What is Linux?
Linux is a UNIX® clone OS
based on MINIX,
created in 1991 by Linus Torvalds from the University of
Helsinki. Torvalds controls all changes and releases of the
Linux kernel.
For close to three decades, Linux has been one of the most
commonly used and most reliable OSs for servers in the market,
no matter what paid third-party reports that are plaguing the
internet indicate.
Most Linux distributions include a collection of programs
that run on the Linux kernel like X, KDE, GNOME, Cinnamon,
Xfce, LXQt, Mate or other desktop environments as well as
LibreOffice and other office or home utilities. Under the Linux
name, you can get RHEL (paid subscription, enterprise
licensing), Fedora (originally based on RHEL), Oracle (based on
RHEL), Debian, Ubuntu (based on Debian), Mint (based on
Ubuntu), openSUSE (forked from SUSE), Slackware (based on the
now-defunct Softlanding Linux System), Arch Linux (inspired by
Slackware) and many others. For more information on
distros and how popular they are, visit the DisroWatch
website.
When Linux became popular (c. 1995-99), you could buy disks
for any distribution (distro) from the developers or
third-party vendors. Nowadays you would most likely download
the distro of your choice as an .ISO and copy
(dd) it to USB drive (/dev/sdb1) making sure
you have selected the correct sdbx.
dd if=linux_image.iso of=/dev/sdb1
Installing Linux:
Before trying to install Linux, get a full inventory of what
your hardware. In the past, you might have had to help the
installer recognize the hardware and/or fully rewrite the
configuration (config) files. Nowadays installer
shipped with the distro takes care of most the
configuration.
Boot from the USB drive and sit back. The only thing you
would have to decide is if you want to format the whole drive
or share it with another OS as well as entering your
credentials (root access) and network information
(802.11 if needed).
Depending on the distro, you might need to update
your installation right away. If the distro is based
on Debian and it has apt as in the case of Ubuntu and
its derivatives, you might want to run the following commands
on the console as superuser (sudo -i) for
root access.
apt-get update && # to update repository list
apt-get upgrade -y && # to upgrade local packages
apt-get autoclean -y && # to clean leftover packages
apt-get autoremove -y && # to remove leftover packages
apt-get purge -y && # to purge old packages
reboot -n # to reboot machine now
The latter runs multiple commands as a single statement —
one after another using the && (and)
operator and then reboot without confirmation using the
-y (yes) attribute. Of course if you do not
need to reboot exclude the last && operator and
the reboot -n command. I would recommend doing the
latter on a daily basis to make sure your system has the most
up-to-date packages and to avoid security risks.
You can also install packages using apt-get calling
the correct package name.
apt-get install <package_name>
apt-get install -y build-essential # compiler collection from GNU
apt-get install -y ddgr # DuckDuckGo via command line
apt-get install -y dosbox # DOS emulator for games and applications
apt-get install -y git # version control system
apt-get install -y lynx # text-only web browser
apt-get install -y nano # command line text editor
apt-get install -y nasm # assembly language
apt-get install -y python3 # language that we must all learn
apt-get install -y python3-pip # package manager for python3
apt-get install -y screenfetch # system information tool
apt-get install -y sqlite3 # relational database with no GUI
apt-get install -y tidy # utility to tidy up HTML code
apt-get install -y whois # access to the `whois` database (domain registration)
If you do not want the system to ask you for confirmation,
you can include -y (yes) attribute, before
the name of the package.
apt-get install -y <package_name>
apt-get install -y build-essential
If you are interested in installing multiple packages at the
same time, you would also need to use the double ampersand
operator (&&) after each call. Note the latter can
be written as a single statement.
apt-get install -y build-essential &&
apt-get install -y ddgr &&
apt-get install -y dosbox &&
apt-get install -y git &&
apt-get install -y lynx &&
apt-get install -y nano &&
apt-get install -y nasm &&
apt-get install -y python3 &&
apt-get install -y python3-pip &&
apt-get install -y screenfetch &&
apt-get install -y sqlite3 &&
apt-get install -y tidy &&
apt-get install -y whois
Aside from apt, another common package manager that
most distros can use is snap, which is
developed by Canonical.
snap install bottom # memory management
Note that snap might be blocked by default so you
might need to follow the proper steps provided for the
distro. For example, for Mint Linux, you would need to
rename /etc/apt/preferences.d/nosnap.pref or move it
to another location using sudo -i.
mv /etc/apt/preferences.d/nosnap.pref /etc/apt/preferences.d/nosnap.pref.old
Once snap is no longer blocked, you can install
it.
apt-get update && # to update repository list
apt-get install -y snapd # to install snap
For documentation on how to use apt, snap
or other program, refer to the man (manual)
page for each program.
man man # manual for program `man`
Note that I started playing with Red Hat Linux 5.2 (11/1998)
and then 6.0 with GNOME (10/1999), but most of my experience
since 2011 has been with Ubuntu distros, developed by
Canonical and based on Debian. Therefore most of what I cover
in this page is related to Ubuntu distros. I used to
like KDE (both on Linux and FreeBSD),
but I no longer do after version 3 (sorry, but no more Kubuntu
for me). I have also played with Unity (Ubuntu), GNOME (Ubuntu
GNOME), LXQt (Lubuntu), Cinnamon (Mint & Ubuntu Cinnamon) and
now Xcfe (Xubuntu).
