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 The Operating System
This section is a more detailed description of the Linux operating system. We go into the internal of the kernel, files and filesystems, and device nodes.
The Operating System
In this section, we are going to go into some detail about what makes a Linux operating system. I am not talking about the "product" Linux or any of the bundled distributions such as SuSE, RedHat, or Mandrake. Here, I am talking strictly about the software that manages and controls your computer. The collection of functions that do all the work are collectively called the "kernel".
Because an operating system is of little use without hardware and other software, we are going to discuss how the operating system interacts with other parts of the various Linux distributions. I will also talk about what goes into making the kernel, what components it is made of, and what you can do to influence the creation of a new kernel.
Much of this information is far beyond what many system administrators are required to have for their jobs. So why go over it? Because what is required and what the administrator should know are two different things. Many calls I received while in tech support and many questions posted to newsgroups could have been avoided had the administrator understood the meaning of a message on the system console or the effects of making changes. By going over the details of how the kernel behaves, I hope to put you in a better position to understand what is happening.
The contents of this discussion is based primarily on two sources. The first is my book Linux User's Resource. The second is David Rusling's "The Linux Kernel". In our seperate documents David and I covered different topics and in different levels of detail, so you didn't get the full story by reading either one by itself. Rather than rewriting everything from scratch, David has graciously given me permission to include his material with mine. Perhaps "merge" is a better term than "include", because in spite of much commonality between the two documents, one often included information that the other did not include.
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| The X Windowing System
Here we go into the basics of the X Windowing System. This forms the basis of all GUIs, such as KDE and Gnome.
The X Windowing System
I've seen the X-Windows system described as the "distributed, graphical method of working," and that probably fits the best. It's distributed because you could run the display on your monitor in Virginia even though the program is actually running on a computer in California or Calcutta, and it's graphical because you see a lot of nice pictures on your screen.
Despite the extent to which it has spread in the UNIX world, the X-Windows system is not a UNIX product. The X-Windows system, affectionately called X, was developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and runs on a wide range of computers, even MS-Windows-based versions.
The first version was developed at MIT in 1984. Several versions have been developed since, with the most current version, X version 11 (X11), first released in 1987. X11 has been adopted as the industry standard windowing system, with the support of a consortium of major computer industry companies such as DEC, HP, SUN, and IBM.
Although you could probably find a system that is still running release 5, the newest release (as of this writing) is release 6. You will see references to the release as X11Rn, where n is the release number. So, the current release would be X11R6.
In this section we are going to talk about the basics of the X-Windowing System, rather than the desktop environments like KDE and Gnome. The reason is quite simply that this material was first written in 1996 and neither KDE nor Gnome had really established itself. A lot of things have happened in the meantime and I just haven't gotten around to updating this. Any volunteers?
| | Hits:358 Rate: 0.0(out of 5) Vote:0 Submit Date :2006-03-27
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| Integrating Calc Into Your Business
Depending on the business and industry, spreadsheets can be anything from very simple lists used for sorting to kazillion cell monsters that add, multiply, and figure up gravitational forces throughout the entire universe. Rob Reilly steps through some basic yet very useful features of OpenOffice Calc for those not familiar with this powerful tool.
| | Hits:339 Rate: 0.0(out of 5) Vote:0 Submit Date :2006-03-27
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| Integrating Writer into Your Business
As Linux is brought into service in small and medium sized companies, desktop pilots often wonder how they will ever get off the ground without proprietary word processing applications like Word. "Can I still do basic business letters with Linux?" And "Will our old Word docs work with Linux?", they ask. The answer to both questions is a resounding "You betcha" with OpenOffice.org Writer.
Email and instant messages shoot back and forth between people these days. Unglamorous, plain old boring business documents, however, remain the stalwart of legally binding communication in the business world. It's changing, but many fields still require printed and/or signed material for day to day operations. Business letters, reports and brochures all need to be produced quickly and efficiently.
As Linux is brought into service in small and medium sized companies, desktop pilots often wonder how they will ever get off the ground without proprietary word processing applications like Word. "Can I still do basic business letters with Linux?" And "Will our old Word docs work with Linux?", they ask.
The answer to both questions is a resounding "You betcha" with OpenOffice.org Writer.
OpenOffice.org Writer is the premier word processing program for Linux. With it, you can write documents, import/export Word files, or even PDF a colleague. In short, Writer will handle just about any documentation load in your normal business office. And it's Open Source (no licensing headaches) to boot.
| | Hits:266 Rate: 0.0(out of 5) Vote:0 Submit Date :2006-03-27
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| Linux XDMCP HOWTO
This HOWTO describes how you can use the combination of X Display Manager (xdm, kdm and gdm) and XDMCP (X Display Manager Control Protocol) to provide the mechanism for an X terminal and a platform of cheap remote X apps solution. This document will be focusing on how to setup connection using XDMCP.
| | Hits:511 Rate: 0.0(out of 5) Vote:0 Submit Date :2006-03-27
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| GNOME Configuration Made Easy
In this introductory column, Michael Hall explores the basics of GNOME: how to get it, how to install it, and how to tweak it.
This week we'll get up to speed on how to get GNOME, along with a basic configuration trick that makes GNOME's panels a little less obtrusive, provides a handy way to save desktop space, and unclutters your panels of all those app icons so you can save space for pagers and task lists.
| | Hits:337 Rate: 0.0(out of 5) Vote:0 Submit Date :2006-03-27
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| Controlling Linux Remotely With X11
X isn't only about graphics: James gives an overview of the powerful features in the X window system for running programs remotely.
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| Setting Up Your Own Web Server
Not happy with your ISP? Think you can can share information within your organization better? Setting up your own Web server isn't as hard as some may think, thanks to the ease of use of Linux and Apache.
Admin Digest: Setting Up Your Own Web Server
Why You Need Your Own Web Server
Rob Reilly
Thursday, January 2, 2003 01:36:47 PM
Having your own Web server goes beyond the need to put your business' information out on the Internet for all to see. While that certainly won't hurt, there are many more ways you can take advantage of such a server.
Whether you are running a department within a large corporation, or your own small business, having access to an HTTP server can quickly improve the way your employees share knowledge.
Groups within an organization of any size generally need to share a great deal of information, even though they may be working toward different goals. One way to accomplish this is to provide groups and individuals with access to an intranet Web server and allow them to publish their own facts and figures. Everyone could share one web server, and have a common user interface to access each others' work. If more space or segregation of information is needed, individual groups could set up their own web server using surplus hardware and Linux.
In another situation, you--the content provider--know exactly what you want, but are unable to find just the right package of features at the right cost. Many ISPs charge extra for even basic logging information. Given the tight margins that all businesses have to operate within these days, occasionally the right move is to set up your own host hardware.
Another reason to set up a Web server is that some Internet-based applications may require performance that only a dedicated server can offer--tuned to your special needs.
It may seem unlikely that you can provide a better service than experienced ISPs, but ISPs are catering to a mass market and tend to charge a lot for special services. Some web applications just don't fit into the general ISP scheme and installing your own web server on a Linux box, could prove to be a cost effective way of getting the Internet services you need.
| | Hits:540 Rate: 0.0(out of 5) Vote:0 Submit Date :2006-03-21
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| Setting Up A SuSE 8.0 Linux DHCP Client
Enterprise businesses with their own IT staffs may have the knowledge and where-with-all to implement Linux in their organizartions, but what about the small-business owner who has to manage everything from buying pencils to setting up the network? The Admin Digest is a new series designed to address Linux solutions for people who have other things they can be doing with their time. This first installment examines how to use SuSE Linux 8.0 to create a DHCP client system.
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| The Coda Distributed Filesystem for Linux
Bill von Hagen continues his thorough examination of the distributed filessystems available for the Linux platform. In this report, he explores the Coda distributed filesystem that provided much of the inspiration for InterMezzo and gives readers a detailed tutorial on how to implement Coda for themselves.
The Coda Distributed Filesystem for Linux
Introduction to Coda
Bill von Hagen
Monday, October 7, 2002 11:12:44 AM
The initial article in this series provided an overview of the basic principles of distributed filesystems, and highlighted several of the most popular and up-and-coming distributed filesystems that are available for Linux today. The previous articles explored the InterMezzo distributed filesystem and explained how to install and configure a simple InterMezzo client and server. This article explores the Coda distributed filesystem that provided much of the inspiration for InterMezzo and which is also readily available for Linux.
Coda is a well-established distributed filesystem that was developed at Carnegie-Mellon University, is actively in use there, and is also still actively under development. Coda began life as a variant of the AFS distributed filesystem (version 2) from Carnegie-Mellon University, but has since taken on a complete life of its own. Led by M. Satyanarayanan, the Coda filesystem project is focused on specific distributed filesystem functionality required for mobile computing, such as support for disconnected operation. As explained in the article on InterMezzo, "disconnected operation" is the term used to describe the situation where a system that is ordinarily a part of a networked, distributed filesystem, is used without being connected to a network.
Due to its heritage, Coda shares a basic set of terminology and features with AFS. (The Open Source version of AFS, OpenAFS, will be discussed in the next article in this series.) Coda provides a number of features that make it an excellent, high-performance distributed filesystem. Beyond its focus on mobile and disconnected operation, one of Coda's most significant features is its extensive use of caching. Caching means that copies of files or portions of file retrieved from Coda servers are preserved on Coda clients as long as they can be verified to match the master data stored on the Coda server. This is therefore known as "client-side caching". Client-side caching reduces the amount of time that it takes to restart a Coda client by minimizing the amount of data that needs to be transmitted over the network after a Coda client is restarted. It's a fact of computer life that people tend to work on the same files and in the same directories--these change over time, of course, but the files you are working on today are probably more-or-less the same ones that you worked on yesterday.
Client-side caching reduces network communication and minimizes client restart times, but doesn't always guarantee that the files that you need to work on are present on the client. In a networked environment, this is fine--the client system can simply retrieve the file from the file server on which it is located. Given Coda's focus on disconnected operation, Coda also provides command-line commands that let users manipulate the contents of the cache, guaranteeing that specific files and directories will be present in the client's cache. Coda's "hoard" command therefore enables you to anticipate being disconnected from the network. uses any preloading your system with cached copies of specific file and directories. This function is typically used before you disconnect a laptop from the network prior to working in a disconnected fashion for some period of time. An example of using the hoard command is provided later in this article.
| | Hits:487 Rate: 0.0(out of 5) Vote:0 Submit Date :2006-03-21
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| Remote Administration of Linux Systems
One of the best advantages of using Linux is the ability to quickly and (if done correctly) safely logon to and administer another machine from across the room or across the planet. All you need are the right tools, a little paranoia, and just a little time, as Alexander Prohorenko details in this tutorial.
| | Hits:395 Rate: 0.0(out of 5) Vote:0 Submit Date :2006-03-21
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