Operating Systems II

(OPS-302)

Introducing Linux OS
Presented By:
Michael R Chinguwo
Computing and Information Technology Department
The Polytechnic

:265 (0) 993 195 721 :chinguwom@gmail.com

Introduction
 Operating System is a set of programs and functions that provides an
access to the system resources including both hardware and software
 It acts as a communicator between the user and the computer.
 These resources include the central processing unit, the file system,
monitors or terminals, disk drives, printers and other mass storage
devices.
 Linux is a multilayered operating system.
 Refer to the layers:- kernel, shells and the utilities or commands
Introduction (Cont’d)
 Technically, utilities are not the part of the OS.
 Utilities that come with the OS are basic tools that have evolved into
standard Linux commands.
 They make the OS more immediately useful to the user, but only the
Kernel and Shell are truly the Operating System.
 Each layer has its own functionality and interacts with other layers.
Understanding Operating Systems
Reading!!
 Client or Desktop Operating System
­ Features
­ Capabilities
­ Examples
 Network Operating System (Server OS)
­ Features
­ Capabilities
­ Examples
Linux Philosophy
 Everything is a file.
­ Executables, program source, and text documents are all files.
­ Directories are files that list other files.
­ Devices (disks, network, etc.) are files.
 You really want to do what you said you want to do.
­ Therefore Unix should do it as quickly and quietly as possible. i.e. No “Are
you sure? (Y/N)” messages by default.

“Linux was not designed to stop its users from doing stupid things, as
that would also stop them from doing clever things”
by Doug Gwyn
The Linux Architecture
The Linux Architecture (Cont’d)
 The hardware can converse with the Kernel.
 The Kernel is bilingual
­ It can talk to the hardware or to the shell.
 The shell is multilingual
­ Can talk to any part of the system with the exception of the hardware
 When the commands are typed by user in the command line interface
(CLI), or when utility/application program needs to access the system
resources the shell interacts with the kernel and the kernel will interact
with hardware.
Overview of Linux Kernel
 The Linux Kernel is a free software Unix-like operating system kernel
that was begun by the Linus Torvalds in 1991 and subsequently
improved with the assistance of developers around the world.
 Kernel is the primary part of the Operating System.
 This manages all the OS functions such as:
­ Input/output management to access the peripheral devices like mouse,
keyboard etc,
­ Memory management,
­ Tasks scheduling,
­ The devices accessed during device drives etc.
Overview of Linux Kernel (Cont’d)
 It is the first part of the OS to load into memory during the system
start up, and remains there for the entire duration of the computer
session because its services are required continuously.
 Thus it is important to be as small as possible to boot the system faster
while providing all the essential services needed by the other parts of
the OS and by the various application programs.
 The Kernel itself does not interact directly with the user, but rather
interacts with the shell and other programs with the hardware devices
on the system, including the CPU, memory and disk drives
Kernel Space and Users Space
 Kernel space is where the ‘Kernel’ executes and provides its services.
 User space is that set of memory locations in which user processes
run.
 A process is an executing instance of a program
Shells In Linux
 In Linux Operating System the use of a program that serves as an
interface between user and operating system is called the Shell.
 Its is a program that presents an interface to various operating system
functions and services.
 The shell is so called because it is an outer layer of interface between
the user and the innards of the operating systems.
 The shell is a kind of interpreter i.e. a shell is a program which takes
user input (e.g. commands which we type) and translates them into
instructions that the operating system can understand.
Linux Shell Categories
 The Linux OS shell has two categories :
i. Command Line Interface (CLI)
ii. Graphical User Interface (GUI)
 A CLI is a method of interacting with a computer by giving it lines of
textual commands either from keyboard input or from a script.
 A GUI is a method of interacting with a computer through a metaphor
of direct manipulation of graphical images and widgets.
Features of Linux Shell
 The shell offers the following interactive features :
i. Command History
­ The command history buffer stores the commands you enter and let you
display them at any time.
ii. Command Aliases
­ The command aliases feature lets you abbreviate long command lines or
rename commands
iii. File name completion
­ The file name completion feature saves typing by allowing you to enter a
portion of the file name
Features of Linux Shell (Cont’d)
iv. Command Line Editing
­ This allows you to retrieve a previously entered command and edit it.
Types of Shells
 There are many different types of shells.
i. Sh or Bourne shell
­ The original shell still used on Unix systems and in Unix related
environments.
­ This is a basic shell, a small program with basic features.
­ This shell does not support any of the shell features such as history, command
line completion and command line editing.
Types of Shells (Cont’d)
ii. Bash or Bourne Again shell
­ The standard GNU shell.
­ Is intuitive and flexible
­ this shell is most advisable for beginning users while being at the same time a
powerful tool for the advanced & professional users.
­ On Linux, bash is the standard shell for common users
­ This shell is a so called superset of the Bourne shell
­ This means that the bash shell is compatible with bourne shell:-commands that
work in sh, also work in bash.
­ It is the default shell in Linux
Types of Shells (Cont’d)
iii. csh or C shell
­ Has a syntax that resembles that of the highly popular C programing language
and thus preferred by the programmers.
iv. tcsh or Turbo C shell
­ Is based on csh but also has programmable file-name completion, command
line editing, a history mechanism and other features lacking in csh.
v. ksh or the Korn shell
­ Is a superset of sh
­ It includes many features of C shell as well, including a command history
­ It also features built-in arithmetic evaluation and advanced scripting
capabilities similar to those found in powerful programming languages
Switching from Shell to Shell
 Switch from one shell to another by typing the shell’s name on your
command line
­ Such as bash, ksh, sh etc
 You work in that shell until you log in again or type another shell
name on the command line.
 Users often use one shell for writing shell scripts (programs) and
another for interacting with a program.
 Basic Features of Linux
i. Multi-User
­ Not only can you have many user accounts on a Linux System, you can also have
multiple uses logged in & working on the same system at the same time.
ii. Multitasking
­ In Linux, it is possible to have many programs running at the same time, which
means that only can you have many programs going at once, but that the Linux
operating system itself can have programs running in the background.
iii. Hardware Support
­ You can configure support for almost every type of hardware that can be
connected to a computer i.e. CD-Roms, Sound Card, Tape Devices, Video Cards
etc.
Basic Features of Linux (Cont’d)
vi. Networking Connectivity
­ To connect your Linux system to a network, Linux offers variety of LAN
Cards, Modems and serial Devices.
vii. Network Servers
­ A variety of software packages are available that enables you to use Linux as a
Print Server, File Server, TP Server, Mail Server, Web Server, News Server or
Workgroup Server
Advantages of Linux OS
i. Free Operating System and Open Source
­ The Linux Operating System is available at No Cost and anyone can download
it from Internet without paying for it.
­ The source code of the operating system is provided with it so that anyone can
edit the source code for convenience.
ii. Reliable
­ As the Linux Operating System can be recovered easily the data loss doesn’t
happen, that is why it is reliable.
Advantages of Linux OS (Cont’d)
iii. Secure
­ There is very less possibility of hacking of Linux that is why it s more secure
than any other Operating System
iv. Help is available on Internet
­ There is always someone available on Internet from Linux Community to help
Linux Users.
 To Do: Linux OS Installations
 Consider the following
­ Site to download Linux OS
­ Hardware Requirements
­ Installation Media Preparation
­ Installation Modes
­ Partitioning
­ Multi-Boot
­ Swap Space Management
­ Boot Sector Configuration
­ Basic Configurations
END