
have a Mac, the instructions same. In particular, the tools you will use for partitioning
your hard drive may be different.
Also see: How to install Linux on a Macintosh and dual boot with macOS

Planning the Task ahead

If you remember back in Chapter 4 we discussed partitioning your hard disk. If you didn't
read that part, to have a fuller understanding about what we're about to do with your
hard disk, skip back and read it now.
WORDS OF CAUTION!
At this early point in the process of installation, be aware that you will be working with
your hard disk in order to install Linux. You MUST make a backup of that data before
starting. You do all of this at your own risk!
The main step with a Linux installation is to virtually 'slice' up your hard disk into
partitions in order to put Linux onto it. This process is called partitioning.
You will not have to perform this step if you have chosen to use an additional new or
recycled hard drive to install linux onto. Also, if you wish to simply delete the operating
system (Windows/Mac OS) clean off your computer, then this step is also not necessary,
otherwise, proceed forward!.
Partitioning disks
Since as far back as 2007, it has been possible to re-partition your disk drive during the
Linux installation process. This makes it far easier to do, so this guide has been updated
to follow this process.
For those of you that prefer a visual demonstration of how to install Linux alongside
Windows, there is a video on the Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide website
(www.linuxnewbieguide.org).

Tux tip!
If you still want to partition your hard drive before installing Linux, for example if you want
completely granular control of how you split up your disk partitions, even after you have
installed Linux, then you can use a tool like GParted to partition your disk so that you can
create some free space to put Linux onto.

Downloading and starting the Ubuntu installation

In case you didn't read over the previous chapter then rstly make sure that your PC is up
to the job of working with Ubuntu:
You will need:
A PC with at least 2GB RAM, 40 GB free space on your C: drive or target install drive.
A USB stick which is empty and is at least 2GB in size (or a DVD-R)
An Internet connection to download the ISO image (approximately 1GB in size)

If that all checks out, then you are going to need a copy of Ubuntu Desktop edition. Head
on over to their website (https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop). Download a free
copy of Ubuntu. When it's downloaded, you'll end up with a .iso le. This le type is what
is known as a disc image.
'Flashing' the ISO le to a USB stick
If you prefer to use a DVD-R, rather than a USB stick, then skip this section and see the
one below.
There are a few ways to put an ISO image onto a USB stick these days and it's a lot easier
than it used to be. As most of us have USB sticks lying around the house, this is now the
most common way to install a Linux distribution.
Download BalenaEtcher
The easiest way to put the ISO image you downloaded onto a USB stick is to use a free
tool called Etcher. Head over to their website (https://www.balena.io/etcher) and
download the tool.
If for whatever reason you have troubles with the BalenaEtcher tool, you can alternatively
use a tool called Rufus if you are using Windows. Read this short guide.
Flash the ISO image to your USB stick
Once you have downloaded BalenaEtcher, open the app and insert your USB stick into
your computer.

Using Etcher is as simple as one, two, three!

As you can see from the above image, the rest is a piece of cake. Click on 'Select Image'
and point it to the ISO le you just downloaded. If you have already inserted your USB
stick, it should already show up in the middle. Finally, just click Flash (your PC may ask
you for authorisation to do this). This ' ashing' process takes around ve minutes.

No nudes were involved in this ashing process!

'Burning' the ISO le to DVD

In Windows 7 or greater, it's as simple as right clicking the ISO le and selecting 'Burn disc image'
If you prefer to use a DVD rather than a USB stick then you are in luck, burning an ISO
disk image to a DVD is easy these days if you have Windows 7 or later, then simply right
click on the icon of the le you just downloaded, which will be named something
like ubuntu-18-10-desktop-amd64.iso. Once you right click the icon, you will see the
option ‘Burn disc image’. Select that option and pop a blank DVD-R or into your PC and
click burn. If you would like further instructions on this process or are using an older
Windows or other operating system, check out this easy guide at the Ubuntu web site.
Ready to install!
Note for mac users: If you are using a Mac computer, note that all of these steps will be
completely different so you should follow our guide on installing on a mac computer on
our website.
Hopefully you are now armed with a Linux DVD or USB stick that's good to go. If the
DVD was ejected from the CD player, pop it back in the drive and Restart your computer.
Most PCs will automatically try to start the computer from the CD drive or USB, so
hopefully you will be presented with a Ubuntu welcome screen after a minute or so.

Step 1: Getting your PC to start from USB/CD.

If you don't see an option to start from USB/CD, or if your PC started up in Windows
instead then make sure your PC is set to boot from CD (or USB) before the hard disk. You
can change this setting in something called the BIOS or Boot Order setup. Here's how to
do that:
Often when you start a PC you will see the logo of the manufacturer ash up brie y before it
starts up Windows. You may see a message like 'Press F12 for Boot Options'. If you don't see any
message like that, try pressing ESC or F2 whilst the logo screen is up. This may reveal which key
you need to press. You may have to stop and restart your computer a number of times to do this
as the logo disappears pretty quickly!
If you managed to get to the Boot Options, you will be presented with an option to boot from CD
or USB/External media. Select the option you need with the up/down keys and hit return. That
should be all you need. The below screenshot is the typical look of this menu
If you don't see anything like 'Boot Options' but you see something like 'Press F2 For
Setup' then hit that key and enter the BIOS setup utility. In there, have a look around the
menus using the arrow keys. You should be able to change the boot order to something
like CD/DVD or External USB Media rst (as opposed to hard drive rst). Save the
settings from there and then restart once again.
The images on the following page shows a typical 'BIOS' Setup screen. It shows the
process involved in making sure USB (or CD) is the primary boot option, hard drive
secondary.
Go to the Boot tab in the BIOS setup

Select to Change the boot priorities

Note the boot priority is for a Toshiba hard drive to boot rst

Re-order it so that boot option 1 is the USB/UEFI media (in this case it's a Kingston
USB stick)

Boot option 2 is now set as the hard drive (Toshiba), Option 1 is the USB stick
Make sure you save the changes and exit
The installation process
This next part of the guide steps you through installing Ubuntu alongside Windows.
Step 2: Select Install Ubuntu

Once you've started up Ubuntu from the USB stick or CD, the rst thing you will see is an
option to Try Ubuntu or Install Ubuntu. Select your language from the left hand side and
click on Install Ubuntu.
Step 3: Keyboard and Language
Next select your keyboard layout and language. Press Continue.

Step 4: Updates and Other software

You'll be asked to choose which installation type you want. The default is 'Normal
installation'. Leave that as-is.
You'll see Other options also. Two tickboxes; one for 'Download Updates whilst installing
Ubuntu' and the other 'Install third-party software for graphics and Wi-Fi hardware and
additional media formats'. Make sure both of these are ticked, as per the image below.
Press Continue.
Step 5: Partitioning your disk
This step is the most important part!
For this example, I have Windows 10 on this PC. For whatever reason, I'd like to keep that
and install Ubuntu alongside it.
This is the easiest option to choose if you want to keep Windows because the Ubuntu
installer takes all the pain out of partitioning your hard drive.
Alternatively, you can choose to 'Erase disk and install Ubuntu'. If you select this option
then Windows will be no more. If you've got a system that you're done with and you want
to start with a blank slate, then this option is for you. This option is the easiest of them all.
Finally there is another option called 'Something else'. We won't go into this one for this
guide, however this allows you to manually create partitions in the way you want them to
be.

I've selected 'Install Ubuntu alongside Windows 10'. I have clicked Continue.
The next screen allows you to resize your Windows Partition (ntfs) to the size you want,
freeing up enough space for Ubuntu.
Have a look at the below screenshots. You can see that by default the Ubuntu installer
has decided to give most of the space (30.6GB to Windows). It set 22.5GB to give to
Ubuntu. I decided that this was a bit miserly, so I slid the size of the Ubuntu partition to
the left, so it was equal in size to the Windows partition. Below you can see the before
and after screenshots.
 Use the arrow slider mouse cursor to resize your windows partition

I've resized them to be 50/50 in size

Once you are happy with the sizes, Press 'Install Now'.
Next, you'll be asked to con rm that you want to make the changes to the disk. Press
Continue to both.

Accept the resize action

Accept the changes to the disk

Step 6: Location
The next few items are all fairly self explanatory. Choose with location you are in the
world so that your time zone and regional settings are appropriate to you. Once you have
selected the right one for you, press 'Continue'.
Step 7: Usernames and the Administrative (root) user

The nal step is to set up a user account and set the name of the computer.
In the below screenshot you can see that I've put my name as 'The Ultimate Linux
Newbie Guide'. Of course you would enter something like 'Jane Doe' in this eld.
The computer's name can be whatever you want it to be. When it is seen by other devices
on your home network, this the name it will be seen as.
The next item is to select a username to use to log in with, etc. Don't use your full long
name here, use something without spaces. For example 'jdoe'.
Note that Ubuntu always sets the rst user speci ed as an administrative user. This
means that as you are the rst account on the machine, you will get to do privileged tasks.
Such tasks for example; install software, update the system and deal directly with
hardware. Take this information with a little caution. If you are asked again for your
password when doing something in Ubuntu, it is asking you to escalate your own
privileges into what Linux calls the 'root' user. Root is simply the username of the
administrator in Linux. As administrator you have free reign over the system at all times.
Do not perform tasks as root unless you know what you are about to do, or unless you
have con dence in the task ahead!
A little word on passwords
At this point you'll be asked to set a password for your username. It's important that you
select a strong password, because in time to come, you may wish to open up services such
as remote access onto your machine. It's a simple step but believe it or not, still a
reasonably effective method of security, do not choose a simple word as a password.
Choose random things, like for example, your favourite colour, and your rst car, with a
few numbers (maybe your year of birth) sprinkled in the middle for good measure. Here is
a pretty strong password and could be pretty memorable to the right person:
blue77volvo!240GLS@
No, I wasn't born in 1977, my favourite colour isn't blue, but my dad did have a Volvo
240GLS! However, you get the idea. The password is still important, especially if you ever run
any server or sharing software on your machine in the
future. Having a secure password makes sense.
Once you are satis ed that you have set a name, username, password and computer
name that you are happy with, Press 'Continue'.

Finishing Up

By now, most of the software you will need will have been copied to your hard drive. Your
user account will be set up and your regional settings are all ready for you. It's time to
restart the machine. Make sure the USB stick or CD is removed from the drive when
prompted and continue onwards!
Choosing the startup option.

When you start your PC, you'll see something like the above screen. You can choose
whether you want to start up Windows or Linux (Ubuntu). Select the system you want
using the arrow keys. If you do nothing, the computer will start up with the default option
after a few seconds. You can tell the default because it's marked with an asterisk.

Welcome home!
When you start up your computer, you will likely see a boot screen (GRUB) asking you if
you wish to choose Windows or Ubuntu (that is, if you installed Ubuntu alongside
Windows). Choose Ubuntu from the list using the cursor keys (the up/down arrow keys)
and hit enter and it will start up Ubuntu.
The next screen you will see is the Ubuntu login screen. It's the screen you will see every
time you start up Ubuntu. If prompted, select the username that you created earlier (or
type it in if required), then enter your password. The system will then log you on.
The Ubuntu Desktop
The Ubuntu desktop is a friendly place, which we will cover in the chapters
six (How do I use Linux?) and seven (Using Linux Every Day). If you are used to Windows,
your 'Start' menu is the bar along the left hand side. The bottom button which looks like a
bunch of dots allows you to search your computer for Apps. Simply by start typing the
app's name (eg Firefox) or simply by looking at the list of icons for all of your apps.

A screenshot of the Ubuntu 18.10 desktop.

Favourite Apps
You'll note that a few favourite Apps have already been 'pinned' to the bar on the left,
these include the Firefox web browser and LibreOf ce for example (LibreOf ce is a free
Microsoft Of ce compatible word, excel, powerpoint suite). You can pin your own
favourites to the left-hand side bar if you desire simply by dragging an icon from the
Applications list into the bar.
Where are all my les?
On the left-hand side bar there's a folder icon. Clicking on this will show you all the les
on your computer. In most cases, your Ubuntu machine will have been set up to see your
Windows le systems by default. Clicking on the folder icon, you'll see 'Other Locations'.
In here, you can see your Windows drive. Illustrated in the below screenshot.

The 27GB Volume is my Windows disk. Clicking on it reveals the 'C:' drive, so I can access les like
my Photos and Documents from Ubuntu.

What's next?
Now that you've seen how to install Linux, get on to chapter six, to see how to
use your Linux Desktop!
Chapter 6: How do I use Linux?
Linux: Let the fun commence!
Using Linux really is a lot easier than it used to be. When Linux rst came about, it was for
computer enthusiasts, tinkerers and geeks. Now with Linux powering everything from
Android smartphones to smart washing machines, Linux is such a big part of our life,
using it for an every day operating system really is a no brainer.
Now that you have installed the system onto your computer, it's time to have a quick
introduction to the Linux Desktop.

The many desktop choices of Linux

Ubuntu Desktop using GNOME

One of our Quick Tips about GNOME and KDE etc, talks about the availability of Window
Managers or Desktop Environments. Depending upon which Distribution of Linux you have
(eg, Ubuntu, Fedora, elementaryOS), they ship with different default Desktop
Environments. Ubuntu, Fedora and Debian (as well as hundreds of other Linux variants)
ship with the GNOME desktop environment. Whereas OpenSUSE and many other Linux
variants ship with KDE by default. Then there are other, generally more niche Linux
distributions that ship with alternative window managers. LXDE (for low speci cation
PCs), OpenBox, i3, AwesomeWM and xmonad are some examples.
Choice is a fantastic thing, but as a edgling Linux user, this can also get confusing: which
desktop environment is best? Which is easiest? What tools do one provide vs the other?
There is no one-size ts all answer, and that's why Linux users are spoiled for choice.
However to make this chapter simple, I'm going to assume that you will be using the
GNOME desktop. I've chosen GNOME because it's arguably the most popular Linux
desktop environment available at the time of writing. It's de nitely one of the easiest
desktop environment's to use, and it looks nice too. GNOME has been around since
1999. Now on its 3rd major release, it has stood the test of the time.
All this said, remember, you are totally free to choose any Linux desktop you like. Simply
install it using your software installation tool and try it out!

Using the GNOME Desktop

The GNOME 3 Desktop interface, showing the Activities / Apps view

The desktop view:

Depending upon your distribution, your default desktop can be a little spartan!
When you rst start up your desktop, depending upon your distribution, you may see a
fairly spartan view. With any GNOME desktop there is an empty desktop and a single bar
across the top. The bar simply shows the word 'Activities' at the left. A Clock in the
middle and a few icons at the right hand side. If you are using Ubuntu or some other more
user friendly Linux distributions, you may have some other icons on a 'dock', either on the
left hand side, or at the bottom (see the screenshot at the beginning of this page for an
example of the Ubuntu desktop GNOME experience).

Your Applications
The apps on the dock that come 'favourited' as standard in Ubuntu are the Firefox web
browser, Thunderbird email, Files (the le explorer), Rhythmbox (music player),
LibreOf ce Writer (word processor), The Ubuntu Software Centre (to install more apps
with). The nal two icons are GNOME help and a link to Amazon. Note that the apps that
come with your Linux distribution may vary from the ones listed here.
At the very bottom of your screen you'll see an icon that looks like a 3x3 grid of boxes,
this is 'Show Applications', much like the Windows 'pane' icon on your start menu brings
up your Apps. If you download/install new apps, they appear when you click on this icon.
You can add any of the apps from your applications list to your favourites on the Dock by
right clicking their icon and selecting 'Add to Favourites'.

The 'Show Applications' button at the bottom left has been clicked, revealing all of the installed
Applications on the system. Note the tab at the bottom which says 'Frequent'. This will display only
the applications which you frequently use.
If you left click on any of the icons, as you'd expect, the app is launched. If you right click
with your mouse, you will see a context menu. For example, right click on the Firefox icon
and you'll see a few options such as 'New Window'. The options available are obviously
different depending on the app, thus the name 'context menu'.
Activities
Clicking on the text at the top of the screen 'Activities' brings up a screen with a zoomed-
out look of all the applications you are presently running. It also gives you the ability to
search for other applications you can run. If you start typing an app's name into the
search bar, it will appear in the results. Simply hit return and the app will launch, which is
a quick way to launch apps.
The Activities/Apps view, showing the current running Apps as well as the Dock and the virtual
desktop view.
The image on the right shows the Activities view. The dock shows the favourites on the
left hand side. Notice that beneath the Firefox and Files icons there is a blue 'underline'
(this will be a small dot in Ubuntu). This shows that those apps are running. You'll notice
that any normal apps also appear zoomed out when you are in the Activities view. This is
kind of like Mission Control if you are used to a Mac. You'll notice that both of the
running apps, Firefox and Files are zoomed out here, placed side by side with the text
below them describing what the App is. If you click on any of these 'thumb-nailed'
(zoomed out) images of the apps and it will immediately zoom back in to that particular
app, making it very quick to switch between Apps.
Tux tip: Press your Windows key on your keyboard (cmd on a mac) and you will
automatically be taken to the Activities view so it's even faster to get there!
Getting Virtual with desktops
A theme that has now become common across Windows, Mac and GNOME is the notion
of Virtual Desktops. The bene t of having virtual desktops is that you can de-clutter your
desktop workspace. Having lots of windows open on one desktop can quickly get
distracting.

In this image you can see that there are four virtual desktops open. The third desktop is presently in
use. You can see the minesweeper game is running and is thumbnail-led in the icon of the virtual
desktop (zoomed an arrowed).
To launch a virtual desktop, enter the Activities view. On the right hand side you'll see a
drawer containing two thumbnails of a desktop; hover your mouse over the drawer, and
the drawer automatically slides out. The desktop thumbnail at the top is the current
( rst) desktop. The next one is a blank desktop. Click on it and you'll have a fresh desktop.
If you launch an app now, it will start up on this second desktop. If you want to go back to
the apps you were running on the rst desktop, simply enter the Activities view once
again, and click on the rst desktop in the drawer. Notice also that once you have apps
running in the second desktop, a third virtual desktop is created for you automatically.
Where are my les?

You'll see 'Files' listed in the dock as one of the favourites. Click on this and you'll see a
le browser much like any other you may be used to. By default, you'll be in grid
(icons) view. On the right, note there are different views that can help you organise your
les. The button with the 6 dots/dashes on it (top right) indicates that you are in grid
view. The button to the immediate left with three dashed lines indicates the detailed
view, which is what you can see in this screenshot. If you want extra details to appear by
default in the list view. Click on the button with the down arrow and click 'Visible
columns'.
On the left hand pane of the le navigator, you'll see favourite locations. You can add a
location to your bookmarks (below the favourites) simply by dragging and dropping the
folder of your choice to there.
If you have set up an online account set up with the likes of Google Drive/Microsoft
OneDrive/Nextcloud etc, you'll see any connected drives you might have. In this case, I
have my Google Drive available. Clicking on this will allow you to view the les in your
drive just as it were any normal folder (albeit a bit slower!).
Setting things up

When you rst launched GNOME, the only thing you might have really noticed was that
dark bar across the top and maybe one on the left. On the right hand side of the top bar,
there is a bunch of icons. Click on any of them and you'll see a drop down menu. It'll show
you the audio volume, your network connections (eg WiFi or Ethernet). It shows you your
username and nally, three icons (Settings, Lock Screen and Power Off/Restart). Other
items will appear here depending upon your computer and settings, but these are the
basics. Much of the items in this menu will be self explanatory, but if you aren't already on
WiFi or plugged into the network, you are going to want to do this. Click on the WiFi icon
and a drop-down list offers you to select your WiFi base station from a list, as well as
selecting other more advanced WiFi settings.
Many of these menus lead you to the gnome settings dialogue. This is always accessible
by clicking on the icon with the spanner & screwdriver. When you click this you can
change most of the pertinent settings relating to your computer, from your background
wallpaper, to power management settings. This is analogous to the Control Panel in
Microsoft Windows, or System Preferences for a Mac.
The Gnome-settings dialogue
Much of the items on the settings dialogue should be fairly self explanatory, so for the
interests of brevity I'll explain the more in-depth items only. The look and feel of the
settings dialogue differs between distributions (and versions), however most of the
actions available perform the same functions.
Noti cations
Noti cations are the pop-up messages that appear at the top of the screen when a
particular App wants to make you aware of something. Just in the way that your mobile
phone shows you an alert when someone sends you a message, for example. When apps
are installed, they automatically get added to this list (if they are apps that use
noti cations). You can choose to disable noti cations on an app-by-app basis, or switch
off noti cations entirely (Noti cation Banners - toggle to OFF). By default, noti cations
can be seen even when your screen is locked, so for example, you can see if you have a
calendar appointment coming. You can switch this behaviour off too.
When you click on a particular app in the list, you can enable and disable speci c
noti cation items depending upon the context of the noti cations the app makes. For
example, an app may make sound alerts as well as pop-up banners. You may wish to add
privacy by not showing the message content in the banner; this setting is the default. This
may be useful to switch on for emails for example, so you can see whether an email is
important to you or not, simply by seeing a preview of it in the noti cation banner. This
saves you time having to switch back and forth to Evolution for email.
Online Accounts
This item is where your digital life becomes one. It combines all of the most common
online services in one easy dialogue, so you'll want to set this up before long. When you
enter this setting, it'll be empty apart from a button saying 'Add an online account'. If you
want to add more than one account (or remove one), note the + and - icons to the bottom
left.
At the time of writing, you can add 10 different accounts. These are: Google, Facebook,
Flickr, Microsoft Live, ownCloud, Pocket, Foursquare, Microsoft Exchange
(calendar/email etc), Media Server and Other Accounts (such as standard IMAP/POP3
Email and AIM chat). Click on any of these to set them up.
Tux tip: Your connections to cloud accounts like Google and Facebook may disconnect
and you will have to re-authenticate periodically. This is to keep your accounts safe.
If you want to connect to your Google account for example, Click on the Google icon. It
will ask you to enter your email address associated with your Google account, followed
by its password. It will then ask you to give the GNOME desktop permissions to use
Google's features. Scroll to the bottom of that list of permissions and press 'Allow'. You'll
now be presented with a list of toggle items which you can use your Google account
within GNOME for. For example, Email, Calendar, Contacts, Chat, Files, Printers and
Photos. Note that if you select them, they will automatically be downloaded to your
computer.
Tux tip: At the time of writing Files are not synchronised like they are with Google Drive
on Windows or Mac. Rather you can upload and download les from your Google drive
via the Files app. If you'd like to know how to use Google Files fully, check out this
tutorial. It also shows 'full synchronisation' alternatives.
Network
In this settings dialogue you get to change the settings for your Network. This includes
your Ethernet and WiFi adapter(s), set up a proxy, add a VPN, con gure a VLAN and
bond, team or bridge a network interface. If you want to change settings for any of the
con gured networks, click on the cog icon to the bottom-right.
Backups
By default, system backups are switched off. This option unlocks a very powerful, yet
simple to use backup feature which works in a similar way to the 'Time Machine' app in
macOS. You can schedule when your backup runs (eg, weekly, daily etc), whether each
backup is kept inde nitely or not, which folders to ignore and where to store the
backups.
By default, the backups are stored in your home folder on the local disk. You'll want to
change this, so Select one of the alternative storage locations from the drop-down list.
These can be Amazon S3, Google Cloud, Rackspace Cloud or generic
FTP/SSH/WebDav/Windows Share based locations.

Apps: E-mail, Web Browsers, Chat, Audio and more

The following apps are some of the apps pre-installed with Ubuntu. Note that they are
just the basics. Check out Chapter Seven for the low down on the wonders of awesome
Linux software. To launch your apps, just click on the '9 dots' icon at the bottom of the
Dock and you'll see all of the Apps on your system just waiting for you to explore!
Browsing the web
Ubuntu has Firefox pre-installed. You can download Google Chrome from the Google
Chrome if that's your fancy though (Chromium is also available in the App store - it's a
free alternative to Chrome, made by Google, just without the proprietary bits). You'll nd
each of these browsers work in exactly the same way as it does on Windows or Mac.
E-mail and Calendar
Whilst Thunderbird is now the default Email client for Ubuntu (with the Lightning
calendar add-on), GNOME also ties in closely with Evolution. Evolution is a powerful e-
mail, calendaring and contact management productivity tool which can connect to your
online accounts (eg Google, Microsoft Exchange etc). It works very much like Microsoft
Outlook on a Windows PC does. Of course, if you prefer another email client, there's
plenty more to choose from!
Music / Radio and Video
Rhythmbox works like iTunes or similar. Copy your music from your Windows/Mac over
to your Linux hard drive and you can play your tunes straight away. You can even mount
your Windows/Mac hard drive partition so you don't have to copy your music. You can
also play music from Internet radio stations and cloud based audio including SoundCloud.
To view video les, simply click on your video in the File browser and it will launch the
GNOME Video player. It's no-nonsense approach is lovely, however if you are after a
more fully featured video player, then there are tons to pick from. The most popular
video player is VLC, which is a cross-platform app that, whilst is a little more complex, it'll
play just about any movie le under the sun.
Image Viewer / Photos

The spartan look of Gnome Photos.

As with all of the built-in GNOME apps, they are deliberately simple in nature. The les
which are in the 'Pictures' folder, which is inside your Home folder, are automatically
displayed. To organise your photos, you can assign photos to customised albums, and
mark some as favourites.
If you have hooked up an online account which supports photo sharing (Google Photos
for example), then you will see all of your cloud photos in there too (it will take a long time
to synchronise if you are like me with thousands of photos!).
GNOME Photos is great for viewing and sorting, however, if you want to edit the photo,
you will need a photo editing tool. If you want something really basic (a drop in
replacement for Microsoft Paint), then use Pinta. If you are looking for the full power of
something like Photoshop then try GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Project). Both of
these apps can be installed through the Software tool which we mention below.
Word, Excel, Powerpoint: LibreOf ce.

LibreOf ce is the de-facto Of ce suite for open source computer users. It supports
Microsoft Of ce formats (mostly), and using the applications feel just like they should do.
LibreOf ce Writer is for word processing, Calc is for spreadsheets. Impress is for
presentations. Math is for complex calculations. Whatever your of ce productivity
needs, LibreOf ce should have it covered.
GNOME also comes with an app called Documents, which allows you to view cloud based
and local copies of PDFs and other cloud format format les (eg Google
Spreadsheets/Docs).
The Rest
Chat: Talk online using Google Talk, AIM, Jabber, IRC etc, use Empathy.
BitTorrent Downloads: Transmission is your friend.
Zipped up les: Use le roller to decompress and compress le archives.
Scanning: Simple Scan will get you started.
Text Editing: Gedit edits text les easily.
Webcam: For snapping with your webcam, there is Cheese.
Weather: Yep, you guessed it, the Weather app is imaginatively titled, "Weather"!

How do I install more Apps?

There are hundreds of thousands of free apps just waiting to be discovered in Linux.
From CAD to Calculators, MS Visio alternatives to Vehicle maintenance apps.
To install anything, just launch the Software Center. In GNOME, its simply called
'Software', but each distribution may call it something slightly different. Ubuntu
Software, Software Center, App Store, Software Boutique; you get the idea!
For a very quick introduction to how to install software via the Software Center or via
more traditional methods, see this tutorial.
Now that you are well on your way to being a bona de Linux desktop user, have a look at
Chapter Seven, which introduces you to many more fantastic open source apps, from E-
Mail to music players, games to video editing, even how to use your Linux machine as a
TV!
Chapter 7: Using Linux Every Day
What would be the use in Linux if it didn't have great software? I'd rather put up with a
poorer Operating System than have no software, wouldn't you?
Fortunately, Linux is teeming with great software for all sorts of purposes, and most of it
is free of charge. This chapter discusses the most popular uses of a modern-day PC, and
where Linux ts in with all of this; however before we get started, I better cover the
rather ugly elephant in the room...

What if I don't want to use another app? - I like most of my

Windows/mac software just ne!
First things rst, it is understandable that some of you may not wish to move from what
you know best. Even although many of the titles (even at zero cost) compete directly, or
even exceed the quality of their big commercial counterparts.
You may nd solace in knowing that it is possible to run Microsoft Of ce as well as a
great many other Windows apps on Linux! - Although it is not software written for Linux,
it is possible to run it using software from a rm called CodeWeavers. The software,
called Crossover supports Microsoft Of ce, as well as many other popular Windows
titles such as Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Visio, Lotus Notes, Apple iTunes and so on. It
retails for a modest fee. There's also free options that allow you to run Windows
software in Linux such as Wine with WineTricks and Play On Linux.
Don't forget that these days, Linux ships with many native apps that are cross-platform,
meaning they run on Windows, Mac and Linux. And now with Ubuntu's snap and Fedora's
Flatpak systems, they even run 'containers' that allow you to run software like Skype,
Spotify and Kodi amongst thousands of others.

Ubuntu's Snapcraft store lets you install software which isn't natively made for Linux, such as the
Spotify app.
Despite of all the abilities to run software that wasn't built for Linux, it's reasonably easy
to get your favourite titles brought over to Linux if you really must keep them. However,
not investing a little time in evaluating just some of the amazing native Linux software
titles out there would be a travesty indeed, so the rest of this page is dedicated to
showing you how great Linux software is. Most of it free!

Using Linux for all your of ce needs

When Linux rst came out back in the early 1990s one of the downfalls of Linux was that
good of ce software was lacking, making it an impractical system for business users.
From the late nineties onwards, this is no longer the case.

Of ce Package Software

LibreOf ce is an ideal replacement for Microsoft Of ce

LibreOf ce: Microsoft Of ce users will be pleased to know that the most popular Of ce
suite in Linux, LibreOf ce, supports Microsoft Word Documents, Excel Spreadsheets and
PowerPoint presentations.
The latest incarnation of LibreOf ce includes a Word Processor (with export to PDF
feature), Spreadsheet, Presentation creator and more.
OpenOf ce: LibreOf ce was originally built on software made by Sun (now owned by
Oracle), which is a 'fork' of the still available OpenOf ce. The Apache project currently
maintain that. It looks and works in a similar way to LibreOf ce.
My recommendation is to start off with LibreOf ce as it's included in most Linux
distributions and is a well-known, multi-platform alternative to Microsoft Of ce,
however if you need more compatibility, or have a niche requirement, then there are a
plethora of alternatives, here are some that are worthy of mention:
KDE users can use the many apps in the Calligra of ce suite including Words, Sheets, Stage
(presentation sofware), Plan: A project management application that can create Gantt charts.
Braindump: A notetaking and mindmapping application. Flow: A programmable owchart drawing
program. Karbon: A vector graphics editor. Krita: A digital painting program with some image
editing features. Author i An e-book authoring application like iBooks Author. Finally Kexi (A
visual database management front-end, similar to Microsoft Access, with limited compatibility to
Access' le format. A Report Designer is included).
Softmaker FreeOf ce is a free suite that looks and feels just like Microsoft Of ce365, right down
to the ribbon
Google's G Suite - Obviously Google's cloud service is available in your web browser so you can
work and share with Docs, Sheets and Slides.
OnlyOf ce is a completely completely cloud based service (like Of ce365.com) and is guaranteed
100% Microsoft Of ce compatible.
The GNOME project also authors a bunch of of ce tools such as: Ease (Presentations), AbiWord
(Word processor), Gnumeric (SpreadSheet), Inkscape (Drawing) and GnuCash (Financial
Management) as well as more.
WPS Of ce: WPS is made by a commercial company and has a free edition for Personal and
Education use. The Business version costs around $45/yr. It looks really slick and operates very
similarly to MS Of ce.

WPS Of ce offers a high degree of compatibility with Microsoft Of ce

Groupware Suites (e-Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Tasks)

Evolution showing its Mail view (left) and Kontact showing it's calendar view (right). Both bear
striking similarities to Microsoft Outlook.

Evolution

Evolution is provided with a standard GNOME desktop environment and is a groupware

suite for performing all of your day to day E-Mail, Scheduling, Contact Management,
Address Books and more.
Users can retrieve their E-Mail from a vast array of sources including IMAP, POP3, Gmail,
Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise Servers amongst others.
It's overall look and feel is similar to that of Microsoft Outlook. It also supports some
mobile devices and LDAP directory servers for great connectivity, wherever you are.
Kontact

KDE's personal information manager management software is a fantastic groupware

suite for Linux.
Kontact features a summary overview, a very capable E-Mail client, contact manager, to
do list, journal, news reader, note taker, RSS/Syndication client and a mobile device
synchronisation tool.
Support for Novell GroupWare and Microsoft Exchange are not as mature as with
Evolution, but are pretty much there in terms of usability.
Mozilla Thunderbird
Thunderbird is made by the same people that brought us FireFox and is as sharp as it's
browser counterpart. It offers E-Mail with built in Junkmail lters, IMAP and POP mail
server support, contact manager and address book. It is lightweight and easy to use. You
can also download its calendar companion, Lightning, it works, but it's not nearly as full
featured as Kontact or Evolution.

Mozilla Lightning (Thunderbird's calendar plugin).

Using Linux for Artwork
Artwork has often been the lair of Mac users. This is mainly for historic reasons these
days - (Apple used to have an exclusive contract with Adobe). However, times have
changed, and Windows users enjoy many of the same fruits as the Mac users do. It's also
fair to say that this software is often expensive, however some excellent software exists
for Linux for vector and bitmap artists alike and most of it is free.
GIMP

Gnu Image Manipulation Project (GIMP) is great for editing images

The GNU Image Manipulation Project (GIMP) is the classic Photoshop-like image editor
for Linux. It's been around for a long time and can do most of the features of all the
popular off-the-shelf competitors. In case you were wondering, GIMP stands for GNU
Image Manipulation Project.
GIMP was made with tasks like photo retouching, image composition and authoring in
mind, and it should be fairly easy for an accomplished Photoshop user to convert to the
GIMP. If you can't live without Photoshop, it is possible to use Photoshop in Linux, using
Crossover.
Inkscape

Inkscape Vector Image Editing

Inkscape is a vector graphics editor, similar to Adobe Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, or
Xara X using the Scalable Vector Graphics format.
Features include shapes, paths, text, markers, clones, alpha blending, transforms,
gradients, patterns, and grouping. Inkscape also supports Creative Commons meta-data,
node editing, layers, complex path operations, bitmap tracing, text-on-path, owed text,
direct XML editing, and more.
It imports formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and others and exports PNG as well as
multiple vector-based formats.
Don't forget that OpenOf ce.org also has a component called Draw, which has a
reasonably good vector graphics editor. Also Kivio (part of KOf ce), and Dia are great
alternatives to Microsoft Visio.
Playing and editing Music or Audio
Linux has many applications for playing music and it's also really taken off as a platform
for audiophiles. If you are a budding DJ, or play with MIDI instruments, Linux is a great
operating system to use. There is a wealth of software available today which exceeds the
requirements of many a Cubase user, and all for free!
First things rst - 'Codec' licensing, or, 'Why the heck can't I play some
audio les or movies'?
If you have just started using Ubuntu, you may notice that if you try to play some types of
music or video les, you will nd that can't do it!
There is a good reason for this - Ubuntu, (as with Fedora, Suse Open Edition and any
other completely free Linux distribution) cannot ship with software that is either not
free, or contains a license which is considered commercial. It may not be illegal to
distribute such software without a charge, but you may be required to accept a seperate
license from the authors of that software, or use the software on different terms than the
rest of the system. In order to keep your distribution of Linux truly free, and the legalities
of licensing a non-issue, this software is distributed separately from Ubuntu (as with
other distributions).
You may have noticed when installing Ubuntu for the rst time that there was a tick-box
which asked if you wanted to install "Proprietary codecs", if you ticked the box then, the
software you require to play most movie and music formats should already be installed,
otherwise, Here is how to add support for these 'codecs' after installation of Ubuntu:
If you are using the Ubuntu Software Centre, simply search for ubuntu-restricted-
extras and click 'Install'. Otherwise, if you wish to use the Synaptic Package Manager or
'apt install' at the command line, follow these steps:
If you need a refresher on installing software, refer to this guide for detailed instructions
on installing software for your particular distribution.
See the of cial Ubuntu documentation for more info on restricted formats.
Audio Players
As usual, both KDE and GNOME desktops have excellent offerings, and whilst there is a
wealth of audio player software available for both platforms, I will limit the following
reviews to just two players, one from each desktop platform: Rhythmbox (GNOME), and
AmaroK (KDE).
GNOME Music and Rythmbox

Rythmbox and it's little sister, GNOME Music is one of the many audio apps available for
Linux both built with the GNOME aesthetic in mind. Both are fairly similar in interface to
iTunes, it allows you to listen and organise all your music on your PC. Rythmbox is a little
more feature-rich and allows connecting your digital music player to upload/download
music to. It also connects you to Internet radio stations, Podcasts. It has in-built support
for playing, ripping and burning audio CDs.
amaroK

Amarok in action
Despite having a silly name, amaroK is a great music player for KDE users (it can also be
installed on any other desktop). Fans of iTunes will be immediately relieved to hear that it
looks very like iTunes and syncs with your iPod/iPhone awlessly.
It creates dynamic playlists too, like the party shuf e feature in iTunes, but better!
amaroK features automatic CD cover nders for each album on your PC, so you know
what the CD looks like when you play it. It also grabs the lyrics for every song you play on
demand, as well as telling you pretty much all the info you would ever want to know
about the band you are listening to, from Wikipedia. It also features a built in ID3 tag
editor to sort out those rogue MP3s with invalid entries, and features MusicBrainz to
take some of the guesswork out of it.

Sound Editing
Again, there are so many good tools out there for sound editing, it is hard to name but a
few here, but we will try to keep it to a good few!
Give Audacity a spin, for example, if you want a great multi-track audio editor. Ardour is a
professional digital audio workstation application. For the budding drummers, there's
Hydrogen, the drum machine software. Guitarix, the Virtual Guitar App and RoseGarden
which is a powerful audio, MIDI and score editing and sequencing environment for
musicians.
Ardour

Ardour - a digital audio workstation for audio professionals

Ardour is a digital audio workstation which can be used to record, edit and mix multi-
track audio. It even goes as far as mixing video soundtracks. Ardour is similar to ProTools
in it's ultimate quest, and uses the much acclaimed JACK audio system. It allows the use
of plugins such as AudioUnit, LV2, LinuxVST and LADSPA formats. FX plugins. Software
instruments. MIDI processors.
Ardour has an excellent manual, and a quick and easy to use GUI. Ardour appears to be
quick, snappy and doesn't use up too much CPU time, making it an excellent choice for a
sound buff!
Audacity

Audacity is a fantastic, simple multi-track audio editor

Audacity is well worth a mention because whilst it does not have all of the features and
power of Ardour, it does ll all of the needs of a sound-editing novice, whilst still beating
any entry level sound editing software on the shelves.
Audacity's standard features can be picked up in a matter of minutes and allows for some
really professional results. It offers unlimited tracks and many different effects in-built,
so if all you need is straightforward multitrack or single-track editing, Audacity is a great
tool. It is my go to.
Rosegarden
Rosegarden is a professional audio and MIDI sequencer, score editor, and general-
purpose music composition and editing environment.
Rosegarden is an easy-to-learn, attractive application and ideal for composers,
musicians, music students, small studio or home recording environments.
Sound on Sound magazine called Rosegarden the closest native equivalent to Cubase for
Linux, which is no mean feat, and Rosegarden has come to the acclaim of many other
publications such as Linux Format's Top Stuff awards.
Click here for a list of some more audio le editors, DJ Software, Effects Processors and
control applications for Linux
Watching or Editing Video
The most popular titles today are:

VLC is an incredibly well known media viewer known for its versatility.
VLC
VLC is a Multiplatform media player (Works on Linux, Windows and Mac). VLC is now
regarded as the king of all media players on all of the platforms and is a great app, if a
little dif cult to navigate, however it offers a wonderful array of playback possibilities -
handling almost every format out there, it's very versatile, but it's real power comes from
the fact that you can serve up media from any pc and get it to appear anywhere else -
beam videos over the net, or just to another monitor in another room in your house.
Support for resampling makes bandwidth problems with Internet broadcasting less of a
problem.
MPV
MPV is a video player that has a sleek minimalist GUI and plenty of features. You can
even use it in the command line. If you are not happy with VLC, you should give MPV a
try.
Miro
(It's also an online video content player, a Hulu or Net ix of Linux, if you will)/Miro allows
you to convert any video formats you like as well as download and play almost any video.
It will work with your current music library and will synchronise content to android and
kindle formats. It will download Bittorrents and you can also buy music and apps inside
Miro.
Miro is a jack of all trades for Music, Movies, Online video, conversion and more
And don't forget...
Kodi - a full- edged media center. It can handle videos, music, pictures, podcasts and even games.
You can even record TV with it.
Banshee (an all-round media player for GNOME, similar to iTunes).
Kaffeine (KDE's answer to Banshee). NoAtun, SMPlayer, Totem

Video Editing
Believe it or not, some professional movie studios have actually made the leap to Linux,
which is a huge sign of just how good some of the software is out there. I'm not a
professional video editor as you can probably tell from a number of the videos on this site
(!) but you can see that even someone inexperienced like me can pick up the tools and get
pretty good output without much work.
Kdenlive

KDEnlive is a more than capable video editor

If you've ever used a Mac before, you may have had a play with iMovie. It's a great tool.
It's the every-person's video editing app. Kdenlive is the Linux equivalent and if you want
a straight forward movie editor, this is your best bet. If you want something more fuller
featured, this might not have everything you want.
Openshot
Supporting HD video, Blu-Ray and 3D, it's got a lot of features you might not expect from
a simple to use video editor. If you are a fan of software like iMovie for the Mac, you'll feel
at home with OpenShot.

Shotcut
Straight forward movie editor, with support for hundreds of audio and video formats. It's
got lots of device and transport options as well as a nice looking interface.
Cinerella

Cinelarra
If you need more than the others above, then Cinerella is for you. Hue, Saturation,
Denoising, Compression, Time Stretching, Text-to-movie, batch rendering and much
more are all staples of this sophisticated video editing suite. It's been around since 1998,
so this surely means it's the grandfather of all the other video editing tools out there for
Linux!
Blender
Although Blender is not technically a movie editor it's worthy of a mention. A number of
movies have been created with this sophisticated 3D graphics and animation creator, it's
been around a long time and is still in active development.

Blender is what the pro's use in animation studios around the world. It can also do movie editing.

Watching and Recording TV in Linux

With Linux, you can literally turn an old PC into a Linux style Sky Plus/Tivo box, all you
need is a TV card and a big enough hard drive to record all your binge watching of Game
of Thrones!
MythTV

MythTV allows you to turn your PC into a Media Centre complete with PVR and TV options.
MythTV is open source software that turns your PC into a PVR (Personal Video
Recorder). It enables the user to pause live TV, Skip ads, use an electronic program guide,
set recordings to record whole series of a particular program, edit recording schedules,
organise and view your home photo and videocamera collections as well as listening to
music and record content from the Internet, it excels at many points, making it a cut
above the current offerings from Microsoft (Media Centre) and PowerCinema.
Also check out MythBuntu,which is an Ubuntu based pre-packaged distribution of
MythTV, making it easy to install on a PC.
If you only want to do the basics, you can record and watch live TV then you don't need to
use something as feature-laden as MythTV. Popular titles for viewing and recording TV
are tvtime and xawtv.
The Hauppage series of TV cards seems to work best with the Linux TV software as it is
the most popular range, and best supported through the video4linux driver.

Playing games in Linux

In the past, games a had been a mixed bag with Linux. The games landscape has come a
long way in recent years, however it still needs perfecting. Large name companies are
releasing their top titles for Linux as well as Windows these days, helping the overall
popularity of Linux as a gaming platform no end.
Steam
Steam is a popular Windows (and laterally Macintosh) games platform. Steam hosts
thousands of blockbuster titles, and is now available for Linux. Not all of the titles are
available for Linux yet, but this seems to be a work in progress.

Steam games run on Linux natively

Native Linux Games
Many new games are being released 'natively' for Linux (that is, the software is written to
work in Linux). Other games which will also work with Linux because they have been
ported from their Windows base. Popular Linux games that you can play for free at the
time of writing (January 2019) include Team Fortress 2, DOTA 2, War Thunder, Star
Con ict, Robocraft, the zombie shooter No More Room in Hell and the new release of
Super Tux Cart (yes, its Super Mario Cart, but with your favourite Linux mascot!). These
are just some examples.
However, the number of natively available Linux games is still relatively low compared to
Windows, there is a solution to offer some ability to play Windows only games -
Crossover is a program which allows the user to play most of the Windows games titles
within Linux. This software is not free, but is fairly priced ($48 USD/yr), and offers a good
degree of ease of use and includes support.
There are a great number of resources to nd Linux games titles, both free and non-free.
Check out the following for inspiration:
The Linux Game database
Portable Linux Games - Games that have been ported to Linux.
Good old games: gog.com
Penguspy
Gaming on Linux: Latest news about gaming in Linux

And so much more besides...

These are just some examples of the hundreds of thousands of great Linux apps out
there. With all this awesome software out there, you'll start to wonder why you ever
bothered with Windows or macOS at all!
Now that you've nished the seven chapters of the main introduction to Linux, why not
check out some other areas of the guide once you feel comfortable with your new
operating system!
Visit www.linuxnewbieguide.org for all of the guides, howtos, videos and more!
 More Tutorials
The rest of this ebook takes select tutorials from the
website to give you an introduction to the rest of the guide
which is online at www.linuxnewbieguide.org

Visit the ULNG Website!

Linux Command Line Introduction
How come we have a command line? Isn't that like, uh, so 1970s?

The terminal can be a bit daunting at rst, however there really isn't anything to be scared of. It's
easy with a little bit of patience, and it's the true way to master an operating system.
Just as cavemen learned to develop their skills from grunting and groaning to writing
meaningful representations on the walls of caves, The computer world started off with
the keyboard and the CLI (Command Line Interface). No mice, no graphical user interface
(GUI), no icons. All text.

A brief history of the command line

Xerox's PARC research center managed to invent the very rst graphical user interface in
the early 1980s, however, When Linux rst came to be in 1991, most things were still
text. True, Windows 3.0 was out, and MacOS had been with us since 1984 but the PC
world was still dominated the market, and because graphics were memory hungry 'nice
to haves', people worked predominantly in a text user interface. If you wanted graphics,
you had to have an expensive, powerful PC and most people didn't think that was really
worth the cost.
Just think of it now - we use Microsoft Word (or of course LibreOf ce!) in a graphical
manner, even though we are writing text, there are fonts, buttons, icons and ribbon
menus, it's all graphical. Back in the 1980s, a word processor was pure plain text! The
primary operating system, MS-DOS was also text based.

Tux tip!
The Terminal is where you enter command line instructions. The Terminal can also be referred to as a
console, prompt, CLI, command line or shell.
Step forward a bit to when Linux came out, around 1991. Anyone who wanted to use
their PC in a quick, ef cient manner with a Microsoft machine would use Windows 3.0 to
run their graphical programs like Aldus PageMaker or Lotus 1-2-3, but they would often
open an MS-DOS prompt. This meant they could type a few commands. They would do
that so that they could quickly rename a le or move it from one place to another. Sure,
even then users could use a graphical le explorer, select the le(s) they wanted to
rename or move and drag them to the relevant location, but a lot of people were nding
that DOS was still quicker to use if you knew the commands. If you spent a few days
learning the rudimentary commands of DOS, you could really use your PC in a quick, no
nonsense way. Coupled with the graphical usefulness of Windows, you could cut
workload down by a good deal. Even today, when using modern GUI O/S's like Windows
and Mac OS, I still nding myself going to Start going to Start>Run and typing
in cmd (Windows) or Terminal.app (mac) to access the command prompt to do something
quickly.
Over the years, the people who use the Desktop operating systems such as Mac and
Windows have mainly forgotten about the fact that the command prompt still exists, but
for systems people, the people that want to do operations in bulk, or do them quickly,
they still use it often. In Windows, Microsoft created a thing called PowerShell for this
exact reason. MacOS X brought about the bourne shell (the UNIX shell from BSD) and of
course, Linux gives us the Bash shell (the Bourne Again SHell, which is just an enhanced
edition of the bourne shell that you nd on a mac).
Once you get to grips with it, it's not scary at all. Also, if you want to have a career in
Linux, you'll nd that you will need to know around the command line.
Why do we still use the command line today?
Imagine the following scenario:
You have 300 les in a folder (call the folder 'work'), and within that folder you have 2
other folders, one called 'old' and one called 'new'. Your task is to separate the les in
work to the new and old folder. You must put the les that are older than 1 month into
old, and the les less than 1 month into new. In a graphical le manager, you would need
to right click each of the 300 les separately to nd out their creation date, and then
move each of the les one by one into their relevant folder. This operation is seriously
time-consuming.
How's about the command-line option: type in one line at the shell, and the les are
automatically sorted into each folder, determined by todays date. Sure, you would know
that you would have to type something like
'find /usr -ctime +30 -exec ls -ld {} \;' to get it to happen, but hey, it's still faster than
going through 300 les.
There are yet many other reasons that you may want to have a CLI, for example,
a User Administrator has 3 dead (crashed) programs on 3 different workstations across a
building. He has two choices: Go run around the building like a headless chicken and kill
the programs manually at each workstation, or sit at his or her desk and SSH into each
machine, using the CLI, killing each of the programs, nishing the job 20 times faster.
The joy of text
If you start to use Linux a lot, you'll start to nd it's a lot easier just to issue a direct
command instead of clicking on a bunch of different icons to do something you could do
in one command at the CLI. In fact, even Microsoft have, as of 2017 stated that they 'Love
Linux'. They've brought the Bash shell via Ubuntu to the Windows desktop, and MacOS
has has the bash shell built into it since the beginning of MacOS X. The reason for this?
Because it's where people get serious about being effective system administrators and
programmers. If you fancy a career in being a system administrator then you should read
the bottom of this article.

How do I access the Terminal?

The Terminal application can be run by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T (Ubuntu and similar) or
clicking the icon in your Applications > Accessories menu, or pressing the Windows key
to enter the apps dash and typing terminal, then press return.
There are many terminal apps available and have slightly different features, but
effectively they all do the same thing. Common terminal apps are called Gnome Terminal,
Konsole, rxvt, xterm, terminator and lxterminal to name but a few.

Some simple commands you might recognise

GNU/Linux has a lot of commands, luckily though, you'll probably only ever want to know
around 10-15 of them for anything at the CLI if you simply want to remain a desktop user.
You can nd the les for these commands in folders like/bin and /usr/bin on
your Linux box.
If you have used computers since at least the late 90s, then you will probably remember
DOS, you'll nd that the syntax of DOS commands compared to UNIX commands are
often similar, and even some of the commands themselves are the same. Have a look at
this comparison table if you can remember any DOS commands:

DOS/Windows UNIX What it does

Command Counter-
part

dir ls Shows the les in the current folder

cls clear Clears the screen

type cat Shows the contents of a le, eg cat foo.txt

move mv Move a le from one place to another, eg: mv foo

/home/

copy cp Copies a le, eg: cp /home/foo /users/foo

ren / rename mv The mv (move) command also doubles up for

renaming

echo echo output (or echo) something to the screen

Some more commands, plus how to get help on almost any
command
Here are a few more advanced commands, along with their explanations and one
example for each:

Command Action Example

chmod Changes permissions for les chmod u=rwx my le.txt

chown change the owner for a le or folder chown myuser

/home/my le.txt

chgrp change the group owner for a le or folder chgrp mygroup

/home/my le.txt

mv Moves or renames a le mv /home/me/my le.txt

/home/them/

grep searches text for results cat my le.txt grep "hello"

ls list the les in a folder ls -l

nd nds les or le designators nd /home -name

"my le.txt"

mount mounts a drive/block device for use mount /dev/cdrom

/mnt/cdrom

ps Show the list of live processes ps ax more

kill kill a process (running software) by process ID kill -9 12345

tar de facto Unix archiver - archives les into one le (a tar zxvf myarchive.tar.gz
.tar le). Using the 'z' ag uses compression (gzip).

rpm The Red Hat Package manager, used to install, remove, rpm -Uvh
upgrade and query RPM packages. mynewpackage.i386.rpm
If you ever need to know how to use a command, or just nd out what a command
does man (short for manual) is your friend. For example, by typing man ls, a
comprehensive guide is given on using the ls command, what it's purpose is and what it's
syntax is. For more information on using man, type man man.
There is not a better source for quick, easy to nd information on almost
every Linux command. The only times when man lets you down, is when you don't know
that a command that does a speci c purpose exists, thus, you don't know the name of the
command, so you don't know what manual page you want to ask man for. If man doesn't
t the bill, you can get by with reading the rest of The Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide and
some googling!

Now Learn More!

Get yourself started with the fundamentals of Linux System Administration on the command-line
with the free Linux 101 presentation deck here at the Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide
Read my article on how I got a career in Linux.
Sign up to the Linux Foundation for of cial certi cation. Training courses are at your time and
pace, remotely managed and are internationally recognised.

Some other helpful links:

ViM Text Editor 101
Linux Security 101
Sysadmin Articles at the ULNG
Is there a OneDrive client for Linux?
Simple enough question, easy answer?

OneDrive for Linux. You’ve probably no doubt heard Microsoft whitter on about how
much they love Linux and Open Source recently, but what about the use of their agship
products and their associated technologies? Microsoft Of ce has arguably got to be the
most popular consumer application that Microsoft provide, and if you have used Of ce
(or Of ce365) recently, you’ll see that saving your les to your PC is no longer the default
option. In fact, in my opinion, its downright obfuscated. Instead, saving to their take of
DropBox or Google Drive; Microsoft OneDrive is the default.
If you are ‘forced’ to use Microsoft products at work, there’s a good chance that they
might be forcing you to save les into the cloud too. This is life, we can’t all be software
freedom supremes!
So, the question is rstly, have Microsoft released an of cial OneDrive client for Linux?
Put simply. No.

You had One job and now my Drive screwed it up….

Fear not! There are many ways to solve the conundrum, which might actually work out
pretty well for you!
Here’s a few options for you, we will go into each of them in turn:
Name Website More information OneDrive for
Business/365
Support?

OneDrive onedrive.live.com Of course, you can Yes

Of cial always upload and
website download les via the
of cial Microsoft
OneDrive website.
Yawn!

Rclone for rclone.org/onedrive A command line client No

OneDrive that synchronises
OneDrive and other
cloud storage services

DAVFS2 savannah.nongnu.org/projects/davfs2 WebDAV is a le Not natively

via transfer protocol using
WebDAV HTTP, OneDrive uses
Protocol WebDAV under the
hood

OneDrive github.com/skilion/onedrive, and A reliable, free CLI Yes

free client abraun's new fork of this client client. Includes state
caching, Real-Time le
monitoring with Inotify,
Resumable uploads and
Support OneDrive for
Business (part of Of ce
365). The new fork from
abraunegg resolves
some issues that people
had recently (thanks
philnc!)

onedrived- github.com/xybu/onedrive-d-old and CLI client which offers No

old and github.com/xybu/onedrived-dev two way sync. The new
onedrived- client is written in
dev Python3 and is being
actively developed.

GNOME 3 http://www.gnome.org The native GNOME No

Desktop desktop has built in
 support via the 'Online
Accounts' feature to
have read only access to
your OneDrive

KDE www.kde.org The KDE desktop uses Quite likely,

Desktop the Konqueror le via the
browser, which also has Konqueror
a built in HTTP/web web page
browser capability. This interface
allows you to browse
les and authenticate
properly

SPFileZilla github.com/suoko/sp lezilla Written in Mono (open Yes

(mod) source .NET), it allows
the user to access
Sharepoint
Online/OneDrive for
Business clients via GUI
that looks and operates
just like the popular
FileZilla FTP app.
So, as you can see, you are spoiled for choice, but lets be clear here, if you are using
OneDrive for Business (i.e., not the personal account that you sign up for online, but the
business one that is managed by your company’s IT department on behalf of the users),
then you are going to want OneDrive for Business/Sharepoint support. This immediately
restricts you to either using the OneDrive website, or the OneDrive Free CLI client. I
have heard that the KDE Konqueror le manager can also do this, however I have not
tested it. Finally, there is the SPFileZilla, a modi ed version of the Windows version of an
app with the same name. Effectively it is the Windows EXE le running on your desktop
via Mono. Note that it works just like FileZilla, in that it behaves like a FTP client, upload
and download – no le sync capability. The only client that offers two way sync is
onedriveFree. In fact, the only feature that OneDriveFree does not currently support is
Shared Folders, which can be a bit of a drag!

WebDav

There really is no great way to use OneDrive for Linux. There are plenty of ways,
however.
If you have OneDrive Personal, using DAVFS2 might be the cleanest option. You will see
it using your le manager straight away and it will act pretty much like a normal network
drive. Firstly, nd out what your HTTPS WebDAV address should be (found HERE). You
can either add an entry to your /etc/fstab (so that it is mounted on startup every time –
recommended), or you can use GNOME Nautilus/Files (or KDE Konqueror) to mount it.
WebDAV is simply an HTTP le sharing protocol. Linux has strong support for it.
If you are using fstab, here is the sort of entry that you would use:
https://cid-blablabla.users.storage.live.com/items/blablabla
/home/media/MS davfs user,noauto,file_mode=600,dir_mode=700 0 1

Make sure davfs2 is instaled on your machine before you do this obviously!
CLI based option
From the above table, clearly OneDrive Free is the leading client, supporting sync and
OneDrive for business. Obviously you can still see the les it has downloaded in your
normal le browser, however I can’t be 100% sure if this doesn’t cause any issues with le
synchronisation. I’m pretty sure it won’t, but never say never!
Installation of OneDrive free requires you install a few things rst (instructions for
Debian/Ubuntu):
sudo apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev curl git
sudo apt-get install libsqlite3-dev
curl -fsS https://dlang.org/install.sh | bash -s dmd
source ~/dlang/dmd-2.076.0/activate (this number will vary depending upon
the version of dmd, note the output of the dmd build command)
git clone https://github.com/skilion/onedrive.git
cd onedrive

make
sudo -s
source ~/dlang/dmd-2.076.0/activate
make install
exit

Then simply start the tool by entering the word ‘onedrive -m &’ at the prompt (note the
space after the -m – the & puts the program in the background). You’ll be given a URL to
enter into your web browser. Enter this, log into OneDrive and you’ll end up on a blank
page. Copy the URL of your browser back into the terminal, where it will be waiting for
the URL. Once you enter it, a new folder in your home folder called ‘OneDrive’ will be
made. It will start synchronising all of your OneDrive les.
Note that onedrive -m puts the tool into ‘monitor’ mode so that it can monitor for
changes. Therefore, it runs permanently. Ideally you should run this in an init script or
similar on startup, so you don’t have to run it from the terminal every time you start up
your PC.
GUI (Graphical) Native options
On testing GNOME3’s latest ability to use OneDrive, I’d say its a bit of a joke. Read only
le access is almost near useless. Konqueror should be able to accept your OneDrive
token and start working like a normal le share – please post a comment if you get it
working! However, if you are not a KDE user, like me, then this is a moot point!
SPFileZilla is also an option, but it doesn’t support sync and its pretty ugly, considering
you are really just using a Windows client! There is always the web browser with the
OneDrive website, but again this is simple upload/download, no sync option.

SPFileZilla: It's not pretty, but it does seem to work!

Conclusion

Due to its maturity as a protocol and support under Linux, you can also choose to use
WebDAV, but only if you are using OneDrive Personal.
Overall, however despite it being natively a CLI option, OneDrive FREE is the most
feature rich, and once in monitor mode. Also, don’t forget that you can see all the les in
your preferred GUI based le browser, such as Nautilus/GNOME Files etc. Have a look at
the screenshot on the following page:
Screenshot Using OneDrive FREE on Linux, demonstrating the sync capability and use
use in GNOME Files
How to use Google Drive, OneDrive,
Dropbox, Amazon S3 and more in Linux
Google Drive hasn’t been supported on Linux of cially, well, ever….
It’s been possible to use it in the past using third party apps like inSync or the more
basic Gdrive. However since version 3.18, the GNOME desktop has inbuilt support for
Google Drive ‘ les’.
We will also be covering a third party tool called RCloneBrowser which supports
OneDrive and Dropbox as well as Google Drive, so you can choose whether you’d like to
use the new ‘native’ inbuilt support for Google Drive, or use a third party tool. The choice
is yours, vive la Linux freedom!

Setting up your Google Account

Now onto the fun stuff! Click on the Online Accounts icon in your control panel. Unless
you have set up online accounts before, this should be a relatively spartan box. Click ‘Add
an online account’. You’ll see another dialogue box come up with a whole bunch of cloud
services. Google is at the top, click on that.
You’ll next be asked to enter your google credentials, go ahead and ll them in.

Once you have entered your Gmail address/username and password, you will be
prompted to give Ubuntu / GNOME permission to use your Google account. Scroll to the
bottom of that dialogue and press ‘Allow’.

A few moments later, you will see the original ‘Online Accounts’ box, however you’ll see it
now has your Google account in there. You can see that one of the options is ‘Files’. By
default this option is selected as ‘On’.
Finally, if you open the File Manager (Nautilus), you’ll see a new entry (most likely below
‘Trash). It should have your Google account username. Click on that and you’ll start to see
your les (this may take quite some considerable time!).

What else do I need to know?

I have a lot of stuff in my Google Drive account. My photos alone are around 50GB.
Browsing through the folders can take quite a while. This is a problem when you nd out
that none of the content is locally stored of ine. Fortunately, every change you make is
synchronised, including le deletion, copy and add. So, be aware that performance might
not be ideal when you browse some of your larger folders.

RcloneBrowser: OneDrive, Dropbox, S3 and

more
RCloneBrowser is a QT5 based GUI that you can synchronise les from Google Drive,
Google Cloud Storage, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, Amazon S3, Amazon Drive,
Openstack Swift / Rackspace Cloud, Memset memstore, Hubic, Yandex Disk and
Backblaze B2. An impressive list!
If you know what RSync is (which is great!), you’ll love RClone. It’s basically rsync for
cloud storage. RCloneBrowser is the GUI for RClone!
The only unfortunate thing about RCloneBrowser is that it’s new, and not prime-time yet.
It’s not included by default in the Ubuntu Repositories, nor in most of the other popular
distributions. So, you’ll either need to download (and compile) the source code, or
download a binary. For more information on what compiling/binaries are all about, check
out this guide.
Either way, RCloneBrowser is not as easy to get going for a newbie as one would hope.
I’m sure it will be soon, but hopefully when you get it going, it will be worth the reward.
To install RCloneBrowser, you’ll need two packages, and you’ll need to install
RCloneBrowser from source:
1. Firstly, you’ll need the Rclone binary (the text mode version of the RcloneBrowser
tool). Download it at rclone.org (or for the latest developer releases, Get it from GitHub.). Install
the binary as speci ed in the documentation.
2. Next, download RcloneBrowser from the github site.
3. Go to the Terminal and Install build-essential and cmake as well at the Qt5 dev tools: sudo apt-
get install build-essentials cmake qt5-default pyqt5-dev (you may need
other QT5 build tools depending upon your distro).
4. Unzip the RCloneBrowser package you downloaded and inside the folder it creates, create a
folder called ‘build’ next to the src folder
5. Run cmake .. from the build folder. If cmake doesn’t nd Qt, add -
DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=path/to/Qt to previous command
6. Run cmake –build . from build folder to create binary
7. Optionally run sudo make install to install it to all users on the system, or to put it into the system
path.

Other Alternatives
overDrive is a $5 paid application with a 14 day trial. It works very much like the Google Drive
client for Windows/Mac.
inSync (which I have used with great success), is a graphical (and console based) $30 Google Drive
client. It also a two week trial.
Dropbox has native support within the GNOME Online Accounts dialogue.
ownCloud / nextCloud is a great open source alternative to other cloud storage systems. It can be
run from home or a server online.

For those of you interested in console only based offerings, you can check out:
GDrive2 by Paul Rasmussen supports basic syncing. It only syncs one way at the time and works
more like rsync than e.g. dropbox.
Drive is an unof cial tool written by a Google developer. It doesn’t sync, you must manually tell it
to push or pull updates.
How to install Linux on a Macintosh and
dual boot with macOS
Got one of those shiny Mac laptops, but Linux has you realising
computer freedom is best?
This is the definitive guide!
UPDATED FEBRUARY 2019
Using a Macintosh is (mainly) a delight. The hardware is solid, fast, and beautiful, but over
time, macOS has become dumbed down and in some places, downright silly. I long since
realised that I could do exactly what I wanted to do with my macbook using Linux, rather
than being encumbered by having to follow the 'Apple' way of doing things. I never looked
back. Here's the de nitive guide to installing Linux on a Mac.
DISCLAIMER: This is an advanced tutorial which sometimes works at the command line
and can cause irreparable damage to your data. If you do proceed, make sure you have
backed everything up with TimeMachine or such like tools. The Ultimate Linux Newbie
Guide cannot be held responsible for any damage caused as a result of following this
tutorial.
This tutorial has been tested on a late 2013 Macbook Pro Retina 15", however it should
work with any EFI based Mac (more on that in a bit). The EFI based Macintosh started
around 2008 (you can check the list of the Apple EFI systems here). This should include
Macbook Pros, Macbook Air, iMac and probably Mac Pro's...
Update: Apple's new P2 'Secure boot' chip

To nd out if you have the T2 chip:

1. press and hold the Option key while choosing Apple ( ) menu > System Information.
2. In the sidebar, select either Controller or iBridge, depending on the version of macOS in use.
3. If you see "Apple T2 chip" on the right, your Mac has the Apple T2 Security Chip..
Unfortunately, from 2018, Apple decided to add a new 'secure boot' T2 chip into their
mac hardware. This basically means that you can't use anything other than macOS on
Apple hardware, however it is possible to switch off secure boot. See the image above to
show you how to nd out if your machine has the T2 chip.
If you have said T2 chip, then you may be completely out of luck for Linux on your mac, or at least for
now. If you want, you can try to disable the secure boot option in order to install Linux on your mac. Note
that I haven't tested this (I don't have a new mac), so please let me know if it works for you.

Disabling the Secure Boot Option

You'll need to start your mac into the Recovery mode and launch the Startup Security
Utility. To do this, just follow these steps:
1. Turn on your Mac (or restart it if it's already on), then press and hold Command (⌘)-R
immediately after you see the Apple logo. Your Mac starts up from macOS Recovery.
2. When you see the macOS Utilities window, choose Utilities > Startup Security Utility from the
menu bar.
3. When you're asked to authenticate, click Enter macOS Password, then choose an administrator
account and enter its password.
4. Now look at the options, there should be an option for 'Secure Boot'. Switch it off by selecting 'No
security'.
5. There should also be an option about 'External Boot'. Ensure that this is set to 'Allow booting from
external media'.
The Startup Security Utility defaults enforce the highest security by default. This won't let you
install Linux on your mac, let alone boot from a USB stick.

Dual Booting with Mac OS (yes, you can keep MacOS!)

I am writing this assuming that you want to keep MacOS on your hard drive and that you
wish to dual-boot it at any time. You should have plenty of free space on your disk drive
(the more the better), so either delete some cruft or move some of your old data onto a
separate external archive hard drive (because I know you got one or ten of them lying
around!).
I used MacOS Mojave, which is the latest version of macOS at the time of writing.
Recently Apple introduced a 'security feature' called 'SIP' (System Integrity Protection)
which you will additionally have to overcome if you are using El Capitan or newer. More
on that in a bit. We will be installing Ubuntu. This tutorial was written with Ubuntu , but
this should apply to any Linux distro more or less, although your mileage may vary with
Video stuff particularly.
NOTE: You may have to install an EFI boot manager (rEFInd) and/or do a few gnarly
things to get your hardware working before it is Linux ready, so if you get stuck at any
point, read towards the end part of this guide.
The tutorial you are about to read has four main steps. These are:
Downloading and 'burning' your Linux distro of choice to a USB stick.
Partitioning your hard drive
Installing Linux
Finishing up, which includes: Adding driver. Disabling SPI and enabling EFI. Nice to have items,
including being able to see your Macintosh les from Linux.

Step 1: Downloading and 'burning' your Linux distro image of

choice to a USB stick.

Next, unless you haven't already downloaded the Linux distribution of your choice, it's
time to go grab it. You'll nd that you'll download a .iso le, which we will need to 'burn'
onto a USB stick. Make sure you have a 4GB or bigger USB stick that you don't care about
deleting ready for use.
For this particular tutorial, we are using Ubuntu, however most other Linux
distributions should work. Using more hard-ass systems like Arch or Slackware, or even
Debian, this will be more challenging. This guide is challenging enough, so do what you
will, but I recommend you stick to the easier distros to begin with like Ubuntu or Linux
Mint.
Make sure you download the x64 version of the distribution you choose, if there is an EFI
boot version, choose that also.
Using Etcher to 'burn' your ISO image to a USB stick.
There is now a snazzy tool called Etcher (you can download it for free
from balena.io/etcher. This would now be my choice for downloading and burning a Linux
distribution download to a USB stick because it's literally as easy as popping in your USB
stick and pressing go!
Now that you've got your ISO le downloaded, and you've
downloaded BalenaEtcher, Fire up Etcher, and follow these steps:
Click 'Select Image'. Select the Linux ISO le that you just downloaded.
Insert your USB stick that you want to put the Linux distribution onto (note it will be completely
wiped).
Click 'Select Drive'. In many cases, this might not even be necessary (Etcher is clever enough to
see the USB stick and select it for you).
Click Flash!

Etcher in action - a super quick and easy tool to put your Linux ISOs onto a USB stick.
Yep, that's it! If there is any reason why you can't get this to work, then you can follow the
'old fashioned' way of doing it over on this short guide.
Step 2: Partitioning your Macintosh hard drive
This step chops your disk up the way you want it - some space for macOS, some space for
Linux. This is called 'Partitioning'. Make sure that you delete as much junk from your mac
before you start, that way you can give as much space as you can to Linux.
To modify your partition table in macOS simply look in your Utilities folder, you'll nd
Apple's Disk Utility. If you like, quickly scan your hard drive for errors, just to make sure
it's all sweet before we get down to business. Repair any errors you may nd.

Once you are ready, you will see a list of internal drives on the left hand side. Your Disk
Utility may look different if you are using an older version of macOS, but it still offers the
ability to resize a volume.
If you are using a recent version of MacOS, you'll nd that macOS now uses a notion of
disk containers. To see everything that's going on, you'll need to click the icon to the top
left, it should show you 'Show Only Volumes' or 'Show All devices'. Select Show All
Devices. The screenshot below shows this action.
Select 'Show All Devices' from the top left menu in Disk Utility.
On the hard drive that your macOS partition exists on, click on the top drive, not any
subsequent partitions listed below it. Click on the 'partition' button (it looks like a pie
chart in modern versions of the utility).
In newer versions of macOS, they prefer you to use these 'container volumes'. That's ne
for macOS, but you want a partition to put Linux on. If you see the above dialogue box
appear, make sure you click 'Partition'.
Next, you'll see the partition pie chart. You will see you can move the slider around the
pie to resize your partition(s). Pull the size slider back for the Mac OS partition to release
the free space on the disk. Make a blank partition until you have enough space for your
new Linux system. Make it as much space as you are willing to, I gave my Linux partition
100 GB.

It's essential that you choose to format the partition as MS-DOS (FAT) format. I gave it
the name 'Linux' so that it's easy to tell what it is. Once you've done that, click Apply.
Click the Partition button.
You'll see the box to the left. Apply the changes by clicking the Partition button and let
the resize operation complete. If you have an SSD, this should be relatively quick (a few
minutes). For older hard drives, this is going to take some time!

You'll probably see this message, just click 'Continue'.

NOTE: I also recommend also making a swap partition, although this isn't completely
necessary. To do this, simply follow the steps you did above but make a smaller partition,
eg 8GB.
The below screenshots show the creation of a SWAP partition and the nal 'picture' of
what your macOS disk should look like.

Step 3: Installing Linux on that Mac!

Woo-hoo! This is the fun part! Now we get to install the operating system that your
Macintosh has been longing for.
Using a USB or Thunderbolt Ethernet Adapter is going to save you a lot of headaches!
Switch your Macintosh off completely. Connect your Ethernet to Thunderbolt adapter
(or USB Ethernet Adapter) and your USB drive we made earlier. If you don't have one of
those ethernet adapters, life is going to be tricky for you, you are going to have to
download the wireless drivers and install them manually to get things working. If you
don't have one of the adapters, ask a friend for one, or buy one cheap from Ebay or such
like. It will save your sanity.
Turn on your computer and hold down the option/alt key. You'll see a menu pop up which
you can see your Macintosh HD as well as the USB stick. It will be named EFI Boot or
something similar. Use the cursor keys or mouse to select that and hit return. PS: Make
sure you revert to using your laptop's keyboard and mouse for the time being (your
bluetooth keyboard, and probably your mouse won't work until paired).

Hold down the alt/option key whilst starting up your mac and you'll see this screen.
Shortly after, you'll see the Ubuntu installer start up. Follow through the steps as usual.
You'll get to a screen that says 'Updates and other software'. Make sure you tick the box
that says Install third-party software for graphics and Wi-Fi.
Make sure to select a normal installation, and tick the box 'Install third-party software'.
The next step, and arguably the most important step in the entire process is about
installing Linux on the partitions you previously con gured in the Disk Utility. You'll see a
dialogue saying 'Installation type'. Make sure that you choose the option 'Something else'.
If you select the other options, these will delete your installation of macOS and make you
have a bad day (TM).

In installation type, ensure you choose 'Something else'.

In the next dialogue, you'll see the partition table (and probably some empty partitions
too). If you created a swap partition as per my example, you'll see two FAT32 partitions.
One will be the small 8GB SWAP partition, the other 100GB (in my case) is the main
Linux partition.

You can see the two fat32 partitions created with the Apple Disk Utility. In my case sda3 (8.7GB) and
sda4 (99.8 GB).
You'll probably see three FAT32 partitions. One of them will be near the start of the disk
and won't resemble the capacity of the partitions you created. This is the EFI boot
partition. It's tiny (209.7 MB). Make sure you leave this partition well and truly alone,
otherwise you'll possibly not be able to boot your mac!
If you didn't create a swap partition, don't worry, you can still do so by locating the empty
partition you made and create 2 partitions out of it. Simply make a big partition and a
small partition (roughly 8-16 GB in size). The big partition should be the remainder of the
free space. The big partition should be ext4 in type, and should be formatted with the
mount point of "/". The small partition should be formatted as swap.
It's time to set up the partitions to use Linux. To do that, I selected my rst (smaller)
partition, the one that's 8.7GB. I'm going to use that as the Swap partition. Select that
partition by clicking on the entry for it in the list of partitions. In my case, that's
/dev/sda3. It must be of type fat32.
Once you click on it, click the button that says 'Change'. A dialogue saying 'Edit partition'
will appear. Leave the size as it is, but click on the drop down which will probably say 'do
not use'. Select 'swap area' from this list. Press OK.
Next, you want to allocate the large partition to be the main Linux partition (it's called /).
Click on the large partition created in Disk Utility (in my case, /dev/sda4). It also has a
type of fat32.

Clicking the 'Change' button will bring up the now familiar Edit Partition dialogue box.
Again, leave the size as is, and from the 'Use as' drop-down, select ext4.
Click on 'Format this partition' if it isn't already ticked. By default, the mount point will be
/ - leave that as is. Click OK.
If you've done everything right, you'll now have two partitions. One which is small, of
type swap and the other, the larger of the two, will be formatted as Linux ext4. These
partitions will lie in amongst the other 'unknown' partitions (these are your macOS
partitions).

This is what my setup looked like before pressing the Install Now button.
Once you are happy, click the Install Now button. You'll see a dialogue box asking you to
con rm the changes are to be written to disk. This is your last chance before Ubuntu goes
off and does it's thing to your disk. Again, I can't stress how important it is that you've
taken that Time Machine backup with your mac before you do this. Anyway, I'm sure
you've backed everything up... right? :) So click on 'Continue' and let the good times roll!
Everything else should be pretty standard as per the normal Ubuntu installation.
Once the install has nished, the installer will tell you to remove the installation medium.
Remove the USB stick and it enter to restart the computer. Once you hear the tell-tale
Apple chime, hold down the alt/option key. Once again, you'll see your MacOS hard drive,
as well as the newly installed Linux system. It'll probably be called 'EFI Boot'. Make sure
you select that.
That's it! With any luck, Ubuntu should start up in a few moments and you're able to use
your snazzy mac hardware with a better operating system! However, you may note that
you probably won't have a few things that work out of the box. Most of these will be be
covered off on the next step.

Step 4: Finishing up and xing a few problems

CPU Running Hot?
If, like me, you notice that the mac starts running hot and the CPU fans are burning away
then have a look at the output of the CPU history in the resources view of the System
Monitor app (or using top at the terminal), you’ll probably nd that a ‘kworker’ process is
chewing up CPU. This is a well known bug, so to x this, run the following commands at
the terminal:
$sudo -s
grep . -r /sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/

You’ll see a list of probably 70 or so lines relating to the rmware that works with ACPI
(Advanced Con guration and Power Interface). Most of these are doing their thing quite
happily, but you’ll nd one (or maybe even two) of them that has a number like gpe16 has
a large number beside it. It’ll look like this:
/sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/gpe16: 225420 STS enabled unmasked

When you think you’ve found it, you can simply disable it, but rst, just back up the le,
just in case you make the wrong change. Note I am using gpe16 as that’s the one I found
the problem with, yours is probably different:
cp /sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/gpe16 /root/gpe16.backup
echo "disable" > /sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/gpe16

If after a few seconds (say 30-60), the CPU fans stop whirring, and system monitor/top
starts showing normal usage statistics, then you know it's the right one. If it isn’t the right
one simply echo “enable”, rather than disable.
To make the change permanent, do the following tasks, again at the terminal, changing
the value ’16’ to the value you used:
# crontab -e

--Add the below line to the crontab, so it will be executed every

startup/reboot:

@reboot echo "disable" > /sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/gpe16

-- Save/exit. Then, to make it work also after wakeup from suspend:

# touch /etc/pm/sleep.d/30_disable_gpe16
# chmod +x /etc/pm/sleep.d/30_disable_gpe16
# vim /etc/pm/sleep.d/30_disable_gpe16

-- Add this stuff:

#!/bin/bash
case "$1" in
thawresume)
echo disable > /sys/firmware/acpi/interrupts/gpe16 2>/dev/null
;;
*)
;;
esac
exit $?

Accessing your Macintosh les from Linux

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Okay cokey. Now here's the thing. Apple can be real pains in the asses some times (read,
all the time, at least these days). It is quite likely that you have what's called CoreStorage,
if you have anything OS X 10.10 or newer. This provides an encrypted, journaled le
system; even if you haven't installed FileVault (if you have, turn that off!).
To give full read/write access to your Mac OS X partition from Linux, you will need to
revert it back to standard HFS+. To do this, you can pretty much enter one simple non-
destructive command.
First up, at the terminal, issue the command diskutil cs list. You will see something like
the below. If you know LVM in Linux, this is pretty much the same thing. Your main Mac
OS X partition (Logical Volume) should be in Apple_HFS format.
As long as the 'Revertible' ag is set to Yes, you are good to go. Simply enter the following
command:
diskutil coreStorage revert

The long string of stuff is that big long alphanumeric string of text highlighted in the red
box, you want to use copy and paste it to make sure you don't make a mistake!
The conversion took ages for me, however your mileage may vary, depending upon how
much data is on your drive, and how fast your drive is. If you type diskutil cs list again,
you'll see how much % of the conversion has been accomplished. Don't reboot your
machine until that's over and done with, but after then, you can safely mount your OS X
partition with full read/write access.
First, make sure that you have hfsprogs installed. Example installation command:
sudo apt-get install hfsprogs

Next, mount or remount the HFS+ drive; commands need to be as follows:

sudo mount -t hfsplus -o force,rw /dev/sdXY /media/mntpoint

or
sudo mount -t hfsplus -o remount,force,rw /dev/sdXY /mount/point

If you want it to mount each time you start up your tux-i ed Macintosh, you'll need to
add the entry to the fstab (sudo vi /etc/fstab):
/dev/sdXY /media/mntpoint hfsplus force,rw,gid=1000,umask=0002 0
0

Where your user gid is 1000 (use the id command to nd out your gid)

FaceTime HD Camera:
You’ll need the FaceTime HD module for your kernel. It’s a bit of a pain in the butt to get
going, but it does go once you’ve set it up. Full documentation is
here: https://github.com/patjak/bcwc_pcie/wiki/Get-Started#get-started-on-ubuntu
Here are the steps I followed to get everything working on Ubuntu. You need to be
running a fairly recent version of Ubuntu (16.04 onwards should be ne), so 18.10 will be
no worries. You’ll need to run all the following commands from the Terminal.
$ indicates running the command as a normal user
$ indicates running the command as a normal user
# indicates as root (use the sudo command), eg: $sudo apt-get install …
Install the dependencies : # apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` git kmod
libssl-dev checkinstall curl xzcat cpio
(Note that xzcat is called xz-utils on Ubuntu 18.10).
Extract and install the rmware le:
$ git clone https://github.com/patjak/bcwc_pcie.git
$ cd bcwc_pcie/firmware
make
sudo make install

The output should say ‘Copying firmware into '/usr/lib/firmware/facetimehd'

Now you need to build the kernel module (driver). Change into that dir: $ cd ..
(you should now be in the bcwc_pcie folder)
Build the kernel module: $ make
Generate dkpg and install the kernel module, this is easy to uninstall later: # checkinstall
Run depmod for the kernel to be able to nd and load it: # depmod
Load kernel module: # modprobe facetimehd
Try it out by installing like ‘cheese’ and seeing if your webcam works.

No video device, or /dev/video does not exist?

I had a problem with the driver at this point, where /dev/video was not there, which was
easily xed by performing the following steps:
In some scenarios, you’ll have to unload bdc_pci before inserting the kernel module,
or /dev/video (or /dev/video0) won’t be created. Do this with modprobe -r
bdc_pci. If you’ve already done a modprobe facetimehd, also do a modprobe -r
facetimehd, before re-running modprobe facetimehd. This xed the issue for me.
Making the camera work on startup
If you want the driver to be enabled on startup, extra steps may be required. On Ubuntu,
the following should work:
$sudo echo facetimehd >> /etc/modules

sudo gedit /lib/systemd/system-sleep/99facetimehd or if

/lib/systemd/system-sleep does not exist: sudo gedit
/usr/lib/systemd/system-sleep/99facetimehd
Paste this in the empty le:
#!/bin/sh
case $1/$2 in
pre/*)
echo "Going to $2..."
modprobe -r facetimehd
;;
post/*)
echo "Waking up from $2..."
modprobe -r bdc_pci
modprobe facetimehd
;;
esac

And save.
Make it executable: sudo chmod a+x /lib/systemd/system-
sleep/99facetimehd or sudo chmod a+x /usr/lib/systemd/system-
sleep/99facetimehd

Making sure when you update your system your facetimehd driver updates
too
When you perform a system update in Ubuntu, it often updates the Kernel too. When
you update the kernel, the modules need to be upgraded to work with that Kernel
version. As you’ve build a custom module, you’ll need to ensure that the module is up to
date too. Here’s how to do that:
You will need to verify dkms.conf that the module name facetimehd and version
number 0.1 are correct and either update the dkms.conf or adjust the instructions
where -m and -v are used.
 Install needed packages: # apt install debhelper dkms
Remove old package if installed: # dpkg -r bcwc-pcie
Make a directory to work from: # mkdir /usr/src/facetimehd-0.1
Change into the git repo dir: $ cd bcwc_pcie
Copy les over: # cp -r * /usr/src/facetimehd-0.1/
Change into that dir: # cd /usr/src/facetimehd-0.1/
Remove any previous debs and backups: # rm backup-*tgz bcwc-pcie_*deb
Clear out previous compile: # make clean
Register the new module with DKMS: # dkms add -m facetimehd -v 0.1
Build the module: # dkms build -m facetimehd -v 0.1
Build a Debian source package: # dkms mkdsc -m facetimehd -v 0.1 --source-only
Build a Debian binary package: # dkms mkdeb -m facetimehd -v 0.1 --source-only
Copy deb locally: # cp /var/lib/dkms/facetimehd/0.1/deb/facetimehd-
dkms_0.1_all.deb /root/
Get rid of the local build les: # rm -r /var/lib/dkms/facetimehd/
Install the new deb package: # dpkg -i /root/facetimehd-dkms_0.1_all.deb

If you have any trouble, please read this guide on making a DKMS
package:http://www.xkyle.com/building-linux-packages-for-kernel-drivers/
Problems booting Linux? Fix it by installing the EFI boot manager and
disabling SIP protection.
Hopefully the following section won't bug most of you any more. With recent versions of
most Linux distros supporting EFI, this shouldn't be an issue. However, if you are having
issues getting your distro to boot, then read on.
EFI stands for Extensible Firmware Interface and is now pretty much commonplace in
Macs and PCs across the industry. It replaced the trusty old BIOS system that PCs had
used since the 1980s. Installing Linux on a BIOS based machine was trivial, but now with
Apple's take on EFI on their customised hardware, it can be a little challenging. No
worries, this is the Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide. We got this!
Download rEFInd

The red circle indicates where to download rEFInd

rEFInd is a boot-loader for EFI based machines. Think of it like bootcamp, or GRUB for
GRUB :) You'll want to download rEFInd from the rEFInd website:
rEFInd Website

Now, if you take a look around the rEFInd website, you'll see it looks like the guy that
wrote it believes in punishing everyone that wants to use it. It took us about 20 minutes
just to nd the frigging download link! So the ULNG has taken the time to go through all
the pertinent steps to make it shit tons easier for you!
The version of rEFInd that we used is 0.10.0, and we used the zip archive version. Once
you download the binary, you are going to need to start the rest of your work from the
Terminal, so open up the Terminal from the Utilities folder on your Macintosh and head
over to your Downloads folder where you saved rEFInd to.
If the zip archive is not already unzipped, unzip it using the unzip command and head into
the newly created re nd-bin-0.11.0 folder:
$unzip refind-bin-0.11.0.zip

$cd refind-bin-0.11.0
For the next step, take a note of the full directory where you downloaded the re nd tool
into. For example /Users/bob/Downloads/re nd-bin-0.11.0 (you can also type pwd at the
command prompt to tell you which present working directory you are in).
Installing rEFInd by working around SIP
Before we can properly install rEFInd, we will need to take care of a pesky thing that
Apple put into their hardware called SIP (System Integrity Protection). There are a
couple of ways to do this, but I found the easiest way to do so is to pop your system into
recovery mode and issue a command from the terminal there. There is a bit more
information on this process over here.
To enter recovery mode on your Macintosh, shut your machine down completely. Give
the machine around 30 seconds and then switch back on. Now quickly hold down the
Command and R key at the same time until at least you hear the Apple 'chime' sound.
Shortly you will enter recovery mode. I recommend plugging in an Ethernet cable to do
this, however it is possible to do with WiFi.
Once you are in the Recovery tool, enter the Utilities menu up on the top bar, and click on
Terminal.
Issue the following command:
csrutil disable

NOTE: Using macOS from Sierra onwards, the csrutil tool may have been removed. If
csrutil is unavailable for whatever reason, don't despair, simply go into the directory that
you downloaded re nd into and run re nd-install. Earlier, you noted down this folder, so
just cd to it, for example:
$cd /Users/bob/Downloads/refind-bin-0.11.0/

Once you have done that, install rEFInd:

sudo ./refind-install

(if you are prompted for a password, note that this is your own mac password).
NB: if you have issues and nd that rEFInd doesn't operate properly, you can also try the -
-alldrivers ag (but use this with extreme caution!) $sudo ./refind-install --
alldrivers
Once REFind is all installed, reboot the mac and you should be good to go. All going well,
you should be seeing the rEFInd menu. Use the cursor key to select your Linux
installation and hit that return key. Fingers crossed, your system will start up without
much of a hitch!
If you don't see the rEFInd menu on startup, try starting up your mac whilst holding down
the Command key (or if that doesn't work, the alt/option key).
---YOU PROBABLY NO LONGER NEED THE BELOW INFORMATION!---
The next bit of text was necessary for versions of rEFInd before 0.10.0. This guide has
been updated for version 0.11.0, and so you shouldn't need to do any of this. Isn't that
great?! However, if things don't work the way you expect, then you can do this whilst still
in the recovery tool, and in the re nd folder.
Now it's time to edit the EFI con g le, but you will need to mount that hidden EFI
partition rst. Thankfully, rEFInd has a little tool you can use to mount the partition:
$sudo mountesp

Edit /Volumes/ESP/EFI/re nd/re nd.conf. Like me, you may nd the re nd.conf le is in
/Volumes/ESP/EFI/BOOT, instead of a folder called re nd.
$sudo nano /Volumes/ESP/EFI/refind/refind.conf (or use vi like
me, if you are that way inclined. Just not emacs!).

locate the line that says scanfor and edit it to say:

scanfor internal

If no such line exists, add it into the le near the top.

Next, change the con g le to load the appropriate Linux le system driver. Check for a
line that starts fs0. If no such line exists, add it as below, otherwise edit it:
fs0: load ext4_x64.efi

fs0: map -r
Save the le and quit your editor. That's pretty much it for the rEFInd bit. That is the
hardest part over and done with. If you want to be sure it worked, you should power off
your machine and power on again. If you see a grey screen with the rEFInd logo, then it
has worked. You should be able to chose the Mac OS X logo and hit return to start up OS
X again.

Screen backlight, Keyboard Backlight and Volume control hotkeys

I haven't had any issues with the screen backlight, keyboard backlight and the volume
control keys since Ubuntu 17.10, however if you do, a package is now available for
Debian and Ubuntu called 'pommed', which handles the hotkeys found on the Apple
MacBook Pro, MacBook and PowerBook laptops and adjusts the LCD backlight, sound
volume, keyboard backlight or ejects the CD-ROM drive accordingly.
Installation is as simple as installing the package through apt-get:
sudo apt-get install pommed
sudo pommed
This will run pommed as a daemon (run in the background).
If that doesn't work for whatever reason run it in the foreground and check for any errors
sudo pommed -f. On my Late 2013 Macbook Pro Retina 15", pommed did not work for
me. Check out Jessie's blog and accompanying script for a more manual solution if you
face this problem too.
NB: I did find that my keyboard backlight buttons now work out of the box on Ubuntu 17.10.

Nvidia Graphics & Retina Display

The graphics display should generally work out of the box, however there may be
'interesting' graphical issues. Not all of these might be xable, but give the NVidia drivers
a try, and if you still don't have any luck, read the many forums until you get a solution
that works for you.
sudo apt-get install nvidia-driver xserver-xorg-video-intel

Note if you are not using xorg, you'll need to make the appropriate changes here. Maybe
best to stick with xorg for now!
On newer macs, they use AMD graphics rather than NVidia. They also have their own set
of unique problems in some cases. As I don't have a mac with AMD graphics, you'll need
to do a little more googling on that.
Your Macbook Pro Retina display is also known outside the Apple world as an HiDPI
display (high resolution graphics). Using the nvidia driver ensures that the maximum
resolution of your display is achieved, however if you are used to seeing things extra
small (therefore more screen real-estate, you can enable HiDPI scaling for GNOME via
the following Terminal command and log out and log back into GNOME:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface scaling-factor 1

Setting it to a value of 2 returns the display to how it was before. You can also edit this
setting within the dconf editor (GUI application)
If you are using another window manager such as KDE or are having issues with other
apps not playing nicely, have a look at the ArchWiki for hints on HiDPI.
Okay, that about wraps it up for this ditty, I hope it has worked for you. If it hasn't, or you
have some feedback to offer, we would love to hear it!
How I got my job in Linux: from Newbie to
Pro
In this commentary article I go into the journey I took from 2001 when I started out using
Linux properly and the present day. If you think that you too would like to get into Linux
as a career or become less of a novice and more of a power user, then read on, this article
is for you. Even if you want to enter into other inter-related careers that depend heavily
on Linux, for example DevOps, Cloud and Security, my twenty years experience in Linux
might have some pearls of wisdom that you may nd helpful.

Why I got into Linux

My rst ADSL1 modem. 'The Ugly Frog' (Alcatel SpeedTouch USB).

The year was 2000. I was a student at college. Like most students, I was poor. I had been
running Windows 95 and then 98. From a young age, I had grown up with computers and
I got into them as my main area of interest pretty quickly. I had grown up with an PC/XT.
Later a 486 and by 2000, I had my home-built Pentium II! I remember the day when I got
a 512kbps ADSL connection to my home. Broadband! That was a game-changer for me,
having had an unreliable 56K modem for the longest time, having access to this new thing
called "The Internet". However, in all honesty the biggest change was before this, in
1999...
It was the time when I realised that I was always having to reboot my PC that crashed
continuously. I also had to reinstall Windows twice a year so that it wasn't almost
unusable; It used to grind to a near halt when it started up. I often asked myself, why does
my PC start off ne and then start getting slower and slower after a few months? I
gured that it wasn't the hardware that was breaking - it was the software that was
substandard. I started working as a technician in a large PC store around this time. Time
after time, the customers were coming to me and saying their expensive PC was running
slowly too. Everyone assumed that the computer was a dud. People even demanded
refunds!
So, if this wasn't just happening to me, but happening to lots of normal people's
computers, of all different makes and kinds, then the only one constant was the operating
system. This was Microsoft Windows.

I was peeved, because I'd spent my own money on building a computer and buying
Microsoft Windows to put on it. Money that I really needed to pay the rent and put food
in my belly. I also felt sorry for all the people that I'd end up re-installing Windows on
their PC to x their problem. I knew that most of them would probably be back in the
store six or so months later with the same complaint.
Almost by accident, I found Linux. I was in the magazine section of the PC shop I worked
in one day in late 1999. I saw a magazine called 'Linux Answers'. On the cover was a copy
of Red Hat Linux 6.0. Before long, I had done the unthinkable: I had deleted Windows in a
rage of fury because it had completely crashed and wouldn't start up. All of my MP3s,
photos and documents, all but gone save for a few backups on CDs I had lying around.
Back in those days I had no idea that I would have been able to salvage those les with
Linux; I just blithely reformatted my hard disk and went cold-turkey, believing everything
that the magazine said, I forced myself into the abyss of the unknown! These were
exciting times!
I remember the blue text-mode installer, the glare of the many lines of text ying by when
the machine started up for the rst time. It looked really un-user friendly. Eventually, the
screen ipped into what I'd later know to be called 'runlevel 5' and I could see a graphical
login screen. Little did I know it, but that ashing cursor was the beginning to a whole
new world of computing for me.

The login screen in Red Hat 6.0. Look at those 'lovely' non-scaled fonts :)
The Red Hat Linux 6.0 desktop certainly lacked the nesse of modern-day Linux. And yes, that is
Netscape Navigator! In later versions of Red Hat, it eventually turned into Mozilla.
For the most part, the journey I undertook was without issue. I remember having some
hardware issues with my 3D graphics card, which I managed to x after a good deal of
twiddling. I already knew my way about computers and I still messed up a good number
of times, but it was fun. I could tinker with literally anything; like a car enthusiast under
the hood of their car, you could tweak anything to make it work just the way you wanted
it to. The performance and reliability far outperformed that of its Microsoft counterpart.
I was hooked.
Me, circa 2001, a carefree and Linux daft 19 year old! That's probably Red Hat 6.0 running in the
background. These were the early days of me writing the Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide
Not everyone's cup of tea...
As I say, I was a computer kid. I had started my 'real' computer days in 1990, with MS-
DOS 3.2. I grew up with un-user friendly commands that you'd type in. No mouse, no
graphical 'Windows' like thing to use. But I wanted to play my games, so I had to learn to
use MS-DOS! Despite computers being substantially harder to use in 1999 than they are
today, whilst I was ready for Linux in 1999, most of the average computer users were not.

What ended up being good fun became a career

The EdLUG was a whole new geeky dimension!

A few years went by and because I'd forced myself to use Linux, despite it being a harder
choice, it was what landed me my rst 'proper' job. Up until now, I'd been studying and
working part-time at the PC store. When I nished college, I sought out my rst proper
job. I joined up with my local 'LUG' (Linux Users Group) and as luck would have it, it was
there I heard about getting a job in Linux.

How I got my rst and second Linux job.

Being fully responsible for the rst time, whilst using the platform I loved gave me immense
satisfaction.
Before long, I had found a job in a town a few miles away from my home city of Edinburgh,
just by talking to the people at the 'LUG'. They were really helpful at building connections
and helping me nd work. I went to work for an Internet Service Provider in the early
2000s was crazy fun but also pretty wild sometimes. We'd make servers out of any old
hardware we could. I cut my teeth compiling Slackware Linux kernels and make Apache
1.0 web servers. We hosted thousands of websites and before I knew it, I'd outgrown my
role in terms of skills and interest. I was well on my way to being a knowledgeable Linux
admin.
The next job came along quickly. They wanted me as a consultant. I'd zoom around in my
car from client to client, xing up their computers and putting Linux on them whenever I
could. I learned I could make backup servers, routers, rewalls, web servers, you name it;
I was ripping out proprietary software at clients left right and centre, giving them
software freedom with Linux. We charged the same rate for proprietary solutions as we
did for open source Linux based ones. The trick was, because we didn't have any software
costs to cover, and only a little more time to learn the solutions, the pro t margin was far
higher than when we had to deal with software licensing costs. The customers were
happier too, because they had more reliable solutions. Win win.

The need for the Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide

Later on I decided to go to University (more on that later). I went back to the PC store I
had worked at when I was at college. I still couldn't believe that all this time had passed,
Windows XP was the norm now, and yet people were still having the exact same issues as
I had seen in years gone by. I started giving free hour long lessons to anyone that wanted
to come along on a Sunday so that they could nd out about what Linux was and how to
set it up, but that only had 20 or so students a week.
Now that I was a reasonably advanced user of Linux. Linux had been good to me. I felt
that in-keeping with the philosophy of all things open source, it was time to pay it
forward. I was still seeing far too many people suffer with slow, cumbersome, proprietary
systems. I wished that I could tell them all about this computer revolution. I wanted to
help bring Linux to as many people as I could, not just techies like me, so I decided to
write a website to t the bill that I couldn't nd on the web anywhere else.
The year was 2001, I got a web design friend to help me with the graphics design and
layout, whilst I went to work on writing the copy. I wrote ten chapters (which are now
condensed to seven, given that Linux is far easier to use today). If you've read through
the chapters of the Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide then you'll know that I started out with
the pure intent on encouraging people with little in the way of 'geeky' computer savvy. I
wanted to make it as completely open to everyone as possible, so that they could get into
using Linux with the absolute minimum of things standing in their way to discourage or
impede their journey into Linux and open source software.
The original look of the ULNG circa 2001. Thanks to the folks at the Internet Archive for this copy! I
have found great entertainment looking at the forum sections!

Liberty at stake: Linux to the masses!

Let me just get this out of the way rst: I am no hippie. I wear a suit to work and I pay my
taxes like everyone else. However, I believed strongly (and still do) that when you use a
computer, you should be able to use it in the way you want to. You shouldn't need to be
bound to licenses that impede your freedom. You should be able to trust the software
you use isn't siphoning off your information to the highest bidder or wreaking havoc with
your privacy. You should be able to have access to the use of a computer, no matter your
background or nancial wealth. Having a 10 year old computer should not be a limitation
of you being able to use it. You shouldn't be limited to educate yourself about the inner
workings of your computer system and software because a pro teering company locks it
up for you not to see. I shouldn't have to pay exorbitant fees for software that doesn't
match its price tag. Software that is often defunct in a year or two because the vendor
crippled it that way.
I spent time in the guide to extol the virtues of the fact that Linux and Open Source
software means software freedom. Free as in free speech, not as in free beer (as Richard
Stallman would put it). I spent many nights putting love into the guide and writing it all by
hand in HTML (yes, in those days we didn't have CMS's!). I had a bit of spare time back
then, and an understanding girlfriend! There were no ads on the website then, but as the
years went on, I felt that in order to keep the site relevant and make my precious little
spare time worthwile, I should put ads on the site. It was with a heavy heart I but I felt
that a modicum of money from ads was reasonable for quality original content. When I
say a modicum, I really mean a pittence, but when I see that little bit of money in my
PayPal once every now and again, it reminds me that people use this site and get value
from it. It keeps me motivated to keep going.

Why did I go to University and get training if I already had a job in

Linux?

I realised I wanted more money than these initial roles were paying, and I knew that the
bigger companies were paying 'the big bucks' for Linux people by 2002. I realised that no
matter how good I became at Linux, if I didn't get myself a university degree, I'd probably
not get a highly paid job. I quit work and went back to school. These days, I'd reckon that
a University degree isn't necessary, if you can demonstrate capability. I'm a hiring
manager these days and all I want to see is if you can walk the walk. Personally, I make a
test server with a random scenario. The interviewee will SSH into the server and try to
complete the scenario. If they can do that and they have the right personality, they are as
good as hired!
I underwent other training over the years, Cisco Networking, Red Hat Cloud
technologies, LPI and so forth, however I feel that nothing beats experience and interest.
If you've got your own lab at home and you play with it regularly, this is the best way to
learn. Break things and break them again until you make it work! For me, these were the
days when I learned the most. I learned about the inner-workings of the Internet and
networking: DNS, DHCP, TCP/IP, Firewalling and Routing etc. I did this by setting up open
source, Linux based services such as the BIND DNS server, DHCPd and using various
other tools like ipchains (now iptables).
I got familiar with the nuances of the kernel and how the more lesser known aspects of a
Linux system worked. I started up a 'shells' system for people to log into and play with
Linux online. They would SSH into my server and they had their own account to play with.
I'd leave emails for my users and we all had a great time. This was well before bitcoin
mining etc took over. If I hosted shells these days, the server would be hacked in a
second!
Having worked in a web hosting/ISP company some time back, I decided to set up a small
web hosting business of myself on the side. Linux was now turning a small buck for me.
Finally, I'd also found Debian Linux around this time. Back then on Red Hat systems (pre
YUM), you had to download packages manually and they would often have tens or more
'dependencies'. It was a huge pain in he ass installing software. I went to Debian and I
found APT. It solved all my pains by automatically resolving dependencies. I never looked
back.

Ubuntu

The rst release of Ubuntu in October 2004. Codenamed 'Warty Warthog'.

On the 20th October 2004, Canonical LTD released the rst version of Ubuntu Linux
(4.10), which was built upon Debian. Back in those days, you could order a free CD copy
from their website. I ordered a ton of them, keeping a couple for myself, but giving the
rest away to anyone who was interested in using Linux.
Ubuntu was not the rst Linux operating system designed for desktop users who were
interested in jumping ship from Windows, but even back in 2004, I knew that Ubuntu was
going to be a game changer for bringing Linux to the masses. In 2005 I re-wrote much of
the Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide to cater for this new distribution and show why Linux
was easier than ever to get going with.
Why was Ubuntu important for my career?
This was an important part in the continued success of Linux for me personally, and also
for my career. After university had nished, I could have gone on to work in jobs that
required me to use Windows. I could have lost focus and gone back to Windows at home.
However, Ubuntu breathed a new lease of life into me after four years of banging on
about it, it could have been easy to get bored and go onto the next thing. However, I had
seen the effects Ubuntu was having on the Linux community, and more importantly onto
the everyday computer user.
Ubuntu gave me that pep to carry on. I got a job with General Electric and whilst they had
locked down Windows PCs, I refused to roll over and I snuck Linux in wherever I could! I
left there and went to work for Amazon and promptly installed Ubuntu over my work
laptop's Windows partition. After all, I was working on data centres of Linux servers,
what possible need would I have for a less exible operating system?

Enlightening the corporate world to software freedom. Saving

them money along the way.

OrangeHRM saved the company lots of money and satis ed all their requirements.
After I left Amazon, I went to work for a mobile software rm and became a CIO for that
company. Some of us already used Linux. For those that didn't, in admin jobs or HR
positions, I gradually showed them that they could get what they want without the price
tag and without the nastiness of proprietary solutions. I vividly remember sitting down
with the HR manager one day and asking him for his requirements for the new HR
platform they wanted. They were all about ready to spend hundreds of thousands of
pounds on an expensive system. I quickly looked into open source offerings and found
that OrangeHRM, a completely free open source HR system t their needs exactly. They
asked "but what do we do if we need technical support?". There was a one thousand
pound annual support contract if they wanted. The software worked, they got updates
every year at no cost other than the internal IT team's time, and they saved hundreds of
thousands of pounds.
Later, I spent time with the COO about their need to move off the simple email system
they had and go to a groupware solution that gave them proper calendaring functionality.
They wanted to go to Microsoft Exchange. I countered that with Zimbra. Money talked,
the solution worked, and in the end the company conceded that there was no bene t in
using Exchange over Zimbra. Strike two for Open Source!

Zimbra is a fully-featured open source based Exchange Server replacement. Although it's better
than Exchange!
Ubuntu on the Desktop at work
Finally, I went around the developer teams and asked them if they wanted to evaluate
using Ubuntu on their desktops. To my delight, many of them decided that it was better
than their Windows tools and made the swap.
Although Ubuntu has had it's up and downs (remember 2010's Unity desktop?), it is still
more or less the distribution of choice for so many people; novices and nerds alike.
Fortunately my investment in choosing Ubuntu for the ULNG had paid off. I made video
howtos and wrote lots of original tutorials over the years and today, The Ultimate Linux
Newbie Guide still remains one of the most popular guides on the net for introducing
people to Linux. If you know someone who want a new lease of life from an ageing or
slow computer, or if you just want to get the most out a computer then please share this
site with everyone you can in the hope that they can get into a new world of computer
freedom!

Fifteen years on - where am I now?

In 2008-09, the nancial crisis hit the UK and by 2010 things weren't looking so great in
the UK. So I decided to sell the house, car and all my possessions and do something a bit
crazy. Without ever having been there, or without even having a job to go to, I emigrated
to New Zealand. Since then I've worked in a few roles. One as an Infrastructure Manager
in a University, one as a National Services Manager in an IT company and most
importantly, working for two companies who embraced open source and sell their
solutions closely around the open source ecosystem. All of my roles since 2001 have
involved Linux in some way or another, even in a management capacity, I would be
building solutions for customers or staff to help them get the most from their IT needs.

So how do I get a job in Linux?

I guess this is the part you've been reading this for :)
If you want a job in Linux, like everything worthwhile in the world you've got to be
prepared to put in some time an effort. As we approach the third decade of the 21st
century, Linux and open source thrives more than ever in so many places.
I could say that you should start off by getting certi cations like the CompTIA Linux+, or
the LIP certi cations, maybe one from RedHat, but in the end of the day, like I said earlier,
I don't think any of that really helped me. I learn by doing. I broke a lot of things, but I
learned by mistakes. Fortunately, I made most of those mistakes in my home lab!
I started out my career as a Linux Systems Administrator, and even today, this is a great
place to start out. These roles are also called a Systems Engineer or a Systems Analyst in
some cases. If they involve Linux in some way, they are probably similar in duties.
If you have more speci c areas in mind then make sure you skill up on those areas. For
example, if you want to become a developer, make sure you become uent in DevOps (or
even DevSecOps if you want to be at the cutting edge!). Here are a list of skills that you
want to familiarise yourself with before going to that rst interview. At the very least,
know what they are. At best, study them, and more importantly, learn them by playing
with them at home, in your own time, ideally on an old PC or laptop you don't use much
any more:
Shell Scripting (bash), Perhaps Python and YAML too.
Containerisation (docker, LXD)
DevOps & Automation: Git, Jenkins, OpenShift, Ansible, Chef, Puppet
Web Servers & related technologies: Apache, nginx, Varnish, ha-proxy
Network Services: BIND DNS Server, ISC DHCPd, iptables, Linux routing
Directory Services: OpenLDAP, Active Directory integration
Virtualisation: KVM, VMWare, Red Hat Virtualisation
Cloud: Amazon AWS (EC2, Route53, ELB etc.)
Text editors: ViM (or nano or emacs if you want to be ridiculed!)
Alternative UNIX systems: HP/UX, AIX (at least to understand the nuances).

I have linked some of the above points to articles on the Ultimate Linux Newbie Guide to
get you the basics on what each of those things are.
Don't forget that whilst having lots of relevant tech skills is really important, so too is
your ability to write a decent cover letter and CV. Relax into an interview and let your
personality shine through more than your skills. They can test your skills if they want to.
As I mentioned earlier, going to my local Linux Users group really helped. It gave me the
con dence to meet people and ask for help when I was young and inexperienced. It gave
me links to people who were looking to hire. Remember that networking takes time
though. You are building relationships and trust, you can't build that in a day. Make
friends, listen to others and ask for help when the time is right.
Ultimately it doesn't matter what you end up doing for a rst job. If your role involves
using open source software, you are going to nd yourself far more useful (and happier in
your role), if you get invested in Linux. And when I say invested, I mean be passionate. If
you just want to do this for the dollars, then I suggest that you should become a
salesperson instead. My lifelong desire to evangelise Linux and open source, my drive to
learn new things, tinker and pass on my knowledge to others has driven me to where I
am. Working with Linux is exciting. Everyone that works in my team today always hates it
when I give them some work to do that involves working on Windows. Many of them
came from a background of working with Windows to begin with, they just found that
working in an environment that promotes an ecosystem of openness and 'paying it
forward' really works.
A big part of the culture in my team is centred around the meritocracy of open source.
Everyone helps everyone else out and of course everyone has fun whilst we do it.
So there you have it. That's why I got into Linux, and that's why I still am in it. It continues
to challenge me, it continues to pay for a comfortable lifestyle and most importantly, it
still allows me to enjoy a positive working life.
I wish you all the very best on you road to success!