Linux Operating

System
lecture-01
5th semester
Instructor: Mahboub Shah Majidi
Thursday, May 4, 2023
Agenda
• Kinds of software

• History of open source software

• Unix
• GNU

• Linux

• Advantages of UNIX/Linux

• Properties of Linux
Software
• The term software refers to computer programs.

• Generally there are three types of software from economic

point of view:
Software
proprietary Free Open Public
Software Source Domain
Proprietary Software
• Proprietary Software is owned by the individual or company that
commissioned or developed it proprietary software is the opposite of
Free/Libre Open Source software Created and owned by a specific
company or group Not redistributed and modified Source code of the
this kind of software is not released
• e.g.
• Microsoft Oss
• IOS
• Some protocols
Open source software
• When a software program is open source, it means
the program's source code is freely available to the
public.
• Open source software is also Stated as F/LOSS
which stands for Free/Libre Open Source Software.
• The source code of the OSS is always available on
the internet, anyone who wants to modify the code
and redistribute the software can download the
source code from internet for free.
Open source…
• Open source does not mean access to the
source code. The distribution terms of open-
source software must comply with the
following criteria:
• Derived works
• No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
• License must not restrict other software
• Source code
open source (cont…)
• Derived works
• The License must allow modification and derived works,
and must allow them to be distributed under the same
terms as the License of original software.
• No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
• The license must not discriminate against any person or
group of persons..
open source (cont…)
• License must not restrict other software
• The license must not place restrictions on other software that is
distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license
must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium
must be open-source software.
• Source code
• The program must include source code, and must Allow distribution in
source code as well as compiled form.
Public Domain Software
• Is not copyright.
• The source code is in the public domain that is a
special case of non-copy lefted software, which
means that some copies or modified version may not
be free at all.
• e.g. an executable program can be in the public
domain but the source code is not available
• This is not free software hence, requires accessibility
of source code.
Short history of open source
software
• The history of open source software dates
back to late 1970s and 1980s. In the early
days computer production, all software were
supplied with the hardware.
• This means that at that time there was not
proprietary software present .
• Later when people realized that there is a
possibility to sell the software, companies
begun to create software for commercial
Short history (cont…)
• In east coast of America, Richard Stallman was working on
creating an open source operating system. In the year 1983
Stallman launched the Free Software movement for the first time.
• Stallman started the GNU Project and he also created a license
for it which was named the General Public License (GPL).
• In the license
• At the same time in the west coast of America in University of
California “BSD UNIX” with the first BSD license was created .
History of UNIX
• In 1969-1970s, Kenneth Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and
others at AT&T Bell Labs developing a small Operating
System on a little-use PDP-7.
• Unix was designed to:
• replace the Single-User System with a multi-user system
• Replace the batch mode user communication with a
interactive environment.
• Easier for the multiple users to shares files.
GNU
• In June 1971, Richard Matthew Stallman joined MIT Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory as a programmer where he gained
popularity with the hacker community and came to be known by
his now popular name RMS.
• In 1980, with the advent of portable software – e.g. software that
can be compiled to run on different computers, a business model
emerged where in, the companies developing the code refused to
share the code with their clients and began restricting copying
and redistribution of their software by copyrighting it.
GNU (cont…)
• In response to this trend, Stallman, who believed in the principle
that software has to be free always, founded the Free Software
Foundation and in 1985, published the GNU Project and he also
created a license for it which was named the General Public
License (GPL).
• GNU stands for “GNU is Not Unix”.
• Stallman along with a group of like minded programmers started
work in developing the tools needed to make a complete OS –
GNU (cont…)
• editor (IMacs)
• C compiler (GCC)
• Libraries
• Generic Unix tools like cat,ls, chmod etc..
• In the same year (1985), a professor by name Andy Tanenbaum
wrote a Unix like Operating system from scratch for the Intel i386
platform. He named it Minix.
Richard Mathew Stallman - The Father of GNU Movement
Short History of Linux
• In 1990, A finished student by name Linus Torvalds studying in the
University of Helsinki came into contact with Andy Tanenbaum
OS, Minix.
• Linus wanted to upgrade Minix by putting in more features and
improvements. But he was prohibited by Tanenbaum to do so.
• Then Linus decided to write his own kernel and released it under
GPL. This kernel is now popularly known as Linux.
Minix Linus Trovalds Linux
1991
Short History of Linux…
• Most distribution of Linux operating system such as Debian, Red
Hat, SUSE and many other software systems like Apache Web
Server software and desktop environment software like KDE and
Gnome were the fruit of contribution and commitments of the
open source community .
Advantage of
UNIX/Linux
• Today open source software are renowned alternatives for
proprietary software and are widely used in many areas. The
following section gives more information and describe the its
benefits.
• Availability of the source code and sustainability
• Low or no charges
• Rapid debugging and development
• No lock-in to one supplier
Advantage of
UNIX/Linux…
• Faster than Microsoft Operating System
• There are less viruses written for UNIX
• Platform independent
• More robust
• Modular
• Provide less downtime periods
• Has a clear directory structure
Properties of Linux
• Linux is free
• Full Multitasking
• Multiuser
• Virtual memory
• The X Window System
• Portable
Properties of Linux…
• Linux is free:
• Linux can be downloaded in its entirety from the
internet completely for free. No registration
fees, no costs per user, free update, and freely
available source code in case you want to change
the behavior or your system.
Properties of Linux…
• Full Multitasking :
• With Linux its possible from a computer to do several
things at once, such as printing out one file while the
user edits another file. This is a major feature for users,
since user don’t have to wait for on application to end
before starting another one.
Properties of Linux…
• Multiuser:
• The same design that permits multitasking permits
multiple users to use the computer. The computer
can take the command of number of users
determined by the design of the computer to run
programs, access files, and print document at the
same time.
• The computer prioritize the requests to keep
everything orderly .
Properties of Linux…
• Virtual memory:
• Linux can use a portion of your hard drive as
virtual memory, which increases the efficiency
of your system by keeping active processes in
RAM and placing less frequently used or
inactive portions of memory on disk.
Properties of Linux…
• The X Window System:
• The X Window System is a graphics
system for UNIX machines. This powerful
interface supports many applications and
is the standard interface for the industry.
Properties of Linux…
• Portable:
• A portable operating system is one that can
run on many different machines.
• Linux operating system is written in the C
programming language, and C is portable
because it is written in a higher-level,
machine-independent language.
Any ?
Reference books
1. Linux - The Complete Reference, Richard Petersen.
2. Linux_Admin, www.tutorial.com.
Instructor contact

Phone, WhatsApp:
0093 781 929 582
0093 796 168 317
Email:
[email protected]
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/MAhboub Shah Majidi