Technology And Computer|

Of course if you are used to Microsoft Windows you are familiar with the concept of files. This familiarity means you won’t have to start from zero to learn about Linux files. However, you will have to relearn several concepts and techniques to work with files in the Linux environment, whether using Damn Small Linux or other versions. You can do several great things with Linux files that you can’t do easily or at all under Windows. This could be just one more reason to switch from Windows to Linux.

Files have unique names. This rule is not as simple as it may seem. There is no conflict between a hard disk file named pay12june and a file named pay12june on your removable USB flash drive. In fact, be sure to backup all your important files. Don’t worry if your hard drive file is erased or becomes corrupted and illegible, simply access the one on your flash drive. You could also have two files named pay12june on your hard drive in different directories. Directories, collections of directories and files, will be discussed in the next article in this series.

Linux distinguishes between lower-case and upper-case characters in file names. Microsoft Windows does not. For example, Linux treats pay12june and Pay12june as two different files, as different as pay12june and heighho. Windows users will have to adapt to this major difference. Even though I am a Linux fan I don’t see any advantage in the Linux way of naming files. Maybe I have spent too much time in the Windows environment.

File names should be relatively short. The allowed maximum is 255 characters but working with long file names is no fun and in fact is asking for trouble. Linux file names may not contain the character / which has a special meaning. To avoid misunderstanding don’t include special characters such as $ and & in your file names. Doing so could cause confusion and lead to hard-to-find errors. For the same reason don’t call your files by special Linux names such as etc.

Linux sometimes applies file extensions; common examples include .c to indicate a C-language program and .htm or .html to indicate one type of web page. Savvy Linux users often avoid coding the file extension but rely on the file directory to indicate the file type. Don’t give a Linux file a misleading file extension.

Use an editor to create or modify a text file. The old fashioned vi editor has been replaced by more powerful, user-friendly editors. Most versions of Linux come with several editors. Damn Small Linux, a popular version that runs under Windows, includes several editors such as Beaver that come quite close to being intuitive.

Linux provides an enormous variety of commands for processing files. Many of these commands are mnemonic; for example the command cp is used to copy files. Many commands include a wide variety of options. Consider the ls command, somewhat similar to the DIR command in the Windows environment. This seemingly simple command is quite rich and offers dozens and dozens of options many of which have no equivalent in the Windows environment.

Linux commands can be thought of as verbs. Just like most English sentences include more than a verb (go, jump) complete Linux commands contain the command itself and one or more objects. To copy a file you not only need to specify cp but also What and Where. For example, the command cp pay12june backuparea means copy the pay12june file into the backuparea directory.

Linux syntax (grammar rules) is quite strict and does take time to learn. But mastering Linux and associated technologies can lead to employment. The next step is mastering Linux directories.

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Our environment is in deep trouble. Do you want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem? To avoid being part of the problem don’t toss that supposedly outdated computer onto a landfill. Your discarded computer carcass will take decades to biodegrade and leach scads of poisonous chemicals into the environment during the process.

Several years ago the Utah Department of Environmental Quality estimated that by 2004 more than 300 million computers would be considered obsolete, generating well over 1 billion pounds of lead, 2 million pounds of cadmium, 1 million pounds of chromium, and 400,000 pounds of mercury. Municipal incineration is the largest point source of dioxins into the US and Canadian environments and among the largest sources of heavy metal contamination of the atmosphere. Of course the year 2004 is long gone, and these horrible numbers have undoubtedly been far surpassed in spite of efforts such as corporate trade-in programs.

Why do people toss their computers? That’s simple; given the computer industry’s unending performance advances there is a widespread perception that you can no longer DO anything worthwhile with your old computers. This dangerous assumption is simply not true.

Do you really think that you need Giga-everythings to get your work done and have your fun? Microsoft seems to think so. I remember when 128 Megabytes was a lot of memory. I also remember when “Why would anyone ever need more than 640 Kilobytes of memory?” was the official party line expressed by none other than William Gates III himself.

I’m told that Damn Small Linux requires only 50 Megabytes of disk space, a 486 processor (do you remember what that is?) and 8 Megabytes of RAM. If you want to browse the Internet, you’ll have to move up to 16 Megabytes of RAM and use the Dillo browser. The popular Firefox browser will require additional memory. Frankly, I wouldn’t use such an underpowered computer for moderate or heavy Internet usage. But you can run Linux commands and learn how operating systems work on such computers. And you can play a multitude of games.

For every individual trying to resuscitate a 486 computer there are dozens trying to know what to do with an old Pentium such as my Pentium III 450 Megahertz computers with 128 Megabytes of memory purchased in 1999 or more powerful computers purchased several years later. Without extensive upgrades many of these computers won’t run Windows Vista and may not run Windows XP. But they will run Damn Small Linux or other Linux versions alongside a full range of today’s applications. Let’s put them to work, learn Linux, and do our bit saving the environment.

We next see how Linux lets you control the computer, whether it is “obsolete” or not.

Can you remember the 1992 Janet Jackson song entitled The Best Things In Life Are Free? You might even remember the 1956 Hollywood movie of the same name. In any case do not guarantee that you will find Damn Small Linux and our associated tutorials to be among the best things in your life. On the other hand we do guarantee that they are both completely free. Well, wait a minute. They are both free, but…

You may have to shell out some of your hard-earned cash to learn Linux. This is particularly true if you are downloading the software and running the tutorials on your home computer. Yes, you will have to pay for an Internet connection at least for the time spent downloading the files. By today’s bloated standards Damn Small Linux is really small; it weighs in at a mere 50 Megabytes. Downloading this software distribution is really quick, especially if you have a high-speed connection. And yet as we all know, sometime during the following month your Internet Service Provider will want money.

After downloading Damn Small Linux you won’t need the Internet to run it. But you may want to activate one or both of the Internet browsers that are part of the Damn Small Linux distribution. And you may want to download additional applications; there are lots of them. Because Damn Small Linux is so small you should still have scads of disk space available.

Your Damn Small Linux costs don’t end with the Internet. I would be surprised to learn that the electricity powering your computer is free. Surely the longer your days and nights spent in front of the computer the higher your light and heat bill. Furthermore, the more time you spend on Linux the more money you may end up spending on snacks, new eyeglasses, and taxis when you miss the bus to work because you just couldn’t tear yourself away from the computer in time. I think you get my drift. But we repeat. Damn Small Linux, this website, and many of the references on the web are free. Should you outgrow Damn Small Linux the larger versions of Linux are free, or at least quite inexpensive when compared to ostensibly similar versions of Microsoft Windows.

Most people don’t run operating systems in and of themselves but rather for the applications they enable. Reason number two: Damn Small Linux provides lots of free applications as discussed in our next article.

Let’s start by mentioning a few facts that can be very disconcerting to die-hard Linux and Unix fans. Serious computer viruses appeared first in Unix systems. And arguably the worst computer virus attack in history occurred on Unix systems about twenty years ago. The good news is that the lessons learned from this attack were integrated into the constantly evolving Unix and Linux systems. Of course, to some extent they have been integrated into protecting Windows systems, and that’s also good news.

One reason that Linux surpasses Windows for virus resistance is that Linux is open source. When an attack occurs hundreds or perhaps thousands of techies start working on solutions and post them to the Internet. You won’t have to wait for an anti-virus company to come up with something.

What other factors make Linux systems more virus resistant? For a virus to take effect it must be part of a running program. Simply opening an attachment in the Microsoft Windows environment does the trick. The last time (pun intended) I opened an electronic greeting card on my Windows computer I was rewarded with a nasty virus. It took quite some time to remove it even with the aid of technical support. Linux systems won’t launch the virus unless the user reads the email, saves the attachment, modifies the appropriate permission assigning execution permission to the attachment, and then explicitly executes the attachment. Unless all these steps happen the virus remains in quarantine. While an educated Linux user could carry out all these steps unleashing the virus this unhappy state of events doesn’t occur often in properly organized systems.

Another limits virus impact in the Linux world. Ordinary Linux users don’t have permission to do a lot. Even if they unleashed a virus it usually wouldn’t go very far. Getting beyond the individual computer requires administrative power – the kind held by Root Users in Linux and Administrators in Windows. Regular users of Linux are usually not accorded root permission. In contrast, a newly installed Windows system automatically creates the first user as an Administrator. In our mind this is asking for trouble.

Just think – a regular Windows user has permission to install files that can run amok and destroy lots of good things. It seems that in Windows the operating system, the applications, and the data are inextricably intertwined. As if they were asking for trouble.

I have read that bananas are in danger. It looks like biodiversity is a thing of the past in banana-land or at least in the commercial banana world. So there is some chance that one powerful banana virus will make banana splits a thing of the past. The very diversity of Linux systems offers some protection. And it’s a LAMP onto the world as discussed in the next two articles.

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Linux provides several dozens commands enabling you to control your computer to a degree that far exceeds the possibilities of Windows systems. For example, take the ls command that lists files and directories. To the uninitiated this is Linux’s version of the Windows DIR command that also lists files and directories. Both the ls and the DIR commands provide lots of switches; options that enable a savvy user to fine tune some operations. But the Linux ls command (don’t type in LS) includes multiple, powerful options that simply often do not exist in the Windows world.

For example, the ls command displays file and directory permissions. With a simple command the system administrator can block regular users from modifying or executing a file. What does this mean to you? This reduces the likelihood of a user launching a virus by opening an e-mail attachment. If the execute permission hasn’t been specifically turned on, the file won’t be executed and the attachment won’t be executed.

Another Linux function is inode. Briefly it works like this: A single file can be accessed with several names in different folders. Why would anybody want to do that? This functionality lets the system identify a given file with different natural file names for different users. Can you do this in Windows? Sort of, on the more sophisticated versions but only if you are a systems administrator or if you have been granted special permissions. Can you do this on Damn Small Linux? Yes, we’re going to cover this in one or more tutorials.

Linux is a multi-user system. Upon installation Damn Small Linux creates two users with very different file permissions. This gives you a real-life introduction to computer security. It is easy to create new users and control what they can do. Of course, Windows allows you to perform many of these activities but doing so often presents a danger of a costly error or security breach that may disable some essential computer functionality.

Linux provides multiple commands. Why would anybody want to run arcane commands when Linux, as Windows, offers an attractive graphical user interface? Let’s say that your job is to create five hundred new user accounts at the beginning of your school’s semester. Do you really want to repeat the whole click and caboodle five hundred or more times, once for each user without mentioning the extra times needed whenever you make a mistake? The answer is no.

You’ll want to work with a script, a custom program using Linux commands to save your sanity by automating these tasks. A good script will pick up student details from their registration files so that the data won’t have to be reentered. Whether the script is good or not depends on the skill set of the individual that composed it. But Linux offers all the tools necessary for writing good and even great scripts.

When you know how to create and manage users you may want to look into Linux Certification. That’s the subject of our next article.

And we now complete our series comparing Linux to Windows. This article lists and briefly describes several additional advantages of Linux. We would not be surprised if Linux buffs come up with still other advantages that are not mentioned here.

When you seriously get into Linux you become a member of a special community. Whenever you have a Linux problem you can go to an on-line forum. It usually isn’t very long before someone has the answer.

You have full access to the complete Linux operating system. You can learn how things actually work. If you enjoy working with some relatively sophisticated, mathematical issues Linux is for you. And remember, what seems to be geeky and oh-so theoretical can have very practical applications.

Plenty of jobs are available to Linux specialists, especially if they are skilled in other LAMP components (the web server Apache, the database management system MySQL, and the web programming language PHP) discussed in previous articles. Don’t fool yourself, you can’t get a job just by reading these advantages and running all the tutorials. But as the Chinese saying goes; a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, and this step is a big one.

Linux is international. Among the government organizations that have switched to Linux are the German Agency for Labor, the French Ministry for Education, the American Library of Congress, the Portuguese Ministry of Justice, the Swedish Armed Forces, the Municipal Government of Berlin and Munich, Germany, the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the New Zealand Ministry of Health, the United States Postal Service, the Federal Government of Brazil, Mexico City, the American National Security Agency which is developing its own security enhancements to Linux, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, the Federal Ministry of Education in Nigeria, the United States Navy, and the Northern Territory of Australia. The list goes on.

Last, but not least you can have enjoy yourself with Linux. I’m not really talking about the games that come with Damn Small Linux or those that you can download. Linux offers different ways of doing things than does Microsoft Windows. You may like the Linux way of doing things and you may not. If you don’t like the Linux way, go back to Windows. You won’t be alone. But if you do like it, keep up the good work. Just remember, the sky is the limit even if you start with a 50 Megabyte version such as Damn Small Linux.

And here is our technology history lesson for today. In spite of what you may think, Bill Gates and Microsoft did not invent the Internet. In fact, these visionaries jumped aboard the information highway fairly late after vainly trying to counterpose their own MSN to the Internet.

In contrast Unix computers have been accessing the Internet and what’s more running the Internet for decades. Unix and the Internet have had plenty of time to evolve together. Of course you can access the Internet from Windows with Internet Explorer, Firefox, and numerous other browsers. Many sites do use Windows-based Internet servers. Whether you are a casual Internet user or an Internet Service Provider you probably want to know the concrete differences for you and your associates to help choosing between Linux and Windows for meeting your Internet needs. (Actually Internet Service Providers tend to know the differences and have made their choice, which is usually Linux. In the interest of fairness I must tell you that their choice is definitely not Damn Small Linux ‘ it’s just too small.) Let’s examine some important differences between Linux and Windows in respect to the Internet.

Linux browsers are much less likely to stall than their Windows competitors. This increased stability reduces those annoying Internet browser restarts and even more annoying operating system restarts. This latter advantage is particularly important for Internet Service Providers but is also important for individual Internet users.

The Linux Internet experience is much less likely to be interrupted by Adware, in which intruders foist their junk on unwilling victims. As far as I’m concerned Adware is theft of my time and energy. In spite of their claims I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m not the 10 millionth visitor to their site and even if I were there is no way that I won any free vacation to Las Vegas or Never-Never Land. Linux systems clearly surpass Windows when it comes to blocking these criminals and letting me do my Internet work or have my Internet fun.

I don’t want anybody snooping around my stuff, whether on the computer or not. Spyware is often a major problem with Internet browsers that run on Windows computers. Linux systems are more resistant to Spyware than their Windows competitors. But in the interest of fairness I want to refute those silly claims that Linux computers are completely resistant to Adware, Spyware, hacking, viruses and the like. Whatever some people can build, others can tear down or worm their way in.

This brings up our next subject, computer viruses. Do you think you can guess which operating system is better equipped to combat this major problem?