February 04 2011

The Top Ten Concepts for Linux Beginners – Number 8, Programming Language Support

Tagged Under : , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Damn Small Linux can be an ideal platform for supporting a wide range of programming languages. You can even program directly from the command line via a programming shell such as Bash. Major programming languages used in this environment include C, C++, and Java. If you are developing for the Internet you may want to use PHP, a web programming language and MySQL, a language for database system development. All these programming languages are also available in the Windows environment. So the question arises, why would you want to program under Linux rather than under Windows?

Many web developers and Internet service providers feel that Linux provides a more stable web site environment than does Windows. The most widely used web server, Apache, is available under both these operating systems but its new features, security enhancements, and bug fixes always are made available first on the Open Source (LAMP) version. And then they filter down to the Windows version. At the time of this writing the Windows version of Apache has problems with its cryptographic functions.

While programming languages are essentially the same across these two operating systems, their libraries are quite different. Basically, when you write complicated programs you want to make use of as much prewritten software as possible to reduce your programming and debugging effort. One example is handling the graphical user interface. As programmers often say, why reinvent the wheel? Linux provides a wider choice of libraries and graphical user interface toolkits.

When you program in Linux it is often fairly easy to port your programs to the Windows environment. Unfortunately, the inverse is rarely true. Of course as Linux systems become more popular, you will find more and more Windows-based programming systems that enable you to convert your programs to run under Linux. To do so makes clear economic sense.

Program conversion tools may be fairly difficult to develop. For example, executing programs must access the actual computer hardware. As you may imagine Linux and Windows programs access hardware quite differently. The modules that manage hardware access are called drivers. Linux drivers tend to be of higher quality than Windows drivers.

These two operating systems differ substantially in the way they manage programs during their execution. In other articles we discussed Linux’s increased security compared to Windows. We conclude this article by repeating a point that we have often made; you can run Damn Small Linux and its associated applications on very reduced hardware. You can do Linux, PHP, and MySQL development on old computers, ones that may have seemed ready for the garbage heap. In contrast many Windows competitors such as SQL Server Developer Edition require substantially more powerful computers, the kind of computers that people purchase for one or a few thousand dollars. When your programs will be used by dozens of people simultaneously, you will need powerful hardware. Don’t forget the operating system; can you guess which one we recommend? Our next subject is the graphical user interface.

January 27 2011

Linux Data Recovery to Undelete Accidentally Deleted Important Linux Files

Tagged Under : , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

‘Undelete’ is an option to recover and restore the lost or deleted files form the computer by rewinding the operation. Without the in-built undelete feature, the retrieval of lost or deleted files is termed as data recovery and in Linux operating system based computers, it is popularly known as Linux data recovery.

There are many file systems, which have the built-in undelete feature to reverse an accidental-delete operation of important data. However, this feature is not available with every file system. Moreover, though the undelete feature is very much useful for the ones who have deleted some important files/folders and at the very next moment, realize that the data was extremely important to be recovered back, the feature also alarms for a security risk.

Many operating systems with graphical user interface has a concept of ‘holding area’. If a file or folder has been deleted, then the information regarding these files move to the ‘holding area’ and are periodically deleted. In case of Windows and Macintosh operating systems, similar concept exists in the form of ‘Trash’. Though some of the recent Linux versions also have the undelete feature, still most of the command based operating systems, such as DOS, Linux and UNIX does not support undelete and leave the recovery of data upto recovery utilities, such as Linux recovery.

Some Linux file systems like ext2 has an in-built recovery feature called ‘e2undel’ which can undelete many recently deleted data from the ext2 file system based Linux computers. Similarly, in case of ext3 file system in Linux, though the ‘ext3grep’ utility has been designed to automate the undelete kind of operation, officially, ext3 does not support undelete. Apart from these two file systems, all the others file systems in Linux, such as ext4, reiserFS etc. does not have any undelete feature.

Hence, if you encounter any instance of data deletion in Linux, you need to opt for any data recovery Linux utility, such as ext2 recovery, ext3 recovery or ext4 recovery.

These Linux Undelete Tools are designed with powerful scanning algorithms to search your storage device extensively and recover the lost or deleted data efficiently. Moreover, these utilities are absolutely risk-free and do not harm neither the media nor the data in it.

Incoming search terms for the article:

January 13 2011

Don’t Throw Out Those Old Computers – Use Linux!

Tagged Under : , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The average computer user just doesn’t know enough about computers to compare operating systems to determine which will run most efficiently and provide the most security, so our only gauge for what works is simply what everyone else is using. We live in a world where Windows and Macintosh rule, therefore we don’t even give Linux a second though. But we should! Linux is free, reliable and it runs extraordinarily well on old computers with little processing power. It just makes sense to use it, particularly if you work for a non-profit which relies on older, donated computers to operate.

Why You Might Want to Consider Using Linux

Linux is an operating system just like Microsoft Windows and MacOS on the Macintosh. Computer experts know it well and most of the Internet’s infra-structure is managed by Linux computers. But most desktop computer users have never heard of it. There are a lot of benefits to using Linux:

It is free. Windows costs money. So do MacOS upgrades.

It is easy to install.It is every bit as easy to install Linux as it is to install other software. Some Linux installers even allow you to run Linux off a CD, so that you can try it out on your computer without affecting anything else on the machine.

It is incredibly secure. Because Linux is open source, even if there were a widespread virus released today, there would be hundreds of patches released tomorrow, either by ordinary people that use the operating system or by the distribution maintainers. With Windows, you have to wait for a patch from a single company all while having to pay extra for virus protection software.

It is extraordinarily reliable. While Windows computers might go a day or even a week before needing to restart, people often have Linux systems running for years without fear of the system crashing.
It is very efficient. Unlike Windows and Macintosh, Linux does not require big disk drives, huge amounts of RAM, and a super fast processor. What this means is it can run incredibly well even on old, underpowered computers. So, while you may not be able to run the latest version of Windows on those donated computers, Linux will run easily and quickly. In fact, Linux is so efficient that it can pretend to be a Windows server more efficiently than Windows can be a Windows server.

What’s Stopping You?

With all of these benefits, it just makes sense to use Linux! Some national governments and lots of universities have standardized on Linux for years, but the general public is a little more hesitant. So, what’s stopping people? Here are some of the most common reasons (none of which really hold up):

It is complicated and uses all sorts of weird cryptic commands

This is true if you install it without a graphical user interface (GUI), but that’s completely your choice. Most desktop users would prefer to install Linux with a GUI since it makes it more user-friendly. In fact, you can customize the GUI to look much like Windows and Macintosh computers, so five minutes of orientation is all you will need to be fully productive.

Everyone else uses Windows

Probably the biggest concern people have is that if they use Linux, they will have trouble sending and receiving emails and files to computers that use Windows because they are different operating systems, but that’s simply not the case.

Because Email protocols are standardized, email from any computer (Windows, Macintosh, or Linux) works with email on any other. Files are no problem either, since Linux supports all the standard file formats.

Also, consider the fact that Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 are all different operating systems, all in common use, and far from compatible with each other.

There is no support

This has never been true. The open source community supports Linux very well and if you need to talk to someone on the phone, you can buy support packages from lots of different companies. The most well-known of these is Red Hat.

Word and Excel don’t run on Linux

This is true, but OpenOffice does. OpenOffice is free and it does everything Microsoft Office does and more. At Sumac Research, although we use Windows, Macintosh, and Linux computers, we use OpenOffice on all of them. It doesn’t matter which computer you use, the documents work the same on each. OpenOffice can also open, edit and save Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents.

Written by: Sumac Research

Sumac is the easiest, most complete and cost-effective software for managing non-profits’ data. For information on Sumac or for more articles published by Sumac Research, visit Sumac

 


Article from articlesbase.com

January 03 2011

Introduction To Linux

Tagged Under : , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system that is based on the Linux Kernel. Linus Torvalds is the official founder of this operating system; however, a lot has gone into its making. The records reveal that Windows dominates the personal computer market with 90 percent of the share, the server market with 66 percent of the share. Also, Linux is recorded to have powered 85 percent of the globe’s most powerful supercomputers, where the figure has reached just 1.4 percent for Windows. Here is a brief introduction to this mystic operating system called Linux.

The name of this operating has been derived from the Linux kernel, which Linus Torvalds wrote in 1991. The GNU operating systems, originated by Richard Stallman in 1983, is the basis of the rest of the system, comprising libraries and utilities. The GNU contribution also forms the basis for GNU/Linux that is the preferred name of the Free Software Foundation. Recently enough, because of the emergence of the netbooks and the Ubuntu distribution, Linux is being installed on both desktops and laptops. Otherwise, it is used for servers, computer hardware, embedded devices, mobile phones and supercomputers.

The basic design of the Linux operating system is derived mainly from the principles established in Unix, back in the 1970s and 1980s. It uses a monolithic kernel known as the Linux kernel that is responsible for handling control, file system access, peripheral and networking. Additional device drivers are incorporated with these kernels. The higher-lever functionalities of the system are catered by separate projects that interface with the kernel. For instance, the GNU helps in implementing most of the common Unix tools, and the C library. Another tool used by many Linux systems is the GUI, graphical user interface, which is based on the X Window System.

There are different ways to use this operating system. You can use it through CLI, a command line interface, or a GUI. For the embedded systems, one can use it through the controls attached with the associated hardware. KDE, Xfce and GNOME are the three most famous user interfaces for the desktop machines. Because of the network transparency it provides, X Window System is used to run most of the popular interfaces. This transparency allows the freedom to display and control a graphical application running on one system from another.

Linus is such an operating system that is not designed just for the desktops and laptops. The distributions of Linux vary and are specialized for different purposes including commitment to a given desktop environment, support for real-time applications, localization to a specific language or region, security, stability, targeting a specific user group, embedded system, and computer architecture support. And there has been seen a shift of interest to the Linux operating system in the last few years.

Summary: Linux is one of the most popular operating systems, after Windows. However, it is not that very common in the personal computer market but it is solely looked upon for embedded systems and supercomputers. It was written by Linus Torvalds and it works mainly on the GNU system created by Richard Stallman.

Read more articles on Round Update
Written By: infoXS


Article from articlesbase.com

December 28 2010

Pros and Cons of Linux. is it Right for your Business?

Tagged Under : , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What is Linux?

Linux is an operating system, like Microsoft Windows, MacOS, or Unix. It was created as a hobby by Linus Torvalds, a student at the University of Helsinki in Finland. What most people don’t know about Linux is that its source code is available to anyone. The Linux source code is called the kernel and it is the base of the Linux operating system. Because the source code or kernel is free, it has enabled hundreds of companies and individuals to release their own operating systems based on the Linux system. These operating systems or formats are often referred to as Linux distributions.

Each distribution has its own set of features and functionality that makes it unique. While Linux is generally considered free-ware and people associate that with no cost, that is not always the case. Some distributions are available for download for free and others are available on CD or floppy disk and have a small charge associated with them. You can find a list of distributions at http://www.linux.org/ and a list of applications at http://www.Linux.org/apps/

Because if the adaptability of Linux it has been embraced and supported by a number of operating systems and software programs. For example, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and other giants of the computing world have embraced Linux and support its ongoing development and openoffice.org and Mozilla run on Linux. US retailing giant Wal-Mart began selling Linux systems back in 2002 – if Wal-Mart isn’t mainstream, nothing is.

What are the benefits of Linux?

Many people fear that Linux is going to be difficult to work with or that it will be difficult to find software that will run on Linux however Linux is a very standard operating system, compatible with just about any software you need.

Beyond being a standard operating system, Linux supports open source software which makes it a very economical operating system, especially if you program your own software. It offers many free or low cost applications which include, basic desktop applications like web browsers, email programs, word processing programs, spreadsheets, graphics programs, and file managers.

Linux can easily operate as a central server for your business. With Linux, you can serve your own web pages up for public consumption and handle your own email.

Linux doesn’t require top of the line hardware though many recommend you have at least 256 MB of RAM and at least 4 GB of space in your hard drive.

Linux is considered to be extremely stable and doesn’t need to be rebooted periodically to maintain performance levels. Think about the last time you sat at your computer and it froze. Not fun, right? That doesn’t happen with Linux if it is configured correctly.

Linux isn’t going to be replaced anytime soon and when bugs are found in the system, a developer are quickly on the job and often times a solution is offered within a matter of hours, not months or years like many other operating systems.

Linux is also fast and can handle a number of tasks at the same time.

Linux also claims to be one of the most secure operating systems isn’t plagued with the viruses that other operating systems generally deal with.

Linux is free from having to upgrade it or deal with proprietary file formats and licensing fees. You don’t have to register it due to its open source format.

You can have both Linux and windows on your computer. (You’ll have to partition them on your hard drive and you can only boot them one at a time.)

Drawbacks of Linux

There is no 1800 customer service number to call. However, most distributions offer a support number or email to call if you find a bug. They also generally come with installation instructions.

You cannot run applications for MS windows on Linux. However, there are Linux emulators or applications that enable you to run some windows applications on your Linux system. They operate like a translator. Some of these ‘translation or emulator’ products are free and others are available for a price.

Linux is not able to run some advanced financial applications or reproduce some proprietary multimedia formats.

Tips and Advice:

Choose a popular distribution has a large developer community. A large developer community means that you’ll find the programs that you need easily and you will be able to install them with the same ease. The more well-known distributions have prepared programs in ‘packages’ that are easy to install. On top of this, there are tools designed especially for a particular distribution to manage these packages to make sure that programs run correctly right away. The website Distrowatch.com maintains a comprehensive list of the most popular distributions.

Get the latest version of your chosen distribution. The newer the Linux distribution version, the better the hardware support. The number of glitches you’ll get in the installation process decreases with the newness of the version of Linux you choose.

Consider paying for your Linux distribution. It is true that you can get a full-featured Linux operating system free of charge by downloading it from any number of sources. This is an excellent alternative to an operating system like Windows, which either comes pre-loaded with a newly purchased computer (which gets figured into the cost), is bought separately or copied ‘illegally’. In most people’s experience, the popular Linux distributions are easy to install. However, if you do run into some glitch (normally hardware related), you may have a frustrating experience. Although there are a number of excellent Linux support forums out there, personalized advice on your particular problem may be hard to find.

Use an appropriate computer. if you want to use Linux to do the same things that you would with Windows XP or Mac OS X, then you’ll need the newest computer you can get your hands on. Avoiding ‘elite’ video cards and new, exotic hardware will also work in your favor because you won’t have to deal with hardware support which may be inferior to hardware support from other operating systems.

Bottom Line:

Linux is a fantastic and powerful operating system that can handle most or all of your operating needs. It is secure, fast, reliable, and generally extremely cost effective. When purchased or obtained through a reliable distributor and installed and configured correctly there are virtually no drawbacks to running Linux. Additionally, you don’t have to give up your windows if you don’t want to.

MemberSpeed Content Management software can run on any Linux Any Linux based Hosting Platform (Preferably RHEL 3 or above).

Jeremy Gislason is a leading expert on membership sites, marketing and online business. For more Business Strategies, Resources and Membership Site Manager Software visit MemberSpeed.com


Article from articlesbase.com

December 05 2010

Is There A Chance Linux Will Come To The Desktop?

Tagged Under : , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The discussion of Linux being ready for the desktop or not is a common one that happens each year.  There are always those saying that it’s finally ready and those who have concerns about certain issues that still are there or are perceived to still be there.  The reality is that most of these arguments don’t matter at all.  There is one huge issue that is really the only one that matters.  What will bring Linux to the desktop or not is the manufacturers.  The reason is because the average user will never install and configure their own operating system.

When you buy a Windows or Mac, there is a company who puts the hardware together, installs the operating system, then configures the software to work with the hardware.  Many times, even on the machine you are currently using, if someone did not configure the hardware, by default on a clean install of the operating system, your wifi, sound, video, or other pieces might not have worked.  It takes a bit of configuring to make an operating system work with hardware and this will always be true.

When people use Linux, they have to configure all these settings themselves.  Most can’t do it with Linux if there is a hardware problem, so they blame Linux.  The reality is that the same person couldn’t do this with Windows or Mac either.  Making hardware work with software at times can be difficult.

What will have to happen is that Linux comes preinstalled to systems completely configured.  At that point comparing a working Linux to working Windows to working Mac will be a more fair argument and comparison.

What this will take is a demand for Linux.  In the United States this hasn’t happened yet, but in other countries there are businesses and governments switching to Linux.  Once the market demands Linux, that’s when it’s ready.  It has nothing to do with the programming because that is already taken care of.

Visit http://fireplacerug.net to learn more about fireplace safty and using a Hearth Rug to protect the flooring around your fireplace.

November 08 2010

Introduction To Linux

Tagged Under : , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system that is based on the Linux Kernel. Linus Torvalds is the official founder of this operating system; however, a lot has gone into its making. The records reveal that Windows dominates the personal computer market with 90 percent of the share, the server market with 66 percent of the share. Also, Linux is recorded to have powered 85 percent of the globe’s most powerful supercomputers, where the figure has reached just 1.4 percent for Windows. Here is a brief introduction to this mystic operating system called Linux.

The name of this operating has been derived from the Linux kernel, which Linus Torvalds wrote in 1991. The GNU operating systems, originated by Richard Stallman in 1983, is the basis of the rest of the system, comprising libraries and utilities. The GNU contribution also forms the basis for GNU/Linux that is the preferred name of the Free Software Foundation. Recently enough, because of the emergence of the netbooks and the Ubuntu distribution, Linux is being installed on both desktops and laptops. Otherwise, it is used for servers, computer hardware, embedded devices, mobile phones and supercomputers.

The basic design of the Linux operating system is derived mainly from the principles established in Unix, back in the 1970s and 1980s. It uses a monolithic kernel known as the Linux kernel that is responsible for handling control, file system access, peripheral and networking. Additional device drivers are incorporated with these kernels. The higher-lever functionalities of the system are catered by separate projects that interface with the kernel. For instance, the GNU helps in implementing most of the common Unix tools, and the C library. Another tool used by many Linux systems is the GUI, graphical user interface, which is based on the X Window System.

There are different ways to use this operating system. You can use it through CLI, a command line interface, or a GUI. For the embedded systems, one can use it through the controls attached with the associated hardware. KDE, Xfce and GNOME are the three most famous user interfaces for the desktop machines. Because of the network transparency it provides, X Window System is used to run most of the popular interfaces. This transparency allows the freedom to display and control a graphical application running on one system from another.

Linus is such an operating system that is not designed just for the desktops and laptops. The distributions of Linux vary and are specialized for different purposes including commitment to a given desktop environment, support for real-time applications, localization to a specific language or region, security, stability, targeting a specific user group, embedded system, and computer architecture support. And there has been seen a shift of interest to the Linux operating system in the last few years.

Summary: Linux is one of the most popular operating systems, after Windows. However, it is not that very common in the personal computer market but it is solely looked upon for embedded systems and supercomputers. It was written by Linus Torvalds and it works mainly on the GNU system created by Richard Stallman.

Read more articles on Round Update
Written By: infoXS