Understanding the Copyright for the Linux Operating System

Understanding the Copyright for the Linux Operating System

The Linux operating system is really just a clone of Unix, also known as a work-alike for the Unix operating system, and it was written completely and entirely from scratch, never using a single line of the AT&T code. Neither the USL or the Berkeley campus of the University of California was actually involved in the creation or writing of the Linux operating system. People from all over the world, from Finland to Australia have contributed to the development of Linux, and it is hopefully going to continue to grow, change and evolve as people from all over the world continue to work on it.

The Linux operating system is copyrighted under the GNU General Public License or GPL terms. This is a specific type of license that is written by the FSF or Free Software Foundation, and the purpose of this license is to make sure that people can not restrict the distribution of the software. In brief, what it says is that although you can charge anything that you want to give a copy to someone, you absolutely cannot restrict that someone from giving their copy away for free. What it also generally means is that the source code has to be made available as well. This is especially important for programmers. The GNU General Public License also states that anybody that modifies the program has to make his version of the source code available and free for distribution. Rather than restricting how the Linux operating system is used, Linux guarantees that it will grow, spread, evolve and be developed for many years to come.

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The Development of Linux

The Development of Linux

A man named Andrew Tanenbaum, who was a computer science professor in the Netherlands, who was a specialist in OS system design write a work-alike educational version of the UNIX operating system during the 80s and called it Minix. He did this so that his students could take it home and learn how to use Unix on their own home computers. A student in the University of Helsinki, Linus Torvalds, began searching out new ways that he could get more out of the Minix software during the spring of 1991. This was originally a program that could switch between printing out AAAA and BBBB. Later on this project mushroomed significantly and became more about exploring task switching capabilities that the Intel 80386 chip had.

There were numerous wars between Torvalds and Tanenbaum along the way. They were not all out wars as much as friendly competition between the two gentlemen as they worked to explore everything that Unix would be capable of. Officially anyone is capable of creating a UNIX based operating system provided that it will pass X/Open tests. In reality, the Linux operating system is just an offshoot from the Unix operating system, but it is a freely available open source operating system and so it has been developed and experimented with often throughout the years thanks to Linus Torvalds.  The project has mushroomed significantly through the years and now there are hundreds if not thousands of different Unix and Linux distributions to meet a wide variety of different needs.

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The History of Unix

The History of Unix

Back during the latter half of the 1960s, before personal computers even really existed, there was a company called Bell Telephone Laboratories that was working with GE as well as MIT’s Project MAC in order to write a computer operating system that was known as Multics and intended for use in mainframe computers. At some point Bell Labs decided to withdraw from the project, and then in April 1969 a group of men got together to sketch out an OS (operating system) that would actually meet the needs for the Bell Labs people.

Much development followed, thanks to Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan and Ken Thompson who created the first system, which would be called Unics, and then eventually would be called UNIX, which was a play on Multics. Later on, the C programming language was invented by Dennis and Brian, and this was a major boon for portable and reusable code that would be capable of being used on any computer platform, and by 1973, the UNIX operating system was rewritten as Version 4 completely in C.

An article about UNIX was published by Ritchie and Thompson in a technical journal, and several different universities reached out to Bell Labs because they were interested in UNIX. They had to sign a non disclosure contract, but then this allowed them to get tapes and manuals about UNIX for educational purposes online. Many universities decided to use UNIX in their curriculum, and so it spread like wildlife while computer science students developed and experimented with it. From this, BSD was born as Berkeley Software Distribution, and MIT also joined in and participated in the development of the software, helping UNIX to become what it is today.

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How to Speed up Your Computer Operating System

There is nothing worse than a computer operating system that is slow and unresponsive. You’ve got things to do and waiting for the computer to keep up to your pace can be frustrating and leave you contemplating getting a completely new computer.

Don’t rush out and buy a new computer as there are numerous things you can do to speed up your system.

1.    Get your desktop cleaned up – It seems like a good idea to save everything to the desktop as your documents and pictures are readily available and easy to see. If your computer is running slowly one of the first things you should do is get everything you can off the desktop. It is recommended that you keep the hard drive as clean as you can and purchase an external hard drive as a regular stopping point to save your documents.

2.    Get rid of programs you don’t use – Over time the programs you use changes. Every time you install a program it links between the program and the operating system. The more programs you have on the computer, the more your operating system has to work. If you’re not using the program anymore, it’s a good idea to uninstall it and free up that connective space.

3.    Get rid of viruses, Spyware and Adware – Every computer is susceptible to viruses, some you may not even know you have. Over time your browsing history is going to accumulate extra Spyware and Adware as companies try to market their products. Spyware and Adware load into your computer’s memory and inevitable slow it down.

If all else fails it may be time to reinstall the operating system and the program  you use. In many cases this is the best thing you can do when the other things you’ve tried don’t work.

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Installing the Linux OS

Installing the Linux OS

There are a number of different ways that you can use Linux on a computer. One of the most common methods is simply to allocate some of your hard disk drive for Linux use, and then you can just put whatever software you want to on it. It can also be possible for you to use a Linux distribution without actually touching the hard disk at all. You can do this by bringing the software over from a computer that is on the network, or by utilizing a DVD or CD. Usually when people are talking about installing Linux, they are talking about storing Linux software on a hard disk, which is generally the best way to make it happen.

In order for you to install the Linux operating system on the hard disk, the first thing that you are going to need to do is to find a section on your hard disk where you can put the Linux distribution of your choosing. There are all kinds of different ways that you can divide a hard disk into multiple sections, and this is going to make it possible for you to have two different operating systems on the same space so that you can simply swap back and forth between the two as however it suits you.

Once you have divided up your hard disk you can use a setup disk or install disk to put Linux in your partitioned space. Follow the instructions closely and make sure that you are doing everything as directed in order for your install to go as planned. It is not hard by any means to install a Linux distribution, but it is necessary for you to do it right in order to best benefit from the distribution of Linux that you install on your machine.

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Linux on Your Phone

Linux on Your Phone

Sure you have heard of the Linux operating system before but did you know that Linux is much more common than you think? You can find it in many embedded systems like copy machines, but even on a consumer level some new washers and dryers with fancy displays and buttons may run some variant of Linux. But the place where you will find it hidden the most is in your phone. Yep, if you have a new Smartphone, odds are good it’s an iPhone or Android phone you are essentially running Linux. Linux is important as it an Open Source operating system which again, everyone uses.

If you are running an Android phone you are running Linux. Sure it not the desktop version that you may have seen with all its options and bells and whistles, but the operating system is based off Linux. Now just because the operating system is based on Linux it doesn’t mean you can run native Linux applications. No Google has done enough tweaking that it simply isn’t possible. As the Android operating system advances more and more, its stems further and further from the Linux development fork that it was created from.

Google isn’t the only company that created a phone with a core based on Linux and while the connection may be small, Apples iOS that runs on their iPhone, contains a trace amount of Linux. Because the Apple’s iPhone operating system, is based on Mac OS X, which is based on the NeXTs operating system called “OpenStep”, which has part of FreeBSD and NetBSD built into its core. So you can see while the there isn’t a very strong connection, it’s enough for most to consider it a valid claim.

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System Features of the Linux Operating System

System Features of the Linux Operating System

There are a number of primary features that are associated with the Linux operating system. For example, Linux is known for its preemptive multitasking which means that more than a single task or more than a single application can run at the same time. Preemptive means that the operating system will control the tasks rather than the application, and will allot clock cycles accordingly.

The next main feature is the multiuser support which means that more than a single user is going to be capable of being logged on to the operating system at the same time and the multiple users will not affect one another.

A third benefit is the fact that the Linux operating system has some rudimentary security that is built in, including file ownership, login and password, permissions and so on.

The next benefit is the fact that the Linux operating system was designed specifically for connectivity, and so you can connect many different workstations and many different computers together.

Next, the Linux operating system makes use of 32-bit access to the data in a protected mode.

Virtually every single utility program that is available for the standard mainframe implementations for the Unix operating system have also been ported over to the Linux operating system, and there are a number of great improvements in place. This means that engineers and programmers can use Linux instead of Unix, and they have access to a free operating system that has all of the same functionality as Unix without the costs involved in purchasing and using it.

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Using a Linux Router

There are a variety of reasons you might be interested in a Linux router. Perhaps you have had problems with more traditional routers, or maybe you would like finer control of your routers operating system? It could simply be a cost issue, if you have the hardware, building a Linux router costs next to nothing. Linux routers don’t depend on a lot of memory or CPU usage, so finding an old computer built in even the last 10 years should work wonders. Also don’t forget that there are several Linux distributions to choose from, some are dependent on floppy disks for installation or as a way to save configuration data, and others will use a USB flash drive.

Most distributions come in the form of a downloadable ISO that is burned to a CD or DVD (depending on the file size). Another thing you will find is that many of the distributions that are burned to disk are Live CDs meaning, that the entire operating system boots off the CD and isn’t dependant on installation. Generally this has its advantages, you can try the operating system without having to install it, giving you a chance to play around and get a feel for what it would be like to run. Generally speaking there will be options to install the operating system from within the booted operating system itself. As confusing as that sounds it typically means it copies over the files it needs while in a booted environment and then restarts finishing the installation.

Generally speaking most Linux router distributions are going to require more than one network interface. This simply means more than one network card in it. If you have an onboard, usually you will only need to add one. Some Linux routers may support more than one. This can be beneficial if you have a third interface that you would like to use, like a wireless adapter. This will allow you to use the Linux router as your wireless access point for your laptop, Smartphone or anything else that may require it.

Filed Under: Linux, Operating System Tagged With: ,

Using a Linux Router

Using a Linux Router

There are a variety of reasons you might be interested in a Linux router. Perhaps you have had problems with more traditional routers, or maybe you would like finer control of your routers operating system? It could simply be a cost issue, if you have the hardware, building a Linux router costs next to nothing. Linux routers don’t depend on a lot of memory or CPU usage, so finding an old computer built in even the last 10 years should work wonders. Also don’t forget that there are several Linux distributions to choose from, some are dependent on floppy disks for installation or as a way to save configuration data, and others will use a USB flash drive.

Most distributions come in the form of a downloadable ISO that is burned to a CD or DVD (depending on the file size). Another thing you will find is that many of the distributions that are burned to disk are Live CDs meaning, that the entire operating system boots off the CD and isn’t dependant on installation. Generally this has its advantages, you can try the operating system without having to install it, giving you a chance to play around and get a feel for what it would be like to run. Generally speaking there will be options to install the operating system from within the booted operating system itself. As confusing as that sounds it typically means it copies over the files it needs while in a booted environment and then restarts finishing the installation.

Generally speaking most Linux router distributions are going to require more than one network interface. This simply means more than one network card in it. If you have an onboard, usually you will only need to add one. Some Linux routers may support more than one. This can be beneficial if you have a third interface that you would like to use, like a wireless adapter. This will allow you to use the Linux router as your wireless access point for your laptop, Smartphone or anything else that may require it.

Filed Under: Linux, Operating System Tagged With: ,

What is Open Source?

What is Open Source?

Open Source is a term that refers to software where the programmers have left the source code openly available, although there may be some licensing agreements that need to be adhered to if someone wants to use it for their own project. Source code is the language that is written by the programmer before it is run through a compiler that translates it into a form that the computer will recognize.

According to the Open Source Initiative to be considered open source the software must meet some requirements. Some of the major requirements are:

- The source code needs to be included

- No restrictions on who can modify the code

- Modified versions of the code are allowed to be distributed

- The program must be freely distributed (However, this does not prevent programs from being sold commercially)

- The license cannot require other programs to be excluded or interfere with how other software operates.

- The license cannot require any specific technology or interface type

Often, large open source projects are handled by groups of programmers who volunteer their time to work on the projects they feel are worth their time. This can have benefits and drawbacks. A popular program will often have many people working on it at any given time, this allows fast reaction to user feedback, this will often quash bugs and security holes much faster than commercial software may be able to. On the other hand, a smaller more niche product may not get much attention so that issues may not be resolved for a long time.

Some of the largest examples of Open Source Software would be all the various distributions of Linux, and the very popular Firefox web browser. While Linux is still a small share of the market in operating systems, Firefox is actually the most widely used browser out there, first surpassing Internet Explorer’s share in the beginning of 2009.

Filed Under: Operating System, Software Tagged With: ,
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