Introduction to Linux Desktop

Vinodh Ewards

How to get Linux ?

Create your own distribution

Live CD From a Distribution vendor

Redhat / Fedora Suse Mandrake Debian Gentoo Slackware, etc.

Linux distribution
What is a Distribution?

Torvalds and community develop kernel Torvalds finalizes kernel Many companies package the Linux kernel with a selection of tools a distribution

Linux kernel X Windows system and GUI Web, E-mail, FTP and other servers Installation & configuration support Third party apps Hardware support

[Link] ; [Link] ; [Link], [Link] ; [Link] ; [Link]

Linux Architecture
Based on Unix Philosophy

Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface

Modular kernel And a set of utilities and libraries

Linux Architecture
User commands includes executable programs and scripts The shell interprets user commands. It is responsible for finding the commands and starting their execution. Several different shells are available. Bash is popular,

The kernel manages the hardware resources for the rest of the system.

Linux Desktop
X windows system is the Linux GUI

Client Server Architecture (X Server, Font Server) X Server controls graphics on local computer X Clients may run locally or remotely GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment) KDE (K Desktop Environment) XFCE, XPDE, Enlightenment etc.

Desktop Environments

[Link] ; [Link] ; [Link]

Linux Desktop Environments

A Linux Desktop

Welcome to Linux

The Choice is yours

KDE Desktop
KDE Desktop

Object Model: KParts Component Exchange: DCOP (Desktop Communication Protocol) Clipboard Manager: Klipper User Interface: Qt / KDElibs Configuration: serialized objects / plain text

GNOME Desktop
GNOME

Object Model: Bonobo (extends CORBA) Component Exchange: Gnorba (GNOME CORBA framework) / Orbit (free CORBA implementation) Clipboard Manager: GCM (GNOME Clipboard Manager) User Interface: GTK+ / GNOME-libs Configuration: GConf

Networking Applications
Windows Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape, Opera, etc. Outlook Express, Outlook, Thunderbird, Pegasus, Lotus Notes ICQ, MSN Messenger, AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), Trillian, Gaim Microsoft Netmeeting WS FTP, Bullet Proof FTP, CuteFTP mIRC Linux Mozilla,Firefox, Galeon, Konqueror, Lynx, Epiphany, Nautilus, Netscape, Opera Evolution, Kontact, Thunderbird, SylpheedClaws Gaim, Kopete, aMSN, KICQ, Gabber, Centericq Gnomemeeting GFTP, Kasablanca, KBear, FireFTP Konqueror Xchat, KSIrc, BitchX

Multimedia Applications
Windows Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, GIMPShop Irfanview 3D Studio MAX, Blender Windows Media Player, PowerDVD Winamp, Sonique Windows Movie Maker Cubase, CoolEdit Cakewalk GIMP, GIMPShop Gthumb, GQView,Xnview Blender, K-3D MPlayer, Xine, Totem, Kaffeine, VLC XMMS amaroK, BMP, juke, noatun, RhythmBox, xine Cinelerra, KDenlive, LiVES Ardour, Rosegarden, Audacity, Beast kmid, kmidi Linux

Office Applications
Windows Microsoft Office, OpenOffice Word Access Excel Winzip PowerPoint Microsoft Project Manager Outlook, Thunderbird Linux OpenOffice, KOffice, Siag Office OOWriter, AbiWord, KWord OOBase, PgAccess, Rekall, Knoda, OOCalc, Gnumeric, KSpread FileRoller OOImpress, KPresenter MrProject Evolution, Kontact, BALSA, Thunderbird
[Link]

Desktop Publishing
Windows Linux

Netscape Composer, OOWeb, NVU, Quanta Plus, Bluefish, Mozilla, Screem Dreamweaver Quark, Quark Express, Microsoft Publisher

Scribus, OpenOfforg oodraw

Adobe Acrobat PDF Adobe Acrobat Reader, Xpdf, Ghostview, Evince Reader Adobe Acrobat PDF Creator With Ghostscript, many Linux apps can print or export to PDF., [Link], kprint -- can fax, convert to pdf, and combine pages

Scientific, Engineering Applications

GAMS, Maple, Mathematica, Matlab, Octave, Rlab, Scilab

Polyray, POV-ray, BRL-CAD, GIG3DGO, Sced, LinuxCAD, MicroStation

Parallel Computing

NetSolve, PETSc, PIM, PLAPACK, ScaLAPACK APLAC, FinSim, Chipmunk, interHDL, Magic, Ocean, Spice, Voyeur

Electrical Engineering

[Link]

Installing Applications

Main Package Management Standards

RPM (RedHat Package Manager) (.rpm)

Introduced by RedHat and has been adopted by many other distributions (Fedora, Mandrake, SuSe) .

The most popular Linux package format

DEB (Debian Package Manager) (.deb)

Introduced by Debian distribution

Tarball files (.[Link]/.tar.bz2)

The old-fashioned way of distributing software in Linux/Unix Compatible with all distros Main package manager in Slackware, Gentoo

Installing Applications

RPM Redhat Package Manager

redhat-config-packages / system-config-packages

RPM based package management

Using the command line, packages are installed using rpm utility program

Install a package

rpm -i <package_name>.rpm

Update an existing package

rpm U <package_name>.rpm

Remove a package

rpm e <package_name>

Query for a package

rpm q <package_name>

Dependencies

Installing a package mod_test1 :

# rpm -Uvh mod_test1-[Link] error: failed dependencies: package-a1 is needed by mod_test1

# rpm -Uvh [Link] error: failed dependencies: package-b2 is needed by package-a1

# rpm -Uvh [Link] And so on

Package management software

Package management software keeps system in a consistent state Manages dependencies

Up2date RedHat RedCarpet Ximian YOU (YaST Online Update) Suse YUP (YellowDog Updater) YellowDog PPC Urpmi Mandrake YUM (YellowDog Updater Modified) APT (Advanced Packaging Tool) Debian (and fedora...)

Using Apt

APT - Advanced Packaging Tool

Updates the system through Internet by connecting to online package repositories APT utilities set (apt-get, apt-cache etc.) is provided for managing packages on these repositories Provides packages inter-dependency auto-resolve Contacts repositories listed in /etc/apt/[Link] file

apt-get update apt-get upgrade apt-get install <package name> apt-get remove <package name> apt-cache search mozilla

Using synaptic

A GUI for apt

Linux File System

File System is developed to

create/store/load/delete/seek file on media like Tape, Floppy disk, Hard disk, Optical Media, Cdrom, Dvdrom

File System in Linux is divided into 2 types Linux Swap

Used in virtual memory system Used to store files There are various types of file systems

Linux File System

ext2 ( first introduced in kernel 2.0.x ) reiserfs ( first introduced in kernel 2.2.x ) ext3 ( first introduced in kernel 2.4.x )

Difference between Windows FS and Linux FS

Characteristic File System

Windows NTFS, FAT

Linux ext2, ext3 Each partitions is mounted under /

Reference Root of Each partition each partition will be its own point root Ex. C:, D:, F:

Files

In Unix and Linux, everything is a file Data can be stored in a file Each file has a filename

A label referring to a particular file Permitted characters include letters, digits, hyphens (-), underscores (_), and dots (.)

Case-sensitive [Link] is a different file from [Link]

The ls command lists the names of files

File System basics

Linux files are stored in a single rooted, hierarchical file system

Directories

/ etc passw d john a b home

root

usr

Data files are stored in directories (folders)

inittab kala

User home directories

Directories may be nested as deep as needed

guest

Data files

Directory layout

root directory

/bin, /usr/bin system commands /sbin, /usr/sbin commands used by sysadmins /etc /boot /dev /home /proc /var /lib /tmp contains all linux default configuration files contains linux booting files contains all device files contains user home directory pseudo file system for tracking running processes and state of the linux system contains mail, log file and printer spooling contains shared library contains system temporary files

Naming Files

Files are named by

Directories

naming each containing directory (Relative pathname) ./a passw d john a b etc

/ home

root

usr

Starting at the root (Absolute pathname)

inittab kala

User home directories

guest

Data files

Some special file names

Some file names are special:

/ . ~

The root directory (not to be confused with the root user) The current directory My home directory

.. The parent (previous) directory

Examples:

./a x

same as a

../kala/x go up one level then look in directory kala for

The Current directory

One directory is designated the current working directory

/ etc passw d john a doc letter home usr

root

if you omit the leading / then path name is relative to the current working directory

inittab kala

User home directories

guest

Use pwd to find out where you are

doc/letter ./doc/letter /home/john/doc/letter

Linux command basics

Commands are case-sensitive All commands follow this syntax

Command

option1

option2

arguments

Command options allow to control a command

A single dash and are a single letter (-l) Double dashes followed by a keyword (--help)
ls -l /etc

Command name

Options (flags)

Arguments

Mounting filesystems

File systems are mounted under a directory

Check currently mounted file systems Mount file systems mount t type device target-dir

type ex. ext2, ext3, reiserfs, vfat device ex. /dev/hda1, /dev/hdb1, target-dir ex. /, /var, /home, /media/cdrom,

hda3

hda1

/var

/home

hda4

Mount CD, Floppy

mount /media/cdrom mount /media/floppy

Will work only if

The directories /media/cdrom, /media/floppy exist There is an entry in the file /etc/fstab

Unmounting file systems

umount is used to un-mount partition

umount directory umount device

Example

umount /media/floppy umount /dev/fd0

Linux Club Website

Thank You

[Link]/linuxclub