Linux, Research Paper Example

Introduction

Linux is a computer operating system that was first introduced in the year 1991 by a Finish student and has been developing by through receiving and making use contributor’s opinions world wide to better on its functionality to suit its users. The operating system has been accessing market in most parts of the world due to its effectiveness as a server platform. With several modifications on the software, the software can now be accessed and be used by any person with being that knowledgeable when it comes to the computer field (Torvalds.p. 10).

Linux was introduced to the users officially in December 1991 by the designer where by this was the first to be self hosted Linux 0.11 and could be therefore combined by a running Linux 0.11. Later on in 1992, version 0.12 was released to the users although it had not been issued with a public license and had not been permitted for commercial redistribution. Later on in the year 1994, Linux 1.0.0 was released with a tangible number of lines of code followed by 1.2.0 in 1995 with a number lines of codes raised to 310,950. In 1996, Linux version 2 was released with addition of other major versions under the version 2 header. There have been several developments on the software and now the designer has a latest release of Linux 2.6.33 with 12,990,041 lines of code launched in February 2010 (Torvalds.p. 34).Today Linux is widely used as an operating system and because of its diversity; it is becoming popular in several areas operations.

Web serving; with the use of open source programme referred to as Apache, Linux has been to run it through its software and have been able to provide internet services to its clients efficiently and effectively. According to the designer, nearly 60% of all websites are using Linux which is run by the open source programme called Apache.

Networking: networking was developed in 1970s and is still widely and remarkably used today by a wide range of users especially in the running of internet in companies, government organizations business operations, industries, private organizations and even homes which has used Linux that is based on UNIX, as an operating system.

Linux has also been reliable software in most companies that do operate with huge data bases. Linux is said to be secure in its database functionality, stable in the handling of data and very robust. It is certainly preferred as reliable in the storage of voluminous database information. The stability of Linux and its flexibility in operations has given it a major boost where most users prefer it on their machine desktops. Linux is thus reliable software trusted by the field of the scientific world. There is several science fields for instance physics simulation, computer graphics rendering and even in weather forecasting. Linux system has been broadly used to incorporate their activities to a single task. Also, Linux has been appreciated by many and therefore accepted to be used on their home and office PCs.

An operating system can therefore be described as a programme that allows any one to interact or operate with the entire computer and all its fundamentals, the software and hardware. It is either done with command line operating system or graphical user interface operating system. (Greg, p.40)

Linux is also made with features that are best file editors. The three most popular Linux editors are; the VI, the Pico and emac. The VI that is referred to as a default editor is used mostly when someone is ready to write an e-mail message or when one is sending news messages. The software seems to be complicated and often difficult to learn. But despite this, it is the default for the UNIX and Linux software. Editor software used with Linux editor is the Pico. Pico is one of the simplest editor that provides that provides straight forward options and simple or easy-to-use commands. Its simplicity provides everything necessary to long documents with minimal struggles or strains when working with. Despite this and the criticisms, some users have termed Pico not good when it applies to operating certain types of files for example making changes on cgi files (Torvalds, p. 56). Emacs is said to fall between the two Linux editors which are the Pico and the VI. In the VI you need to switch between the modes where by the user wants to perform basic text editing functions while the set of commands in it are powerful commands and are difficult to command. The emac editor comprises information for emac situation that may make the user meet it in the use of occasional circumstances.

Linux as an operating system has proved to have a wide range of advantages over other operating systems like the windows operating system. Considering marketing prices of the two operating systems, the price of majority of Linux products are mostly available on the market free or in most cases going for a much lower price compared to Microsoft windows. Microsoft windows are much higher in price compared to Linux.

Linux is a bit complicated in its use although it is making improvements on its operations but still seems to be hard in its applications to users in their daily operations. With several advancements, Microsoft has always made it easier for its user operation applications. Therefore it’s easier to operate with compared to Linux.

Linux variants and versions are certainly reliable and can be able to run for quite a good time without the need for rebooting. But even with the great improvements in Microsoft windows, its reliability in the last versions has not been able to match the reliability of Linux. When it comes to software programmes, utilities and even games windows has proved to have a much larger selection advantage on the available softwares. Microsoft has large amount of users and therefore has much larger amount or a variety of softwares to be selected on by the users.

The cost of softwares for the two operating systems in their software programmes, software utilities, and the available games are free or can be found at a low cost with Linux and open source while the majority of softwares on Microsoft windows are not free but found at a certain cost depending on the situation.

Linux hardware manufacturers and companies have greatly improved their hardware devices although other preferred companies have no provision of supportive hardware to the Linux Company. The provision of supportive hardware materials from other companies is still poor. Windows has large support for hardware devices and they have had a good support from other manufactures that are supporting their hardware devices (Greg ,  p.87).

In terms of security, Linux has always proved to be a very secure operating system even though it can still be attacked when compared to windows and other softwares. The Microsoft window is seen as the most vulnerable operating system compared to others when it comes to an attack from virus infection.

Microsoft windows is said to have its own source and most of their programmes are not open source. They rely on their own produced or made softwares. Rather than preparing their own softwares, Linux variants in most cases its programmes are open source and in many circumstances have enabled their clients to modify the code in the way they wish. Linux have always provided supportive materials online and even books available for its user support despite its difficulty in user operation. This has enabled most of their users to get acquainted to operation of Linux. Windows on the other hand has its own help section with numerous amounts of documentations online and help and books for each version (Torvalds.p. 101).

In comparison between the command line and the graphical user interface in Linux is that with graphical user interface it is easy to for any user to make the operating system he is using more friendly compared to command line. The graphical user interface gives itself as an operational system because in most cases, its use makes the operating system idle. It is also faster to work with graphical user interface compared to command line interface which is old enough. With command line interface, it also gives the user more control and options compared to graphical user interface. Command line interfaces an old system and soon will not be compatible with many applications in the operating systems. Command line interface uses less central processing unit space compared to graphical user interface. Command user interface is considered pretty using a key board and is faster than the clicking.

The biggest difference between the two operating systems is that a Graphical User Interface gives you menus and you can have menus in text mode, and can gain access to direct commands in graphic user interface and therefore for most users the difference is only the menus.
With graphical user interface, you can install some of the machines ram, and central processing unit, and general resources for the sake of showing those menus but with command line the person will have more access to the machines resources, more commands and options.

On the other hand, without a menu some users are absolutely lost. Unlimited options are equal to no options at all for some people. They would rather be comfortable in pretty screens that list the most likely options they will want (Greg,  p.94).

Examples

Command User Interface

According to Greg, ‘‘the structure of UNIX and of its shells allows powerful mechanisms of piping and redirection to work. Anyone who has even done administration tasks in this environment, even simply on a desktop machine, knows that things like sed and sort are a necessity.’’  He goes a head to say that, ‘‘what makes this unique is that it is universal–there is no command whose output cannot be redirected somewhere else, whether to a file or to another command. It is conceivable for a programmer to, say; add an “Edit this output in Notepad” option to a number crunching program. But to make an entire graphical user space have universal interfaces for redirecting output is truly a titanic task (KDE and Kparts have made good progress, but as we all know, the free Unix GUI is badly fragmented, making universality practically impossible),’’(Greg,  p.194). The graphical user interface important benefit is the display of dynamically modifiable abstract information (Short example: Open a file manager and delete a file, then make sure it is deleted: three shell commands vs. a mouse click.). This means web browsing, spreadsheets; word processors, etc. are possible.

A directory service is a network service that is able and can be used to identify all the sources on network and therefore makes them accessible to users and application. They may include computers, e-mail addresses and peripheral services. The application makes the physical network topology and the protocols transparent kin the users of the network can access any source without knowing its origin and how it physically connected. It can be used to modify any environmental variables with the use of built in command provided by the bash shell. It is also thus used to set the command line string output user machines and name of directly the user is in.

Editor – Specifies the editor to be used by default for some commands such as edquota. Usually it is set to VI or emacs with a command like “export EDITOR=emacs”.

Term – The type of terminal being used

Path – The path the system looks in to find commands that the user has entered.

Home – The current user’s home directory

Shell – The current shell program that is being executed

User – The name of the current user.

Tmpdir – Allows programs that use the tempnam (3) function call to use the directory specified by this variable rather than the /tmp directory.

Shlvl – Shows how many shells the user has invoked.

Work Cited:

Greg K.H: “Linux 2.6.33.1”. Linux-kernel mailing list, Publisher University of Chicago, 2010

Torvalds.T: “Linux 2.6.34-rc1”. Linux-kernel mailing list, Publisher University of Chicago, 2010