Linux: An Introduction

Free Operating Systems and GPL

As we all know, Linux is a Free Operating System. This doesn't necessarily mean it will cost nothing, although in practice you may never have to actually pay anyone for the right to use it. I encourage anyone who adopts Linux to make a donation to the developers, if it's a non commercial version, or to purchase a commercial version.

The term Free refers to Freedom — your freedom to use the software where and how you wish rather than according to some End User License Agreement that also denies you ownership of what you paid for.

GNU/GPL

Linux, or more correctly GNU/Linux (Linux is the kernel or core of an operating System that is made up of components from the GNU project and Linux which was created by Linus Torvolds) is licensed, primarily (there are other Free licenses, which I will touch on later) under the GNU/GPL, also known as the GPL. The GPL gives users software the right to copy, give away or sell (Yes, sell for real money!) the software.

Furthermore, it gives users the right to read and/or change source code and recompile it so that the software works differently than the original writer intended. The only constraints the GPL makes on users of GPLed software are:

1. that changes to the source code released for public consumption must be offered to others under the same terms as the original software - in other words, those changes must be licensed under the GPL.
2. that any person or company offering binaries (the computer executable code) of GPLed software must also offer the source code of those binaries, and that source code must be capable of compiling to binaries that are functionally identical to the binaries on offer.

Distributions

A Linux Distribution is the GNU/Linux Operating System plus a set of the thousands (that's 20,000 +) of applications and libraries available under Free Licenses. Distributions include Debian, Mandriva, Red Hat, Ubuntu (and its spin-offs, such as Kubuntu, Xubuntu etc), SuSE, Knoppix, PCLinuxOS, and many many more.

These distributions may have as their primary Desktop the GNOME Desktop, the KDE desktop, the XFce desktop, the Enlightenment desktop, and since early 2006, these have included the ability to provide a 3D experience with the now famous cube, the sides of which consist of the virtual desktops that Linux and Unix GUIs are capable of. I will talk about these in more detail later.

It's Not Windows!

Many new Linux users come to Linux expecting a free version of the only operating system they have ever used, Microsoft Windows, and they go away disappointed.

Linux is NOT and was never intended to be a free Windows. Linux is, if it is anything, a free version of UNIX. Because of this, one must change one's expectations; things work differently on Linux than in Windows.

Linux is far less likely by several orders of 10 to become infected with malware than even Microsoft's Vista¹, and this is unlikely to be affected by the so-called "popularity effect", where more users apparently means greater vulnerability; I will touch on this in more detail later.

Because Linux is not Windows, a new user must be willing to spend some time learning how to use this new environment. You invested a lot of your time learning the Windows environment, so why should you expect Linux to be any different? You would have to do the same thing if attempting to use a Macintosh.

Differences Between The Operating Environments

Many things that seem intuitively simple on Windows will at first seem strange, and possibly difficult or even downright onerous on a Linux system, although it should be remembered that one of the reasons Windows is so susceptible to malware is because Microsoft sacrificed security for ease of use. In the end , this actually makes a rod for the users' backs by making it necessary that they jump through all sorts of hoops to keep their computers free of malware.

On the other hand, once you start to understand Linux, there are many things that are so intuitively simple that you will wonder why you thought any other way of doing this was easier. Here are some things that Linux makes so easy, things I can do on Linux, I can't do on Windows. Some of those things won't mean much to you as a new Linux user, but here are some things I find useful on my Linux Desktops that I can't do when I'm forced to use Windows.

1. I can tell application Windows that they are to always be the topmost window, no matter what other window I have selected.
2. I can tell applications that when they load they are to display windows with no border (this is not an application level setting, it's a Operating System setting, you tell the Window Manager part of the OS that this or that application must not display borders on it's windows)
3. I can force an application to always open it's windows at a certain preset width and height, as in 2 above this is a Window Manager setting.
4. I can have up to 24 virtual desktops (I'm currently using 9, but usually use only 4), and I can arrange my applications by desktop, so that when I'm on one desktop I have all my image manipulation applications, on another my web browser and email and IM applications. I can also move unwnated windows (I still want the application running) to another desktop, to get it out of the way.
5. I can scroll through my virtual desktops using the scroll button on my mouse. Or I can scroll through the desktops using <ALT> + <CTRL> + <LEFT ARROW> or <RIGHT ARROW>, and I can move the active window to a different desktop using <SHIFT> + <ALT> + <CTRL> + <LEFT ARROW> or <RIGHT ARROW>
6. if I place my mouse pointer over the application Icons in the Task bar I can scroll through all of the windows on a desktop using the scroll button on the Mouse.
7. if I drag a file/folder/group of files to a different folder Linux will prompt me and ask if I want to move/copy/link/cancel before allowing me to drop the files into the new folder (on Windows the assumption is that I want to move the files/folders).
8. if I drag a file/folder/group of files to a folder on a file share (on a different computer) Linux will prompt me and ask if I want to move/copy/link/cancel before allowing me to drop the files into the new folder (on Windows the assumption is that I want to copy the files/folders).

The thing to remember is that Linux is not difficult, it's different. If you keep that in mind as you progress you will find the journey much easier. Linux: An over view of Installing Linux >>>

Footnotes

1. As of this writing, Vista has been compromised after less than 6 months in public use!