Linux with Operating

­System Concepts
Linux with Operating
­System Concepts
Second Edition

Richard Fox
Second Edition published 2022
by CRC Press
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and by CRC Press

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© 2022 Richard Fox

First edition published by CRC Press 2015

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Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data

Names: Fox, Richard, 1964- author.
Title: Linux with operating system concepts / Richard Fox.
Description: Second edition. | Boca Raton : CRC Press, 2022. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021031731 | ISBN 9781032063454 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781032066707 (hardback) | ISBN 9781003203322 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Linux. | Operating systems (Computers)
Classification: LCC QA76.774.L46 F69 2021 | DDC 005.4/32—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021031731

ISBN: 978-1-032-06670-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-06345-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-20332-2 (ebk)

DOI: 10.1201/9781003203322

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Access the Support Material: https://www.routledge.com/9781032063454

With all my love to Cheri Klink, Sherre Kozloff and Laura Smith.
Contents
Preface.............................................................................................................................................. xv
Acknowledgments and Contributions..............................................................................................xix
Author..............................................................................................................................................xxi

Chapter 1 Linux: What, Why, Who and When, and How............................................................. 1

1.1 Introduction........................................................................................................1
1.2 What Is Linux?................................................................................................... 4
1.2.1 Early Operating Systems....................................................................... 4
1.2.2 The Operating System Kernel...............................................................5
1.2.3 Other Operating System Components................................................... 9
1.2.4 So, What Is Linux?.............................................................................. 10
1.3 Why Use Linux?............................................................................................... 11
1.4 Who Developed Linux and When?.................................................................. 12
1.4.1 The Birth and Development of Unix................................................... 12
1.4.2 GNU.................................................................................................... 14
1.4.3 Enter Linus Torvalds........................................................................... 15
1.4.4 The Open-Source Community............................................................ 18
1.5 How Do You Use Linux?.................................................................................. 21
1.5.1 Installing Debian Linux...................................................................... 21
1.5.2 Installing CentOS Linux..................................................................... 23
1.5.3 Installing Ubuntu Linux...................................................................... 29
1.5.4 Installing Linux Mint.......................................................................... 30
1.5.5 An Introduction to the Shell and Command Line............................... 32
1.6 Chapter Review................................................................................................34
Review Questions........................................................................................................ 37

Chapter 2 Bash............................................................................................................................. 39
2.1 Introduction...................................................................................................... 39
2.2 Entering Linux Commands.............................................................................. 41
2.2.1 Simple Linux Commands.................................................................... 41
2.2.2 Commands with Options and Parameters........................................... 43
2.3 Forms of Linux Help........................................................................................46
2.3.1 man Pages...........................................................................................46
2.3.2 Other Forms of Command-Line Help................................................. 47
2.4 Bash Features................................................................................................... 52
2.4.1 Recalling Commands through the History List.................................. 52
2.4.2 Shell Variables..................................................................................... 53
2.4.3 Aliases................................................................................................. 59
2.4.4 Command-Line Editing......................................................................60
2.4.5 Redirection.......................................................................................... 62
2.4.6 Other Useful Bash Features................................................................64
2.5 Tailoring Our Environment.............................................................................. 67
2.6 vi..................................................................................................................... 70
2.6.1 vi Commands..................................................................................... 70
2.6.2 An Example to Illustrate How to Use vi............................................ 73

vii
viii Contents

2.7 Interpreters....................................................................................................... 74
2.7.1 Interpreters in Programming Languages............................................ 75
2.7.2 Interpreters in Shells........................................................................... 76
2.7.3 The Bash Interpreter............................................................................ 77
2.8 Chapter Review................................................................................................ 78
Review Questions........................................................................................................80

Chapter 3 Linux File Commands................................................................................................. 85

3.1 Introduction...................................................................................................... 85
3.2 Storage Terminology........................................................................................ 86
3.3 Filename Specification..................................................................................... 89
3.3.1 The Path.............................................................................................. 89
3.3.2 Filename Arguments with Paths......................................................... 91
3.3.3 The PATH Variable..............................................................................92
3.3.4 Specifying Filenames with Wildcards................................................92
3.4 File Commands................................................................................................ 95
3.4.1 Directory Commands..........................................................................96
3.4.2 File Movement and Copy Commands.................................................97
3.4.3 File Deletion Commands.....................................................................99
3.4.4 Creating and Deleting Directories.................................................... 100
3.4.5 Textfile Viewing Commands............................................................. 100
3.4.6 File Comparison Commands............................................................. 101
3.4.7 File Manipulation Commands........................................................... 103
3.4.8 Miscellaneous but Useful File Commands....................................... 104
3.5 Permissions..................................................................................................... 106
3.5.1 What Are Permissions?..................................................................... 106
3.5.2 Altering Permissions from the Command Line................................ 107
3.5.3 Altering Permissions from the GUI.................................................. 109
3.5.4 Advanced Permissions...................................................................... 110
3.6 Hard and Symbolic Links............................................................................... 112
3.7 Locating Files................................................................................................. 114
3.7.1 Search Using the File Browser.......................................................... 114
3.7.2 The find Command........................................................................ 115
3.7.3 Other Means of Locating Files......................................................... 118
3.8 Secondary Storage Devices............................................................................ 119
3.8.1 The Hard Disk Drive......................................................................... 119
3.8.2 Magnetic Tape................................................................................... 122
3.8.3 Optical Discs..................................................................................... 122
3.8.4 Flash Memory Drives........................................................................ 123
3.8.5 Device Drivers................................................................................... 124
3.9 File Compression............................................................................................ 124
3.9.1 Types of File Compression................................................................ 124
3.9.2 The Lempel–Ziv Algorithms for Lossless Compression.................. 125
3.9.3 Other Lossless Compression Algorithms.......................................... 126
3.9.4 Compression and Decompression Programs in Linux...................... 127
3.10 Chapter Review.............................................................................................. 127
Review Questions...................................................................................................... 130
Contents ix

Chapter 4 Managing Processes.................................................................................................. 135

4.1 Introduction.................................................................................................... 135
4.2 Forms of Process Management...................................................................... 137
4.2.1 Single-Process Execution.................................................................. 138
4.2.2 Concurrent Processing...................................................................... 139
4.2.3 Interrupt Handling............................................................................. 142
4.3 Starting, Pausing and Resuming Processes.................................................... 143
4.3.1 Ownership of Running Processes..................................................... 144
4.3.2 Launching Processes from the Command Line................................ 145
4.3.3 Suspending and Resuming Processes from the Command Line...... 147
4.4 Monitoring Processes..................................................................................... 149
4.4.1 GUI Monitoring Tools....................................................................... 150
4.4.2 Command-Line Monitoring Tools.................................................... 152
4.5 Managing Process Priority............................................................................. 157
4.6 Process Termination....................................................................................... 162
4.6.1 Orphans and Zombies....................................................................... 162
4.6.2 Killing Processes............................................................................... 162
4.6.3 Shutting Down Linux........................................................................ 164
4.7 A Look at System Resources.......................................................................... 166
4.7.1 Memory and Virtual Memory........................................................... 166
4.7.2 Linux Commands to Inspect System Resources............................... 169
4.8 Chapter Review.............................................................................................. 172
Review Questions...................................................................................................... 175

Chapter 5 Regular Expressions.................................................................................................. 179

5.1 Introduction.................................................................................................... 179
5.2 Metacharacters............................................................................................... 180
5.2.1 Controlling Repeated Characters through *, + and ?....................... 182
5.2.2 Using and Modifying the . Metacharacter........................................ 183
5.2.3 Controlling Where a Pattern Matches............................................... 184
5.2.4 Matching from a List of Options....................................................... 185
5.2.5 Matching Characters That Must Not Appear.................................... 187
5.2.6 Matching Metacharacters Literally................................................... 188
5.2.7 More Precisely Controlling Repetition............................................. 189
5.2.8 Selecting between Sequences............................................................ 190
5.3 Examples ....................................................................................................... 193
5.4 grep...............................................................................................................197
5.4.1 Using egrep..................................................................................... 198
5.4.2 Useful egrep Options......................................................................200
5.4.3 Examples: Searching the Linux Dictionary......................................202
5.4.4 Using egrep to Control the Output of Other Linux Commands.....204
5.5 sed.................................................................................................................206
5.5.1 Basic sed Syntax..............................................................................206
5.5.2 Placeholders.......................................................................................208
5.5.3 Other sed Capabilities..................................................................... 211
5.6 awk................................................................................................................. 212
5.6.1 awk Condition-Action Pairs.............................................................. 212
5.6.2 BEGIN and END Sections................................................................. 216
5.6.3 Other Forms of Control..................................................................... 217
x Contents

5.6.4 awk Command Line Options and Arguments.................................. 219

5.6.5 Non-File Input to awk....................................................................... 220
5.7 Chapter Review.............................................................................................. 221
Review Questions...................................................................................................... 222

Chapter 6 Shell Scripting........................................................................................................... 229

6.1 Introduction.................................................................................................... 229
6.2 Simple Scripting............................................................................................. 230
6.2.1 Scripts of Linux Instructions............................................................. 230
6.2.2 Running Scripts................................................................................. 230
6.2.3 Scripting Errors................................................................................. 231
6.3 Variables, Assignments and Parameters........................................................ 233
6.3.1 Bash Variables................................................................................... 233
6.3.2 Assignment Statements..................................................................... 233
6.3.3 Executing Linux Commands from within Assignment Statements.. 234
6.3.4 Arithmetic Operations in Assignment Statements............................ 236
6.3.5 String Operations Using expr......................................................... 238
6.3.6 Command-Line Parameters.............................................................. 239
6.4 Input and Output.............................................................................................240
6.4.1 Output with echo.............................................................................240
6.4.2 Input with read................................................................................ 243
6.5 Selection Statements....................................................................................... 245
6.5.1 Conditions for Strings and Integers...................................................246
6.5.2 File Conditions.................................................................................. 247
6.5.3 The if-then and if-then-else Statements............................................ 249
6.5.4 Nested Statements............................................................................. 250
6.5.5 Case Statement.................................................................................. 253
6.5.6 Conditions Outside of Selection Statements..................................... 256
6.6 Loops.............................................................................................................. 256
6.6.1 Conditional Loops............................................................................. 257
6.6.2 Counter-Controlled Loops................................................................ 259
6.6.3 Iterator Loops.................................................................................... 259
6.6.4 Using the seq Command to Generate a List.................................... 262
6.6.5 The while read Statement............................................................. 263
6.7 Arrays.............................................................................................................264
6.7.1 Declaring and Initializing Arrays..................................................... 265
6.7.2 Accessing Array Elements and Entire Arrays.................................. 265
6.7.3 Example Scripts Using Arrays..........................................................266
6.8 String Manipulation........................................................................................ 268
6.8.1 Substrings Revisited.......................................................................... 268
6.8.2 String Regular Expression Matching................................................ 269
6.9 Functions........................................................................................................ 271
6.9.1 Defining Bash Functions................................................................... 271
6.9.2 Using Functions................................................................................. 271
6.9.3 Functions and Variables.................................................................... 273
6.9.4 exit and return Statements......................................................... 274
6.10 Chapter Review.............................................................................................. 275
Review Questions...................................................................................................... 278
Contents xi

Chapter 7 User Accounts........................................................................................................... 283

7.1 Introduction.................................................................................................... 283
7.2 Creating Accounts and Groups......................................................................284
7.2.1 Creating User and Group Accounts through the GUI....................... 285
7.2.2 Creating User and Group Accounts from the Command Line......... 289
7.2.3 Creating a Large Number of User Accounts..................................... 293
7.3 Managing Users and Groups.......................................................................... 296
7.4 Password Management................................................................................... 298
7.4.1 Automatically Generating Passwords............................................... 298
7.4.2 Managing Passwords.........................................................................300
7.5 PAM and Enforcing Strong Passwords..........................................................302
7.6 Establishing Common User Resources..........................................................307
7.6.1 Populating User Home Directories with Initial Files........................307
7.6.2 Initial User Settings and Defaults.....................................................308
7.7 The sudo Command..................................................................................... 310
7.8 SELinux.......................................................................................................... 312
7.8.1 SELinux Components....................................................................... 313
7.8.2 A Closer Look at Contexts................................................................ 314
7.8.3 Rules.................................................................................................. 315
7.9 Establishing User and Group Policies............................................................ 316
7.10 Chapter Review.............................................................................................. 319
Review Questions...................................................................................................... 321

Chapter 8 Administering Linux File Systems........................................................................... 327

8.1 Introduction.................................................................................................... 327
8.2 Storage Access................................................................................................ 328
8.2.1 Disk Storage and Blocks................................................................... 328
8.2.2 Block Indexing Using a File Allocation Table.................................. 329
8.2.3 Other Disk Storage Details............................................................... 330
8.2.4 File Storage and Object Storage........................................................ 331
8.3 Linux Files...................................................................................................... 333
8.3.1 Files versus Directories..................................................................... 333
8.3.2 Non-File File Types........................................................................... 333
8.3.3 Links as File Types........................................................................... 335
8.3.4 Reviewing the File Types.................................................................. 336
8.4 The inode........................................................................................................ 337
8.4.1 inode Metadata.................................................................................. 337
8.4.2 inode Pointers.................................................................................... 338
8.4.3 Linux Commands to Inspect inodes and Files..................................340
8.5 Partitions and File Systems............................................................................344
8.5.1 Why Partition?...................................................................................344
8.5.2 Viewing the Available Partitions....................................................... 345
8.5.3 Creating Partitions............................................................................. 347
8.5.4 Repartitioning.................................................................................... 349
8.5.5 Using a Logical Volume Manager to Partition.................................. 351
8.5.6 Adding a Disk Drive......................................................................... 353
8.6 Administrative File System Tasks.................................................................. 355
8.6.1 Mounting and Unmounting File Systems.......................................... 356
8.6.2 Remote File Systems......................................................................... 358
xii Contents

8.6.3 Establishing Quotas on a File System............................................... 359

8.6.4 Miscellaneous Administrative File System Commands................... 361
8.7 Linux Top-Level Directories.......................................................................... 367
8.7.1 Root (/) Partition Directories........................................................... 368
8.7.2 The /etc Directory.......................................................................... 369
8.7.3 The /boot, /home and /var Directories...................................... 369
8.7.4 Virtual File System Directories........................................................ 372
8.8 Chapter Review.............................................................................................. 375
Review Problems....................................................................................................... 379

Chapter 9 System Initialization and Services............................................................................ 383

9.1 Introduction.................................................................................................... 383
9.2 Booting the Computer.................................................................................... 384
9.2.1 Volatile and Non-Volatile Memory................................................... 384
9.2.2 The Boot Process.............................................................................. 385
9.2.3 The Linux Boot Process.................................................................... 385
9.2.4 Loading and Running the Linux Kernel........................................... 389
9.3 Initialization of the Linux Operating System................................................. 390
9.3.1 Target Unit Files................................................................................ 391
9.3.2 Service Unit Files.............................................................................. 396
9.3.3 Other Unit File Types........................................................................ 399
9.3.4 Modifying System Initialization.......................................................402
9.4 Linux Services................................................................................................405
9.4.1 What Are Services?...........................................................................405
9.4.2 An Examination of Significant Linux Services................................406
9.5 Using systemctl ........................................................................................ 411
9.6 Configuration Files......................................................................................... 414
9.6.1 Non-Service Configuration Files....................................................... 415
9.6.2 Configuring rsyslog...................................................................... 417
9.6.3 Configuring nfs............................................................................... 419
9.6.4 Configuring logrotate................................................................. 421
9.6.5 Configuring auditd........................................................................ 424
9.7 Chapter Review.............................................................................................. 426
Review Problems....................................................................................................... 428

Chapter 10 Network Configuration.............................................................................................. 433

10.1 Introduction.................................................................................................... 433
10.2 Computer Networks and TCP/IP.................................................................... 434
10.2.1 Network Connection Devices............................................................ 434
10.2.2 The TCP/IP Protocol Stack............................................................... 435
10.2.3 Ports...................................................................................................440
10.2.4 IPv6...................................................................................................440
10.2.5 Domains, the Domain Name System and Host Names..................... 442
10.3 Linux NetworkManager Service and Related Services and Files............. 445
10.3.1 NetworkManager..........................................................................446
10.3.2 Other Network Services of Note.......................................................449
10.3.3 Establishing DNS Access.................................................................. 452
Contents xiii

10.4 Obtaining IP Addresses.................................................................................. 453

10.4.1 Configuring Our Interface Device(s)................................................. 454
10.4.2 Setting Up a DHCP Server................................................................ 454
10.5 Network Programs.......................................................................................... 457
10.5.1 The ip Program................................................................................ 457
10.5.2 Remote Access and File Transfer Programs..................................... 459
10.5.3 Network Inspection Programs........................................................... 463
10.5.4 Address Resolution Programs...........................................................465
10.6 The Linux Firewall......................................................................................... 471
10.6.1 The firewalld Service.................................................................. 472
10.6.2 The Firewall Configuration GUI Tool............................................... 473
10.6.3 firewall-cmd............................................................................... 476
10.6.4 ufw.................................................................................................... 476
10.7 Chapter Review..............................................................................................480
Review Questions...................................................................................................... 485

Chapter 11 Software Installation and Maintenance.................................................................... 489

11.1 Introduction.................................................................................................... 489
11.2 Software Maintenance Terminology.............................................................. 491
11.2.1 Types of Programming Languages................................................... 491
11.2.2 Types of Software.............................................................................. 492
11.2.3 Types of Software Licenses............................................................... 493
11.2.4 Types of Software Management........................................................ 493
11.3 Installation and Maintenance from a Software Store..................................... 496
11.3.1 Red Hat Software GUI...................................................................... 496
11.3.2 Debian Mint Software GUI............................................................... 498
11.3.3 Ubuntu Software Center.................................................................... 501
11.4 rpm and dpkg............................................................................................... 502
11.4.1 rpm.................................................................................................... 503
11.4.2 dpkg................................................................................................. 505
11.5 dnf/yum and apt......................................................................................... 507
11.6 Installation of Source Code............................................................................ 511
11.6.1 Obtaining Installation Packages........................................................ 512
11.6.2 Extracting from the Archive............................................................. 513
11.6.3 Running the configure Script...................................................... 514
11.6.4 The make Step and the makefile................................................. 514
11.6.5 The make install Step................................................................ 516
11.7 The gcc Compiler.......................................................................................... 517
11.7.1 Preprocessing.................................................................................... 518
11.7.2 Lexical Analysis and Syntactic Parsing............................................ 518
11.7.3 Semantic Analysis, Compilation and Optimization.......................... 520
11.7.4 Linking.............................................................................................. 520
11.7.5 Using gcc......................................................................................... 522
11.8 Software Documentation................................................................................ 523
11.9 Chapter Review.............................................................................................. 525
Review Questions...................................................................................................... 528
xiv Contents

Chapter 12 Maintaining and Troubleshooting Linux.................................................................. 531

12.1 Introduction.................................................................................................... 531
12.2 File System Integrity: Backups, RAID and Encryption................................. 532
12.2.1 Backups: Why, How and When........................................................ 532
12.2.2 RAID for File System Integrity........................................................ 537
12.2.3 Encryption and Encryption Programs............................................... 543
12.3 Task Scheduling............................................................................................. 547
12.3.1 at and atd....................................................................................... 547
12.3.2 crontab and crond....................................................................... 549
12.4 System Monitoring......................................................................................... 551
12.4.1 Operating System Issues That Degrade Performance....................... 551
12.4.2 Processor and Process System Monitoring Tools............................. 554
12.4.3 Memory System Monitoring Tools................................................... 555
12.4.4 I/O System Monitoring Tools............................................................ 557
12.5 Log Files......................................................................................................... 560
12.5.1 rsyslogd-­Created Log Files.......................................................... 560
12.5.2 auditd Logs.................................................................................... 561
12.5.3 Examining the Log Files................................................................... 565
12.5.4 journald........................................................................................ 566
12.6 Troubleshooting.............................................................................................. 569
12.7 Chapter Review.............................................................................................. 574
Review Questions...................................................................................................... 577

Bibliography.................................................................................................................................. 581
Index............................................................................................................................................... 589
Preface
The Unix/Linux textbook market is full of books for people who are looking to acquire hands-on
knowledge of Unix/Linux, whether as a user or a system administrator. There are almost no books
that serve as textbooks for an academic class. Why not? There are plenty of college courses that cover
or include Unix/Linux. We tend to see conceptual operating system texts which include perhaps a
chapter or two on Unix/Linux or Unix/Linux books that cover almost no operating system concepts.
Most Unix/Linux books either focus on how to use Unix/Linux or how to administer Unix/Linux.
This book is unique. It explores operating system concepts while introducing Linux-specific
content. It is divided roughly into two parts: an introduction to Linux for users and an introduction
to Linux for system administrators. It covers Linux and operating system concepts not as a how-to,
hands-on guide but as a true textbook, complete with definitions, concepts, chapter reviews and a
collection of ancillary material to help support the instructor and student if used in a class.
If you are reading this book, I hope you find it helpful and learn a great deal. My intention is not
to cover all things Linux but to explore Linux and offer background for why things are set up the
way they are.

HOW TO USE THIS TEXTBOOK

In this edition of the textbook, Chapters 1–6 cover Linux from a user perspective, while Chapters
7–12 cover Linux from an administrator’s perspective. Throughout the book are operating system
concepts related to topics of the chapter. This textbook is envisioned to be used in a 1- or 2-semester
course on Linux. A 2-semester course should be able to cover all 12 chapters, dividing the semesters
between user and administrator topics. Such a course could be split between lectures (roughly 50%
of the time) and labs. See the lab manual which accompanies this text (available online).
A 1-semester junior or senior-level IT or computer science course should be able to cover a
majority of the book. An IT course might cut out some of the operating system concepts and use the
lab manual, while a computer science course might include portions of the lab manual and eliminate
some of the less needed topics like sed (Chapter 5), systemd initialization (Chapter 9), open-
source software installation (Chapter 11) and system troubleshooting (Chapter 12).
A lower-level 1-semester course that is using this text as an introductory to Linux should cover
Chapters 1–4 in detail and then select relevant topics to fill out the course, for instance including
some portions of user accounts from Chapter 7, file system topics from Chapter 8, network configu-
ration topics from Chapter 10 and software installation from Chapter 11.
Below is a list of topics found in the chapters that can be considered optional. Omitting some of
these topics will not reduce the readability of the remainder of the text.

• Chapter 1: All content outside of Section 1.5, on Linux installation, can be omitted as it
mostly explores a history of operating systems and Linux development.
• Chapter 2: Removing Sections 2.7.1 and 2.7.2 should not be an issue; Section 2.6 on vi can
be skipped if students will not be using vi.
• Chapter 3: Sections 3.2 and 3.8 on storage terminology and devices are not essential; Section
3.9 on file compression (although 3.9.4 might be useful) can be skipped; Section 3.7.1 on
File Browser searching is only needed if students are not to learn the find program.
• Chapter 4: Forms of process management (Section 4.2) and memory and virtual memory
(Section 4.7.1) can be skimmed over if the course is an IT course.
• Chapter 5: Sections 5.5 and 5.6 (sed and awk) can be omitted if these two programs are
not going to be used, although some parts of awk should still be covered as it is referenced
later in the textbook.

xv
xvi Preface

• Chapter 6: Section 6.3.5 on the expr instruction can be skipped; depending on how much
scripting the student is to learn, Sections 6.7–6.9 on arrays, string pattern matching and
functions may be omitted.
• Chapter 7: Section 7.5 on PAM and strong passwords may not be needed; Section 7.8 on
SELinux could be reduced to just an introduction; Section 7.9 is not necessary.
• Chapter 8: Sections 8.2.1 and 8.2.2 provide background for better understanding inodes but
8.2.2 can be eliminated and 8.2.1 reduced; if the course will not cover topics like partition-
ing, then Section 8.5 can be skipped.
• Chapter 9: If the course is an IT course, coverage of booting (Section 9.2) may not be war-
ranted; if the course is a computer science course, detailed information about systemd’s
initialization process may not be desired (Section 9.3); some content from Section 9.6 can
be eliminated unless the specific service is going to be examined in detail.
• Chapter 10: Depending on the student’s background, Section 10.2 may not be needed;
Section 10.4.2 is only needed if the course covers DHCP; based on the version of Linux
used, either cover Sections 10.6.1–10.6.3 or Section 10.6.4.
• Chapter 11: Sections 11.2 and 11.8 provide background on software but can be skipped;
depending on whether the course covers Red Hat or Debian-based Linux, subsections
within Sections 11.3–11.5 can be skipped; Section 11.7 can be omitted if the students will
not use gcc.
• Chapter 12: Coverage of RAID (12.2.2) and encryption (12.2.3) may be skipped if the top-
ics are beyond the scope of the course and similarly the content on operating system issues
(12.4.1) may be omitted.
• Chapter 13: This chapter, available online, covers Apache and Squid installation and con-
figuration; it can be skipped entirely if the course will not cover either of these software
titles.

NEW TO THIS EDITION

The first edition of this book was written specifically for Red Hat 6 and correspondingly, CentOS 6.
At the time of its publication, Red Hat 7 had come out, but Red Hat 7 was viewed as an in-between
step as Red Hat was moving from init to systemd. With both Red Hat 6 and Red Hat 7 reaching
the end of their lives, this edition has updated all content to move on to systemd Linux distribu-
tions, concentrating on Red Hat 8. While preparing this manuscript, CentOS announced that they
would not support CentOS 8 beyond 2021 and would instead concentrate on CentOS Stream. At the
time of this writing, CentOS 8 and Stream are nearly identical.
So, the first major change between the first edition of this textbook and this new edition is updat-
ing to Red Hat 8/CentOS Stream. In an attempt to broaden the appeal of this text, this edition has
a good deal of content on Debian/Ubuntu versions of Linux when those versions differ from Red
Hat. The information on Debian/Ubuntu is not complete, but attempts have been made to note the
differences when space permits.
Chapters 1–7 in the first edition are now Chapters 1–6. Material from Chapter 5 has been moved
(vi is now in Chapter 2, network software is now in Chapter 10, compression is now covered in
Chapter 3, and encryption topics are now in Chapter 12) or removed. Most of these chapters have
been rewritten to improve their clarity with improved examples and more tables and figures. Some
of the removed content has been uploaded to the textbook’s companion website as supplemental
reading material.
Chapter 8 from the first edition has been removed. Content on the Linux kernel is now described
in Chapters 1, 4 and 9. Installation of Linux has been moved to Chapter 1. Other content, such as
virtual memory, has also been moved. With this chapter removed, Chapters 7–12 are primarily what
Chapters 9–14 had been. All content in this part of the book has been updated to systemd-versions
of Linux (primarily Red Hat) and include such new topics as the new top-level directory layout, the
Preface xvii

xfs file system (briefly), the NetworkManager service, firewalld and ufw as new front-ends to
iptables, the journald service and Cockpit (covered briefly). These chapters have also been
substantially rewritten and new examples, figures and tables added.
Some material from the former Chapters 9–14 are being moved online via supplemental read-
ings, including for instance the Red Hat 6/init initialization process. The former appendix (binary
numbers) is also being removed and made available online.

AVAILABLE ONLINE SUPPLEMENTS

There is a zipped file available for instructors who adopt this book and a zipped file avail-
able to everyone. This latter file is available via the textbook’s companion website at
https://www.routledge.com/9781032063454. If you are an instructor, contact your CRC Press/
Taylor & Francis book rep. The contents of these files are listed below.

Instructor-Only Resources
• Instructor’s manual complete with answers to chapter review questions
• Testbank

Other Available Material

• PowerPoint notes
• Glossary of terms from chapter reviews (consolidated into one file)
• Select answers to some chapter review questions
• Complete lab manual (assuming CentOS Stream can be adapted for other Linux
distributions)
• Supplementary readings (reference to first edition chapters)
• The fetch-execute cycle and details on the CPU (previously from Chapter 1)
• Comparing Bash to Csh (previously from Chapters 2 and 7)
• A brief introduction to emacs (previously from Chapter 5)
• vi and emacs cheatsheets
• System V/Upstart initialization process (previously from Chapter 11)
• Some example network scripts (previously from Chapter 12)
• A look at disaster planning and recovery (previously from Chapter 14)
• Review of binary numbers (previously from the Appendix)
• Apache/Squid installation (previously Chapter 15, available only online)
• Perl scripting
Acknowledgments and
Contributions
First, I am indebted to Randi Cohen for her encouragement and patience in my writing and com-
pleting this text. I would also like to thank Stan Wakefield for connecting me with Randi and
CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group. I would like to thank Olivia Snowden, a recent graduate from
Northern Kentucky University (NKU), for so kindly volunteering to proofread the entire manu-
script. She caught many errors and typos and helped me improve the book considerably. I would
also like to express my thanks to colleague Dr. Wei Hao (NKU) and to Dr. Jim Furstenberg (Ferris
State University) for proofreading select chapters and providing both corrections and insightful
comments. Dr. Yi Hu (NKU) has maintained a list of errata from the first edition and has given me
some great ideas for this new edition. I would also like to thank Micah Sidebottom, a student who,
while taking our Linux course in fall 2020, pointed out several inconsistencies in the first edition
that I have hopefully corrected. I am also indebted to several former colleagues and associates
for their insight into networking (Professor Scot Cunningham) and Linux (Dr. Xiannong Meng,
Bucknell University and Professor Peter Bartol, San Diego State University).
I would also like to thank everyone in the open-source community who contribute their time and
expertise to better all of our computing lives. Without all of the efforts put into Linux, this book
would obviously not exist!
On a personal note, I would like to thank Cheri Klink for all of her love and support.

xix
Author
Richard Fox is a professor of computer science at Northern Kentucky University (NKU). He pri-
marily teaches artificial intelligence, computer architecture, computer systems, concepts of pro-
gramming languages, object-oriented programming and Unix systems. He has also taught data
structures, IT fundamentals, web development and web server administration, among other
courses. Dr. Fox, who has been at NKU since 2001, is currently the undergraduate program direc-
tor of Computer Science and chair of NKU’s University Curriculum Committee. Prior to NKU,
Dr. Fox taught for 9 years at the University of Texas – Pan American. He has received two Teaching
Excellence awards, from the University of Texas – Pan American in 2000 and from NKU in 2012,
and an award for Outstanding Service from NKU in 2016.
Dr. Fox received a Ph.D. in Computer and Information Sciences from The Ohio State University
in 1992. He also has an M.S. in Computer and Information Sciences from Ohio State (1988) and
a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Missouri Rolla (now Missouri University of
Science and Technology) from 1986.
Dr. Fox has published two other books with CRC Press/Taylor & Francis Group: an introduc-
tion to information technology text (in its second edition) and a book on Internet infrastructure
(coauthored by colleague Dr. Wei Hao). He has also authored or coauthored over 45 peer-reviewed
research articles primarily in the area of artificial intelligence.
Richard Fox grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and now lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is a big
­science fiction fan and progressive rock fan. As you will see in reading this text, his favorite
­composer is Frank Zappa.

xxi
 1 What, Why, Who and
Linux

When, and How

This chapter’s learning objectives are to be able to

• Describe what operating systems are and how and why we use them
• Compare the more popular versions of Linux
• Explain the term open source software and the role the open-source community has had in
the development of Linux
• Enumerate reasons why IT personnel should learn Linux
• Identify the roles of the most significant individuals in the development of Linux
• Install Linux
• Use Linux from the GUI to start applications and open terminal windows

1.1 INTRODUCTION
As you are reading this book, you must want to learn about Linux. Why should you learn about
Linux? From a user’s point of view, Linux offers a different approach than other operating systems.
It is an open-source product meaning that you can obtain it for free. Similarly, most software for
Linux is open source. With open-source software, you can also enhance the code (if you have
the capability of doing so). From a system administrator’s perspective, Linux, like Unix, lets you
dive deeply into the operating system (OS) and have more control than you can in Windows or
MacOS. Learning Linux teaches you not only how to use it but more about operating systems and
computers.
The intention of open-source software is to make the software available in its source code
format. Those who are skilled at coding can then enhance or alter the software or develop new
software that uses some portions of the existing software. Although open-source software was
originally synonymous with the development of Unix, Linux and related operating systems, the
open-source community has produced a number of highly useful applications software. You may
have used open-source software yourself. Table 1.1 lists the top ten open-source products as rated
by TechRadar as of April 2021. All of the software listed in Table 1.1 can run in Linux, Windows
and MacOS unless noted.
One drawback of open-source software is that it does not come with commercial support. When
we buy software, we are not purchasing the software itself but purchasing the right to use the soft-
ware. With that purchase almost always comes a guarantee that the software developers will provide
timely feedback on issues identified with the software. Bugs will be fixed for us. Security holes will
be resolved and patches released quickly. Manuals (whether printed or online) show users how to
use the software.
Most commercial software comes with a guarantee of this support; open-source software prod-
ucts are supported by those who developed the titles but that support is not guaranteed. This is an
issue that organizations might have when considering the adoption of open-source software. Even
with support available, open source might lag behind commercial software with respect to bug and
security fixes and improved features.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003203322-1 1
2 Linux with Operating System Concepts

TABLE 1.1
Some of the Best Open-Source Products
Title Type of Software Website
LibreOffice Productivity software/office suite libreoffice.org
VLC media player Plays movies, music, live streams (also available for Android, iOS) videoland.org/vlc
GIMP Photo and image editor gimp.org
Shotcut Video editor (Windows only). shotcut.org
Brave Web browser which supports privacy in browsing (also Android, iOS) brave.com
Audacity Audio editor for music and spoken word audacityteam.org
KeePass Password generator, credential storage tool (Windows although has been keepass.info
unofficially ported to other platforms)
Thunderbird Email manager thunderbird.net
FileZilla FTP client filezilla-project.org
Linux Operating system (can be dual booted from Windows; can be installed in a Varies by distribution
virtual machine in Windows and MacOS)

But while this is a concern, we can also see that the open-source community can operate at a
speed greater than that of commercial software companies. One interesting example demonstrat-
ing the support from the open-source community comes from the OpenSSL project. OpenSSL is a
popular software product used to support secure communication over computer networks, with the
capability of creating and utilizing public- and private- key encryption.
A security flaw was discovered in OpenSSL on April 1, 2014. The bug, called HeartBleed,
would allow clever hackers to break the encryption generated by OpenSSL making websites pro-
tected by OpenSSL insecure. Six days after discovery, OpenSSL announced the security flaw and
released a patch to solve the problem. One of the biggest security flaws discovered in open source
software was patched in less than a week. Such agility is found among the open-source community.
Many security flaws found in commercial software, including Windows, have taken far longer to
fix. Note that while the security flaw was patched, it often took weeks, months or even years for
administrators of the various websites that used OpenSSL to apply the patch and thus remove the
security flaw.
Linux is free and supported. Is that the only reason to use Linux? Actually, no. It is perhaps the
most visible reason but for anyone in IT, it is not the most important. If you are a Windows user,
you may have used any number of Windows GUI-based tools to administer your operating sys-
tem. With these tools, you can create new accounts, change permissions on files and directories,
schedule tasks, view events (recorded in logs), modify disk partitions and modify any number of
hardware settings, to name only a few of the tasks that these tools support. Nearly every one of
these tasks uses a GUI (although some of these operations can be handled through PowerShell
commands).
In Linux, every type of administrative operation is handled from the command line. This sounds
like a detriment; who wants to type cryptic commands when those operations can be input through
a GUI? But, in fact, using the command line gives the user greater flexibility in issuing commands
which in turn provides the administrator greater control over the operating system. There are some
OS settings that cannot be modified in Windows. Just about everything in Linux is modifiable,
whether via the command line or, when necessary, by modifying Linux source code; fortunately,
we won’t have to resort to that step in this textbook!
Greater control through the command line also leads to, in many cases, easier control. This
seems unlikely in that using a GUI should always be easier. And yet if you have experience with
Windows, you know that some settings are hidden behind numerous operations. Click here, select
Linux 3

this, open that, select yet another link, change tabs, fill in this form, select OK and then confirm.
Making multiple changes may require repeating the same operations with minor modifications, over
and over. We will learn that Linux offers very convenient ways to recall a previous command line
instruction, make minor modifications to it and execute the revised version. Alternatively, we can
write shell scripts to perform such operations.
If you are a student studying Linux or hold an IT position, another aspect of Linux that you might
not gain in Windows or MacOS is learning about operating systems. Windows and MacOS tend to
shelter many OS concepts from you. You may learn to control processes using a tool like the Task
Manager, learn about disk partitions and file systems, or learn about virtual memory because of
heavy disk usage. But in Linux, you may need to delve into these details. You may want to change
process priorities, launch some processes in the background and change effective user ID of other
processes. You may need to manually mount and unmount partitions. You may need to examine
memory usage statistics to see how frequently your computer is swapping between main and virtual
memory. Learning Linux from the command line forces you to understand, at least to some extent,
what the OS does and how.
In learning Linux, you will expand your knowledge of computers in general. And, well, using
Linux is cool (at least that’s what many people think!).
In this textbook, we look at Linux from two different perspectives. Early on, we learn Linux
as a user. We explore how to enter commands from the command line prompt and navigate
through the Linux file space. We learn how to launch and manage processes. We learn some of
the powerful tools available in Linux including regular expressions and shell scripting. Over
the course of these early chapters, we learn dozens of Linux commands and useful features that
make command line entry easier. Midway through the text, we shift focus to learning Linux as
a system administrator. In this set of material, we look at creating and managing user accounts,
managing files and file systems, the Linux boot and initialization process, controlling services,
configuring network access and installing software. Throughout the book, we introduce OS
concepts.
To get us started in this chapter, we focus on five questions. What is Linux, and more generally
what are operating systems? We define operating systems and examine the components that make
up operating systems before we turn to Linux specifically and its components. Why should we use
Linux? We gave a brief answer to this question but delve more into the significance of Linux as an
OS of choice. Who developed Linux and when? We look at the history of Linux and the important
players, starting with some earlier operating systems that led to or factored into the development of
Linux. Finally, how do we use Linux? Although that is a topic for the entire book, in which chapter
we explore how to install several different versions of Linux. We also introduce different forms of
Linux interfaces, concentrating on how to open a terminal window for command line input, which
we will then use throughout most of the book.

SECTION ACTIVITIES
1. How many operating systems do you have experience with? Count not only desktop/
laptop computers but any servers, mainframes, supercomputers, tablets and smart-
phones. If you have experience with more than one, what similarities do you find
between those that you know? What differences?
2. Make a list of your own reasons for learning Linux. How do they compare to the
reasons covered in this section?
3. Read about Heartbleed at https://heartbleed.com/. Were you aware of it when the
problem was first announced in 2014?
4 Linux with Operating System Concepts

1.2 WHAT IS LINUX?
We start with something more general, what is an operating system? A computer’s OS is a collection
of programs that, as a whole, support our use of the computer through managing hardware resources
and running processes. Operating systems usually comprise many different programs. The heart of
the OS is a single program called the kernel. The kernel is loaded into memory when a computer is
booted, and it remains resident in memory until the computer is shut down. The kernel’s role is to
handle process and resource management, among other tasks. The kernel calls upon other OS com-
ponents to accomplish some of its tasks. Some of these components are loaded and run as needed.
Users may also call upon some of these other OS components, again loaded and run as needed.
Although we asked specifically what Linux is, we will concentrate first on operating systems in
general. We then shift to Linux specifically later in this section.

1.2.1 Early Operating Systems

The earliest electronic computers, developed in the mid-1940s through the early to the mid-1950s
were one-of-a-kind devices, created as much to explore how to build computers as to be useful
computational devices. These computers had no operating systems at all. For a “user” to use a com-
puter, that user would write their program code and submit it. Code might have been entered into
the computer by making connections of various components through cables, setting switches on the
computer’s console and pressing the start button. Such programs used no external resources. If a
program required a resource like access to input from magnetic tape or punch cards, the instructions
to perform such input had to be included in the program itself. Otherwise, the computer would not
know how to access the tape drive or punch card reader.
Around 1958, programmers began shifting from low-level machine languages to more sophis-
ticated, high-level languages. Among the first were FORTRAN and COBOL. A program writ-
ten in one of these languages could not be directly executed. Instead, the program had to be
translated from the high-level language into machine language using a separate program called
a compiler.
The programmer had several distinct steps to run their program. First, they would mount and
load the compiler. Next, they would input their FORTRAN or COBOL program into the running
compiler. The compiler would execute, outputting the executable version of the program onto mag-
netic tape. Now, the programmer would unmount the compiler and mount the tape containing their
executable program. The programmer would next load and run the executable program. The pro-
gram’s input would likely come from another tape or punch cards. Remember, every one of these
steps requires that the programmer implement the steps by additional program code. That’s a lot of
work to run a program!
To simplify this process, some of the tasks were captured into a program called the resident
monitor. This program would be loaded into memory after the computer booted. The program
would stay in memory until the computer was shut down, thus the word resident. The term monitor
described the role of this program: to monitor a running program’s requests for access to the system
resources available. The system resources were generally limited to magnetic tape and punch card
reader (printers usually were separate devices that would print data from magnetic tape).
The first resident monitor predates FORTRAN and was released in 1955. By the early 1960s, the
tasks of the monitor had grown to the point that people were referring to these programs as oper-
ating systems. Over the course of decades, operating systems have grown in complexity and size.
Table 1.2 examines some of the earliest operating systems/resident monitors.
Today, the OS contains the kernel (what had been the resident monitor) and supporting software
including device drivers, utilities, shells, services and servers. Nearly all of our modern computers
have and require operating systems. Without an operating system, most users would be unable to
use their computer.
Linux 5

TABLE 1.2
Early Resident Monitor/Operating Systems of Note
System Platform Notable Features
MIT’s Tape Director (1955) UNIVAC 1103 Mounting and access to files on tape.
General Motors Operating System IBM 701 First batch operating system.
(unnamed, 1955)
GM-NAA I/O (1956) IBM 704 Next-generation follow-ups to the General Motors
SHARE OS (1959) OS, executing scheduled jobs in a batch mode but
sharing routines that were common across processes.
Atlas Supervisor (1957) Atlas Computer Managed resources including virtual memory.
BESYS (Bell Labs Systems, 1957) IBM 704 (and later 7090 Batch processing and tape management, use of punch
and 7094) cards, program libraries, core dumping.
IBSYS (1960) IBM 7090, 7094 Batch processing, job control cards to control
operations.
Compatible Time-Sharing System IBM 7094 Time sharing (multitasking).
(CTSS, from MIT, 1961)
Master Control Program MCP, 1961) Burroughs mainframes Multiprocessors and virtual memory; the first OS
written in a high-level language.
Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) PDP-1 Time sharing, supported by both the operating
Time-Sharing System (1962) system and specialized hardware.
OS/360 (announced 1964, released IBM 360 mainframes Batch processing with multiprogramming and a
1966) separate process scheduler.

Computers without an OS are known as bare machines. You might find a bare machine if you
either construct your own computer hardware and run it without installing an OS or delete the exist-
ing operating system. The only reason to use a bare machine is to experiment with hardware and to
gauge hardware efficiency irrespective of OS or application software load.

1.2.2 The Operating System Kernel

We identified several types of software that make up the OS in the last subsection. Let’s take a
closer look at each. The kernel, as already noted, is an expanded version of the resident monitor. It
is the kernel that is responsible for most of the important tasks of the OS. We highlight several of
these tasks in Table 1.3. The tasks are listed in alphabetical order rather than in order of importance.
Process management is likely the most important role of any OS.
There are three different types of kernel: monolithic, microkernel and hybrid. A monolithic
kernel is one in which the kernel is a single program which operates solely within the computer’s
privileged mode and in its own address (memory) space. Communication between the user side
(running applications) and the kernel side is handled through system calls. A system call invokes a
specific portion of the OS kernel. Upon receiving a system call, the kernel changes from user mode
to privileged mode. The kernel then ensures that the user program’s request is legitimate, meaning
that the user program (or user) has an appropriate level of access for the call to be carried out.
Early operating systems used a monolithic kernel. But, as these operating systems governed
computers with limited amounts of memory and few system resources, the kernel was not asked to
do a great deal and so the kernel was fairly small (in comparison to later OS kernels). As computer
capabilities grew, operating systems became larger and monolithic kernels became more and more
complex.
In response to the complexity of the monolithic kernel, the microkernel was developed start-
ing in the 1980s. The microkernel is based on a smaller kernel that operates within privileged
mode and in its own address space. In order to support the expected range of functions, the OS
6 Linux with Operating System Concepts

TABLE 1.3
Roles of the OS Kernel
Role Meaning Example
Auditing and Keep track of users logged in and the resources allocated to Auditing and logging programs.
accounting them; log events.
Device management Ability to add, remove and interface with peripheral devices. Mounting disk drives, adding
devices via USB ports.
File management Ability to open, close, create, save, rename, move and copy Windows File Explorer or similar
files and directories. commands available in MS-DOS
and PowerShell.
Interprocess Information sharing between running processes. Shared data in memory or message
communication passing.
Interrupt handling Dealing with device interrupts and error situations. I/O interrupts, interprocess
interrupts, timer interrupts.
Memory Manage memory allocation and deallocation; protect areas of Virtual memory (demand paging,
management memory from memory violation; move code and data into and demand segmentation),
out of memory as needed. contiguous memory allocation and
compaction, memory overlays.
Process management Start new processes; monitor processes as they run to initiate Single tasking, batch processing,
the handling of requests; detect and initiate the process of cooperative multitasking,
handling errors; switch between processes; remove processes pre-emptive multitasking;
from the computer when they terminate. multithreading.
Protection Ensure a process can only access resources available to that Access control lists, user accounts
process or that process’ owner. and a login process, user mode
versus privileged mode.
Resource Grant a process access to a resource (e.g., a file); maintain Synchronization mechanisms,
management mutually exclusive access; maintain process liveness. deadlock handling mechanisms.
Scheduling Determine the order with which processes will run. First-come first-served, priority,
round-robin.
Security Extend protection across a computer network. User accounts and a login process,
encryption.
User interface Provide a means for the user to interface with the OS, running Graphical-User interface (GUI),
applications and hardware. command line interface (CLI),
menu-driven interface.

is extended by a number of subsystems referred to as servers (not to be confused with the use of
the word server as used in webserver, file server, print server and so forth). Servers operate based
on requests from user applications in the computer’s user mode and the user section of memory’s
address space. Communication between application software and kernel is much like with the
monolithic kernel, but the kernel then calls upon servers to handle many of the operations. Thus,
the microkernel involves a far greater amount of system calls as the servers are separate from
the kernel.
Among the server components are file system servers, network servers, display servers, user
interface servers and servers that can directly communicate with device drivers. Remaining in the
kernel are the process scheduler, memory manager (including virtual memory) and interprocess
communication between OS components. One of the most prominent operating systems to use the
microkernel is Mach, Carnegie Mellon University’s implementation of Unix.
The hybrid kernel compromises between the two extremes where the kernel is kept small but
server-like components are added on. Here, the server components run in kernel mode but often in
the user’s address space. In this way, processes can call upon the servers more easily than with the
Linux 7

microkernel approach and thus bypass some of the time-consuming system calls. The smaller ker-
nel might handle such tasks as interrupt handling and process and thread scheduling. The servers
might handle virtual memory, interprocess communication, the user interface, I/O (device drivers)
and process management.
Windows NT and later versions of Windows, including Windows 7, 8 and 10, use forms of hybrid
kernels. Mac OS X and iOS (used on Apple mobile devices) combine the microkernel of Mach with
components from FreeBSD and NetBSD. The resulting kernel for Mac OS and iOS is known as
XNU (X is Not Unix) and is another hybrid kernel.
Those who work with either microkernels or hybrid kernels cite that the monolithic kernel is too
complicated and large. As the monolithic kernel is essentially one large piece of code, making a
minor modification to one portion of the code might have completely unexpected impacts on other
portions. Errors may arise that are very hard to identify and locate. This could lead to an unstable
OS which yields errors and system crashes for reasons that have little to do with the modified code.
There are concerns that the monolithic kernel will be inefficient because of its size.
Given the problems with a monolithic kernel, why would anyone want to produce one? In order
to improve on the efficiency and reduce the impact of errors of the monolithic kernel, the modern
monolithic kernel includes numerous modules. Each module implements one or more of the core
kernel’s responsibilities. Thus, the kernel can itself be partially modularized. Modules are loaded
either at kernel initialization time or on demand. The efficiency of a monolithic kernel’s execution is
in part based on the number of modules loaded. Loading fewer modules leads to a more efficiently
executing kernel. Through modules, the Linux kernel can be kept relatively small.
Figure 1.1 illustrates the difference, at a rudimentary level, between the monolithic kernel and
microkernel. On the top, the monolithic kernel is large and handles all kernel operations. System
calls are limited to just the applications software invoking the kernel. On the bottom, the microker-
nel is smaller and simpler, but system calls occur between the kernel and servers as well as between
the application software and servers.
As seen in Figure 1.1, a running application invokes a part of the kernel through a system call.
The system call is a function invocation where the function is not part of the application that invoked
it but part of the kernel. In this way, a programmer writing an application has a ready-made interface
by which to call upon the kernel.
In Linux, a system call is not directly intercepted by the kernel but instead handled by a wrap-
per function. Wrapper functions are part of one or more Linux libraries such as glibc. The role
of the wrapper function is to place the arguments of the function call into appropriate hardware

FIGURE 1.1 Monolithic kernel (top) compared to microkernel (bottom).

8 Linux with Operating System Concepts

registers where the kernel expects them and to switch processor mode from user mode to privileged
mode. The kernel operates under privileged mode while the user’s process operates under user
mode. If an error arises during the execution of the system call, it is the wrapper’s responsibility
to intercept the error from the kernel and modify this into an error number, stored in the special
variable errno. This variable can then be referenced by the application or the user from the com-
mand line. Some wrappers are more complicated and perform various forms of preprocessing and/
or postprocessing.
Table 1.4 provides a list of some of the many system calls available in Linux. Note that system
calls will vary by both distribution and between versions. The system calls in the table, listed in
alphabetical order, are those found in most versions of Linux although the name might vary slightly.
The table describes the listed system calls and provides a basic categorization of the type of activity
it oversees. Keep in mind that any implementation of Linux will likely have several hundred system
calls available.
If you look over the list of system calls you might recognize some of the names by their type
of operation (e.g., open, close, read and write). Others have names similar to that of Linux
instructions like chmod, kill, stat and mount/umount. If you are already familiar with Linux,
the system call pipe should sound familiar.

TABLE 1.4
Some Linux System Calls
Name Category Use
access File management Test user permissions on a file.
chdir File management Change the current working directory.
chmod File management Change file permissions.
close File management Close a file descriptor.
creat File management Create a file or device.
exec, execv, execve (and others) Process management Create a child process.
exit Process management Terminate current process.
fork, vfork Process management Create a child process, create a child process
while blocking the parent process.
fstat, stat File management Get file status.
getpid, getppid Process management Get the ID of a process, process’ parent.
getpriority, setpriority, nice Process management Get or set the process’ priority, change process
priority.
ioctl Device management Send control signal to I/O device.
lseek File management Move pointer within file to new location.
kill Interprocess communication Send signal to a process (may result in exiting
the process).
mlock, munlock Memory management Lock/unlock page in memory.
mount, umount Device management Mount or unmount file system.
open File management Open a file/device, assign to a file descriptor.
pipe Interprocess communication Create interprocess channel.
poll Process management Cause process to wait for event from file
descriptor.
read File management Read from a file descriptor.
stat File management Get file status information.
truncate File management Set a file to a specified length.
write File management Write to a file descriptor.
Linux 9

Before we leave this topic, we have two additional comments. First, the file descriptor is a designa-
tor (number) that the kernel assigns to an open file or resource. It is through the designator that the
kernel will control access to that open file or resource. Thus, when we want to read data from an open
file, the operation to the kernel becomes “read from this file descriptor”. Second, the terms exec and
fork are used to express what happens when a process is created. In Linux, all processes are gener-
ated, or spawned, by an existing process (with the exception of the first process that runs during sys-
tem initialization). The system calls of execve and fork/vfork are used so that the current process
can generate a new process. We explore the exec and fork system calls in more detail in Chapter 4.

1.2.3 Other Operating System Components

We wrap up our introduction to the OS with a look at other OS components, first with the device
driver. Referring back to Figure 1.1, you can see that device drivers are positioned between the
kernel and the hardware devices. Each driver is a program written specifically to facilitate com-
munication between the kernel and the device. The reason for device drivers is that I/O devices vary
dramatically in terms of type of operation, quantity of data transmitted and speed of transmission.
It is too much to expect the CPU to be able to communicate directly with the great variety of I/O
devices. Instead, the CPU sends generic instructions to the device which the kernel intercepts and
converts into actions by calling upon the corresponding driver.
Many device drivers are already preinstalled in most operating systems. The device driver
merely needs to be enabled to be used. For less common devices, or devices that were not available
when the OS was implemented, the drivers must be installed. These drivers might come from the
manufacturer on optical disc provided with the device but more commonly are downloaded over the
Internet and installed.
Some OSs, most notably Unix/Linux, Windows and Mac OS, also employ operating system
services. Services run in the background meaning that they run without user interaction. A service
runs on demand when it is needed. When unneeded, it uses few system resources. There are a great
many services in Linux supporting such tasks as process scheduling, management of hardware and
the network, logging and file system handling. We explore services in Chapter 9.
Another component of many OSs is, like the device drivers and services, a collection of programs,
referred to as OS utilities; also possibly referred to as tools. Each utility offers some functionality
in improving system performance. One class of utility pertains to files and file systems. There are
disk defragmenters to make disk access more efficient, disk recoverers to scavenge deleted files
from disk, file system cleaners to remove unused or outdated files, backup and archive utilities and
encryption/decryption utilities. Another form of utility is an anti-malware program which not only
searches your hard disk for computer viruses but also examines website URLs to see if the website
should be avoided as untrustworthy.
Most utilities run at the request of the user. This makes the utility different from other OS com-
ponents which run as needed or are invoked by application software or requests from other OS
components. And unlike the kernel and OS services, utilities run in the foreground i.e., they present
the user with an interface. Windows has a great number of utilities, some of which are part of the
Windows OS and some are third-party add-ons. Linux has fewer utilities because some of the same
tasks are handled by Linux services. Some utilities are not part of Linux at all and must be installed
as third-party products.
The last “add-on” component to the OS is tailorable user interface. In Windows and Mac OS, the
user can tailor the desktop with files and shortcut icons. In Linux, we more commonly use the shell
to personalize our interface. The shell is an environment in which the user enters commands. The
shell permits definitions and instructions to be recalled later. Definitions include shell scripts and
aliases. We explore the Linux shell in detail in Chapter 2.
We noted earlier that the system call wrapper functions, among other tasks, cause the com-
puter to switch modes. The Linux OS has a clear differentiation of roles between user mode and
10 Linux with Operating System Concepts

TABLE 1.5
Uses and Platforms Where We Find Linux
Uses/Platforms Explanation
Arts Preferred choice for animation by many movie studios.
Cloud Used to support cloud computing and other cloud services.
Gaming Often used in gaming development.
Governments Used extensively by dozens of governments including the US, China and India.
Mobile device Android and Raspberry Pi, among others.
Networking Found in firewall and router hardware devices.
Smart devices Found in many smart TVs and home automation devices.
Webserver Linux is used to run more webservers than any other OS.

privileged mode. User mode is applied when running all applications software, Linux services,
the GUI, common software libraries and system calls. Privileged mode consists of the OS kernel,
including the execution of system calls and device drivers.

1.2.4 So, What Is Linux?

We posed this question to start this section but then dedicated most of the space to describing OSs
in general. What is Linux? Succinctly, Linux is a family of OSs, loosely based on Unix, and largely
developed by and supported by the open-source community. Linux is an OS that uses a monolithic
kernel supported by modules that can be loaded and unloaded. Linux is an OS whose interface with
applications software is made through system calls.
Linux is also one of the few portable operating systems available. The term portable means that
the OS is not written for one or a few forms of hardware but could be run on many different plat-
forms of hardware. Linux is also one of the more efficient OSs. It is small enough to run on nearly
any type of computer device but powerful enough to run large-scale applications such as webserv-
ers. It is modern enough to use features found in most other OSs while also having its own cutting-
edge facilities such as its security handling (SELinux). It is similar enough to Unix so that users of
Unix will have no problem learning Linux, and its GUI is relatable enough for a common user to be
able to use it. As Linux is available in open source, a programmer can modify how Linux runs by
updating and recompiling Linux source code.
There are many uses for Linux. We share some in Table 1.5. Move on to Section 1.3 for more
reasons for using Linux.

SECTION ACTIVITIES
1. How important is it for a user to understand the operating system concepts explored
in this section? For instance, do you need to know what a kernel is? What services
are? Think about your own knowledge of the OS. Does it make it easier for you to
use computers?
2. In this section, we saw, briefly, the development of early OSs until 1966. You might
wonder about Windows and MacOS. As personal computers were not introduced
until the 1970s, it’s no surprise we didn’t see them included in the list. IBM PC and
compatible computers started off using MS-DOS, with Windows being introduced
in 1985, 1 year after the first Macintosh came out. Research the development of both
MacOS and Windows. You can find a great many websites that describe their indi-
vidual histories or the history of all operating systems combined.
Linux 11

1.3 WHY USE LINUX?

What makes Linux different from other operating systems? We noted earlier in this chapter that it
is open source and provides the user more control. There are other open-source operating systems,
albeit not that many, and none have been as successful as Linux (Android by Google is perhaps the
most popular alternative but is itself based on a modified version of the Linux kernel). There are
other OSs that provide the user with the degree of control as Linux although the one that equals
Linux is Unix, on which Linux is based.
It’s worth reiterating that open source does not just mean free. With Linux, open source comes
with an entire community of programmers. These programmers work, usually in large groups, on
related projects. Some are involved in enhancing existing Linux versions. Others work on applica-
tions that run within one or more versions of Linux. And those same people or others are involved
in providing the support that comes with commercial products.
In addition to the open-source nature of Linux, it was initially built to require few resources. We
might refer to Linux as a lightweight OS compared to that of Mac OS and Windows because of the
approach taken in implementing Linux. Linux should boot and initialize faster than other operating
systems. A computer running Linux should require less memory and should be able to function with
a slower processor. Although these statements are generally true, some versions of Linux require
more resources than others.
Another advantage of Linux is portability. The Unix OS was developed to be run on any platform
of mainframe computer, and later versions were released for workstations, personal computers and
servers. Linux is even more portable. Versions of Linux can run on just about every classification of
computer: supercomputer, mainframe, server, personal computer and laptop, tablet, smartphone and
embedded devices. This level of portability does not exist with other OSs.
Another reason to choose Linux is that it is less attack-prone than Windows. Hackers more com-
monly target Windows-based computers when attempting to breach computers, inflict viruses or
perform other forms of attacks because there are far more Windows computers than Linux comput-
ers (excluding servers and supercomputers). You might think that Linux would be open to attacks
of all kinds because its source code is readily available. In fact, the open-source community takes
great efforts to ensure a lack of security flaws in the OS before a Linux version is released. That is
not to say that they are 100% successful. But because of the efforts taken combined with the lower
incidents of attack, some companies and even whole governments are moving to Linux as the pre-
ferred OS because it is, at least currently, more secure.
Linux has become the OS of choice for many computer programmers and system administrators.
It is also an OS of choice for many computer users, hobbyists and companies. But in spite of its
increased popularity, the number of desktop/laptop computers running Linux remains in the minor-
ity when compared to Windows and Mac OS. It is estimated that no more than 1.93% of the world’s
desktop computers are currently running Linux. Figure 1.2 highlights some of the more interesting
statistics about Linux usage, as of spring 2021.

SECTION ACTIVITIES
1. What open-source software have you used? Make a list. It’s probably more than ten
titles!
2. The statistics in Figure 1.2 provide an interesting dichotomy: Linux is the operating
system of choice for supercomputers and most servers but few desktops. Why do you
suppose this is the case? Write down three reasons. Now research the topic and see
if your reasons are those cited by others.
12 Linux with Operating System Concepts

FIGURE 1.2 Interesting statistics about Linux usage.

1.4 WHO DEVELOPED LINUX AND WHEN?

We can start the history of Linux with one person and one event: Linus Torvalds, a Finnish com-
puter science student, who in 1991 was dissatisfied with the operating system that came with his
operating system textbook. He set about creating his own OS which he eventually named Linux. But
rather than starting with Torvalds in 1991, we start 27 years earlier.

1.4.1 The Birth and Development of Unix

In 1964, a group of software engineers from AT&T Bell Labs, General Electric and MIT began
developing a new and novel operating system called MULTICS (Multiplexed Information and
Computer Service). MULTICS was a multiuser, time-sharing (multitasking) OS that pioneered a
number of innovative features. While the development of MULTICS seemed promising, AT&T
withdrew from the project in 1969, shortly before its release.
Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie were two of the AT&T members involved in the early devel-
opment of MULTICS. They did not want to see their efforts end at that time. AT&T was using
a batch processing OS that they felt was unsatisfactory. They worked on their own version of a
MULTICS-like OS with help from other AT&T employees, including Rudd Canaday. The result
was a new OS, written for the PDP-7 mainframe and written in that computer’s assembly language.
They called it UNICS, short for Un-multiplexed Information and Computing Service, likely a joke
name spoofing the name MULTICS.
Further development targeted the PDP-11 computer but rather than reimplement the OS in
PDP-11 assembly language, Thompson and Ritchie wanted to implement their OS in a neutral
Linux 13

language so that the OS could be ported more easily to other computers. Ritchie, along with
another AT&T employee, Brian Kernighan, created a new programming language called C. It
was in C that UNICS was rewritten and eventually released in 1973. During this time, the OS
was renamed from UNICS to Unix. Other employees contributed significantly to Unix as it was
developed.
A look at Unix features shows that it was at least partially derived out of the experience
that Thompson and Ritchie gained in their work on MULTICS. Table 1.6 shows some of the
features either introduced in MULTICS and used or enhanced in Unix, or introduced in Unix.
Compare these features to the brief descriptions of other early 1960s OS from Table 1.2, and
you will see that first MULTICS and then Unix popularized many features that had yet to be
developed.
In spite of Unix being referred to as platform-independent, the 1973 version still contained some
code specific to the PDP-11. It was not until 1978 that Unix was successfully ported to another
platform. When distributed by AT&T, Unix was provided in source code format (for a small fee).
Although AT&T released many versions of Unix, they were all referred to as Research Unix. But
because AT&T offered no support in the versions they distributed, it was up to other organizations
to modify the Unix source code as needed to run on different platforms, fix errors and add desired
features. This led to a splintering of Unix into many versions.
One such version was provided to the University of California Berkeley’s computer science
department. At Berkeley, programmers developed their own OS, using some of the Unix code
as components. In 1975, Ken Thompson became a visiting professor at UC Berkeley. Under his

TABLE 1.6
Unix Features (From Richard Fox, 2021, Information Technology: An Introduction for
Today’s Digital World, 2nd edition)
Feature Explanation Comments
Command line Beyond a CLI, Unix’s CLI provides flexibility with operations to redirect input Popularized
interpreter and output, define constructs like aliases, and the ability to write shell scripts. from Multics
Commands as programs Rather than having the kernel handle all operations, many basic commands are First
provided as their own programs such as file system commands, text editing
and processing commands, and process management commands.
Hierarchical file system Directories can have their own subdirectories and administrators to better Popularized
organize files. from Multics
Interprocess Allows synchronized access to shared data among multitasking processes.
communication
Multitasking/multiuser Runs multiple processes of multiple logged-in users at a time.
OS
Portability Unix could be installed on a large variety of computer types. First
Regular expressions Ability to search files for strings through command-line programs like grep, Popularized
awk and sed and the programming language Perl. from Multics
Shells The CLI was one component of a shell; shells introduced convenient shortcut First
features to assist the user.
System calls Written in C, Unix made many kernel operations available as C functions First
known as system calls, which could be invoked by user programs.
Top-level directory Separate directories for OS components and user files simplify the process of First
structure searching for a file.
Treating devices as files Nearly everything in Unix is either a process or a “file”; this allows file First
commands to be executed on devices either from the command line or from
a script.
14 Linux with Operating System Concepts

guidance, a new version of Unix was produced. This became known as the Berkeley Standard
Distribution (BSD) Unix. Unlike AT&T’s Unix, which was proprietary, BSD Unix was freely dis-
tributed under the BSD License (which imposed only minimal restrictions on the use and distribu-
tion of this version of Unix). BSD versions 4.2 and 4.3 became leading versions of Unix, distributed
to other organizations. BSD led to other versions such as SunOS, Darwin (which would become
the basis for the Mac OS), FreeBSD and NetBSD. Other versions splintered from Unix to become
IBM’s AIX, HP’s HP-UX, Microsoft’s Xenix and Sun’s Solaris. By 1990, there were dozens of ver-
sions of Unix, many of which were proprietary.

1.4.2 GNU
In the early 1980s, Richard Stallman, a researcher at MIT’s artificial intelligence laboratory, wanted
to create his own Unix-like operating system. He wanted to make this OS available in source code
format for free and with no licensing restrictions so that other programmers could modify the OS
as they desired just as long as any modifications would similarly be made available in source code
for the community to use. He called upon many members of the Unix user and programming com-
munity for help. He dubbed the project GNU for GNU Not Unix, a recursive definition (recursion is
a programming tool commonly used in artificial intelligence).
Stallman’s group began work on the GNU OS at the same time BSD was becoming popular.
But while BSD became successful, a GNU kernel was never completed. Stallman succeeded,
though, in his version of a free software movement. His vision was that software should be
free. He would explain free as in “free speech” not “free beer”. He opposed proprietary soft-
ware and saw the software field as one where all programmers could or should contribute to
the ­development of free software. Software, he felt, were based on ideas and ideas could not be
owned.
Stallman created the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL). The GPL requires that software
published under the GPL must be free for anyone to use for any purpose: free to be studied, free to
be changed, free to be redistributed and free to be improved. The proviso is that anything created by
GPL software would also be published under the GPL so that further distribution of such software
would also be available as source code allowing others the same freedoms.
GPL version 1 was released in February 1989. Its main points are that any software distributed
under the GPL can be copied and distributed in the source code format (as long as it is distributed
exactly as provided) and distributed in any medium, and as long as the redistribution maintains the
exact same notices as the original. The same stipulations apply to modified code: such code must
contain the original notices as well as notices that this version has been modified, including the files
changed and the dates of those changes, and that the new distribution be carried under the GPL. The
GPL also permits distribution of the code in its compiled, executable form (known as object code).
There are ten clauses in GPLv1 including two that clearly indicate that the software comes with no
warranty because it is free.
GPLv2 was released in June 1991 adding a restriction that works covered by the GPL can only
be redistributed if they can satisfy all of the license’s obligations. The inclusion of this clause is to
discourage any form of patent infringement lawsuit being claimed over a GPL-distributed product.
GPLv3 was released in June 2007, which added more detail and language to protect GPL-covered
items (which at this point went beyond software).
Although we will not examine the GPL itself, Figure 1.3 shows the first version’s Preamble,
which is worth reading. It states, right from the start, that the GPL is there to express our freedom
rather than the restrictions found in most software licenses. It is for this reason that Stallman called
the GPL a copyleft instead of a copyright. The entire GPLv1 license, along with all newer ver-
sions, is available at https://www.gnu.org/licenses/ with version 1 at https://www.gnu.org/licenses/
old-licenses/gpl-1.0.en.html.
Linux 15

FIGURE 1.3 The GPLv1 preamble.

1.4.3 Enter Linus Torvalds

In 1991, Linus Torvalds, a computer science student at the University of Helsinki, was unhappy with
the toy OS that came with his operating system textbook. Torvalds began to develop his own small
OS on his Intel 386-based computer, written in Intel 80386 assembly language. He developed only
a few components: a small multithreading kernel, a bash interpreter and the gcc compiler. He
posted on the USENET newsgroup, comp.os.minix, to attract other programmers who wanted
to help develop an OS that was different from and better than MINIX. He posted the source code
for his fledgling OS on an FTP server. Over the next few months, members of the GNU community
contributed GNU components including the facility to compile code using make as well as com-
press and sed, among other programs.
As the OS took shape, he published it under a version of the GPL (GPLv2). Over the next several
months, the community of programmers working on Linux grew. A new USENET newsgroup was
established for the community, alt.os.linux (which would be renamed comp.os.linux a
couple of months later). Enhancements to Linux during this time included a number of device driv-
ers, a more fleshed-out kernel, the adoption of the POSIX standard and an implementation of the X
Window System. By 1994, Linux had grown to over 175,000 lines of code, written in C. This version
was distributed as Linux version 1.0.0. Aside from versions released for Intel processors, Linux was
successfully ported to the DEC Alpha, Sun SPARC and MIPS processors.
16 Linux with Operating System Concepts

In 1992, the first well-known splintering of Linux took place when Canadian software engineer
Peter MacDonald developed Softlanding Linux System (SLS). Whereas Torvald’s Linux was a ker-
nel, device drivers and full utilities like gcc, SLS included a full windowing system (based on X
Windows) and a number of applications software. Computer science student Patrick Volkerding (at
Moorhead State University in Minnesota) downloaded SLS and modified it to fix some bugs. He
distributed his version to fellow students who urged him to publish his version. His version became
known as Slackware.
A German software company, Software und System Entwicklung (Software and System
Development, or SUSE for short) adopted Slackware as a platform, translating it into German and
enhancing it. This led to three different versions from the same branch of the Linux “tree”. All three
versions continued to be updated although SLS was largely ignored in favor of Slackware. But it was
SUSE that found the most popularity in the end and has had several spinoff versions under various
names including SUSE, SuSE, SuSELinux and openSUSE. In comparing SUSE to other versions of
Linux, we find it comes closest to Red Hat Linux, and as SUSE/openSUSE is of limited popularity,
we will not examine it any further.
The SLS/Slackware/SUSE version of Linux leads us to the term distribution, or distro for short.
More and more distributions took place in the 1990s and into the 2000s resulting in a large number
of Linux versions. There are far too many distros to track them all here. The remainder of this sub-
section looks at some of the more significant developments of the distros.
In 1994, software developer Marc Ewing developed his own version of Linux that he named Red
Hat Linux. Released late in 1994, his business was bought by entrepreneur Bob Young. The new
company was called Red Hat Software and largely revolved around a commercial version of Linux
(both the OS and application software). Unlike the versions of Linux being developed by the open-
source community, the intention of Red Hat was to include support so that companies could trust
that bugs would be fixed quickly. Red Hat Software was later renamed Red Hat, Inc., which was
purchased by IBM in 2018.
Two spinoffs of Red Hat are supported by Red Hat, Inc., Fedora and CentOS. Both of these ver-
sions are open-source versions of what is now called Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). There are
a few differences between these three distributions but mostly they are built on the same kernel with
most of the same services, applications and features. Similarities and differences between the three
distributions are described in Table 1.7. Note that the most recent version is of spring 2021.
Debian was first announced in 1993 with the intent to be the first release of a Linux outside of
Torvald’s. The project was headed by programmer Ian Murdock, and the name was a combination
of his girlfriend (Debra) and his first names. Although the first release of Debian (version 0.01) was
in 1993, the first major release did not take place until 1996, thus it trailed both SLS/Slackware and

TABLE 1.7
Comparisons between RHEL, Fedora and CentOS
RHEL Fedora CentOS
Initial release 2000 2003 2004
License type Commercial GPL GPL
Maintained by Red Hat, Inc/IBM Open-source community Open-source community
Processor targets x86, ARM, IBM Z, IBM power systems x86, ARM, aarch64 x86, ARM64, Power8
Computer types Servers, mainframes, workstations, Servers, desktops, cloud Servers, desktops,
supercomputers workstations, supercomputers
User interface GNOME GNOME GNOME
Release targets 2–4 minor releases per year, major Every 6 months Same as RHEL
releases every 5 or so years
Most recent version RHEL version 8 (Oct 2020) Version 33 (Oct 2020) Stream (Dec 2020)
Linux 17

Red Hat. Murdock handed off control of Debian to Bruce Perens in 1996 and then leadership was
established by elections every year (starting in 1999).
Unlike Red Hat which had both commercial and open-source versions, Debian was intended to
be open source from day one. The Debian development community took their time with each ver-
sion, planning to release a new version only every 2 years. Three different versions of Debian are
available at any time: the current stable version, a testing version of the intended next release and an
unstable version which includes libraries and packages that may not install correctly or at all (that
is, these items are untested).
The deliberative and slow nature of new releases under Debian was a point of contention with
some developers and so Ubuntu spun off from Debian with new releases targeted for every 6 months.
The first version of Ubuntu came out in 2004. Ubuntu attempts to be a more secure version of Linux
and as such, pioneered the idea that rather than users having access to the system administrator
account (root), the first user account would automatically receive access to administrator com-
mands through the sudo command. We explore this later in the text. Other Linux distributions later
adopted this practice.
Two other notable Debian descendants are Knoppix and Linux Mint. Knoppix is noteworthy as a
form of Linux that can be booted and run entirely off of an optical disc. This feature, known as a live
boot, allows the user to use Linux without installing it on their computer. The disadvantage is that
you start with a new version of the OS every time you launch it. Any previously created accounts
or changes made to the OS or environment are lost. Files must be saved externally, for instance via
a USB-based drive. Linux Mint is based on a Ubuntu-derivative called Kubuntu, which was first
released in 2006. As Linux Mint was further developed, it became more based on Debian than
Ubuntu and is now called Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE). Two differences between Linux
Mint and Ubuntu are that Linux Mint supposedly uses less memory when running and it has more
preinstalled applications than Ubuntu.
In reading through the distributions listed above you might question why there are so many.
What are their differences? All of the spinoff distributions are based around the same Linux kernel.
Each version’s kernel shares many of the same modules with the other versions. The versions share
many of the same C libraries, system calls, shells and X Windows interface (although the specific
look of the desktop will differ). Many of the same applications run on all of the Linux distributions.
There are perhaps four significant differences between these main distributions. The most sig-
nificant difference in terms of usage is the package manager program used to perform software
installation and upgrades. A second difference is the quantity of available applications software as
some distributions have fewer titles available or support fewer third-party applications. There is also
a philosophical difference behind the developer’s plans for major version releases. Finally, there is a
different philosophy taken regarding whether the root password is made available.
There are two primary package managers used in today’s Linux distributions: dnf (or the
slightly older yum) and apt. These are built on top of other package manager programs: rpm (Red
Hat Package Manager which dnf/yum uses) and dpkg (Debian Package Manager which apt calls
upon). Amazingly, other than the specific desktop design, this is the single most visible difference
between the various distributions.
In terms of available software, we find most distributions come with a Firefox web browser
(usually built in) and can run the emacs editor (not built in). They also all have the ability to run
an office suite (built in or not), usually LibreOffice. However, some have far more applications
than others. For instance, Ubuntu is a popular choice for gaming enthusiasts.
The development philosophy is less visible but no less impactful. The Debian community takes
a slow but thorough approach when creating and vetting a new version. The target of every 2 years
seems extreme to some Linux users and so they favor the more rapid development and deployment of
Ubuntu. With Red Hat distributions, Red Hat, Inc. drives most of the development but as new versions
are made available, members of the Red Hat community take the source code and use it to develop a
new release of CentOS. So, in fact, CentOS will have mostly the same code and features as RHEL.
18 Linux with Operating System Concepts

TABLE 1.8
Comparing Linux Distributions
CentOS Debian Fedora Linux Mint RHEL Ubuntu
Initial release 2004 1996 2003 2006 1995 2004
Parent (if any) Red Hat N/A Red Hat Ubuntu N/A Debian
Package manager rpm, dnf/yum apt, dpkg rpm, dnf/yum apt, dpkg rpm, dnf/yum apt, dpkg
Approximate amount of 6000–7000 90,000 65,000 30,000 10,000–12,000 90,000+
software packages
Target release frequency Coupled with Every Yearly Every Major releases Every
RHEL 2–3 years 2–3 years every 5–10 years 6 months
Degree of open source Completely Completely Completely Mostly None Mostly
Most recent version 8 and Stream 10.8 33 20 8 20.04
Most recent release date 2020 2021 2020 2021 2020 2020

In previous releases of RHEL, a related version of CentOS was released shortly afterward.
Starting in 2020 however, a new approach is being taken. CentOS is now releasing versions under
the name Stream. The idea is that rather than waiting for a new, completed version of RHEL,
CentOS will release versions earlier that contain features being proposed for the next RHEL release.
Finally, there is a distinction between RHEL, and the rest of the Linux distributions described
here in that RHEL is not a free OS. Instead, a commercial purchase must be made in order to receive
RHEL support. The other versions of Linux are free and can be found in source code format. Within
the different distributions, some software may be proprietary. Early versions of Linux Mint had
proprietary software (which has supposedly been removed).
We review the most significant differences between these most notable distributions in Table 1.8.
In the table, we cite which of the original distributions it evolved from, the choice of package man-
ager, the quantity of available software (estimated from various website reports) and the development
philosophy. We also note the most recent version and its distribution date. The Linux distributions
are listed in alphabetical order (left-to-right) rather than by year of initial or most recent release.
There is no official count of the total number of Linux distributions available or in use today,
but the estimate is between 600 and 1000. Some of these distributions vary more dramatically than
what was explained above. Nearly all of the distributions are available for free (RHEL being one
of the notable exceptions), and these can come in either source code or as an executable installation
program (usually as an ISO image). The history is so complicated that mapping the distros requires
a very large chart (see the Linux distro tree at https://5thlobe.com/reference/gnulinux-distro-chart/).
We should point out that Linux is not the only open-source OS. Three notable other open-source
OSs, all of which are Unix-like, are FreeBSD, Dragonfly BSD and GhostBSD. Another open-source
OS is XNU (which stands for X is Not Unix), which is the basis for the iOS operating systems found
on such devices as the Apple iPad and Apple TV. ReactOS was developed in 1996 as a clone for
Microsoft Windows 95 and has the look and feel of more recent Windows OSs. And then there’s
FreeDOS which is primarily used to run old MS-DOS games and other legacy software. There are
others, but none of these operating systems has achieved anything close to the popularity or name
recognition of Linux.

1.4.4 The Open-Source Community

The earliest open-source projects were the further development of Unix, GNU and then Linux. The
first application software that the open-source community contributed to was the Netscape web
browser, which the original developers offered to the community for input. It was at this point that
the term open source was first used.
Linux 19

As work continued on both Linux and Netscape, the open-source software community fell into
a dispute. Torvalds did not require that modified versions of software be made freely available. He
felt that if a person modified a piece of open-source code, the modified code could continue to be
freely distributed as source code, or it could be freely distributed but as executable code, or it could
even be sold for profit. But some members of the open-source community eschewed commercial
software and felt that anything developed out of the open-source community must remain open
source and freely available.
This rift caused the community to splinter into two groups: the Open-Source Initiative (OSI)
and the Free Software Foundation (FSF). OSI was founded in 1998 by members of the open-source
community developing versions of Linux including Bruce Perens from Debian. FSF was founded
by Richard Stallman in 1985. The difference between the two groups is that OSI is willing to accept
copyrights on some software restricting freedoms that were established under the GPL while the
FSF generally feels that anything created from a GPL-produced product must also be made avail-
able in open source under the GPL. Although this rift has driven some projects to splinter, it has not
impacted the productivity of the open-source community and the number of titles being produced.
The shift in perspective from commercial software development to open source not only has
impacted software developers’ perspective of open source but the corporate world. Early on, open-
source software was primarily used by hobbyist and people in the open-source community. Open-
source software was largely shunned by companies. There was a stigma attached to open source
products that they would have errors that could potentially harm an organization because the soft-
ware would not work when it was needed. This could result in a loss of productivity and revenue
and cause the organization to receive a bad reputation. Companies preferred the guarantee that
proprietary software would be fully supported such that errors would be fixed in a timely manner.
Today, open-source software competes regularly with proprietary software in part because the
open-source community has been found to be as or more responsive than many of the companies
producing proprietary software. A comparison between open-source software and proprietary soft-
ware products often shows that open-source software has an equal level of security, is of equal (or
even higher) quality, has a greater degree of interoperability (available on multiple platforms), and
provides a reasonable amount of support. The support might be available for free, or for a fee but
the fee would in most cases still be less than the expense of the proprietary software and its support.
We also find today that the open-source community exists well beyond individual developers
wanting to make contributions to Linux or other projects. For instance, Microsoft, who would have
opposed the open-source initiative years earlier, is now a steady contributor with such products
as .net development tools, the Visual Studio Code editor, PowerShell, and tools for building and
training machine learning systems. Their open-source contributions are not limited to Windows;
they also offer versions of software for MacOS, Linux, Unix and in the cloud via Microsoft Azure.
Other companies that contribute to the open-source community include Adobe, Facebook, Google,
IBM, Intel, LinkedIn, Netflix, Oracle and Twitter.
Why are people willing to contribute their time to the open-source community? It is especially
puzzling because contributions are often made by programmers who develop software for a liveli-
hood. If they are willing to freely contribute, then they are in essence producing for free something
that they could earn a salary for creating instead. It is possible that the software they are helping to
produce might compete against software that they are paid to produce or maintain. And yet being
involved in the open-source community could help their careers. Table 1.9 lists several reasons for
why developers freely contribute to open source projects as a means to further their career.
Participation in open-source development also gives the programmer an opportunity to give back
to the open-source community, or even a larger audience, all computer users. Mozilla’s Firefox, for
instance, is such a success that a contribution to its development can be thought of as a contribution
to much of humanity.
Contributions are not limited to just software developers. There are a lot of open-source pro-
grammers who program for a hobby and not as part of their job. Their motivations may be similar
20 Linux with Operating System Concepts

TABLE 1.9
Some Reasons to Contribute to Open-Source Software Development
Improve coding skills. Demonstrate a wider range of skills than what the developer
uses at their current position.
Learn new technologies. Learn different software approaches.
Gain experience with developers from other regions of the Learn programming concepts not already known.
world.
Improve on coding habits. Make contacts with other developers.
Participate in a large group project. Learn about or develop tools that can be applied in the
development career.

to those who want to further their career: learning, working with other developers and producing
something useful. But in their case, the impact may be more of a personal nature over improving
their career.
Contributions can also be made by non-programmers through software testing. Most open-source
software consists of very complex programs. Testing is a crucial aspect of software development,
and it is typical that testers are not the same group as the developers. Testing can be performed
at different levels. Software testers commonly run the software on a number of test cases, that is,
groups of input. They then compare the output to the expectations and write up reports where the
output diverges from expectation. In other cases, testers are users who compile lists of problems that
they detect when using the software. For instance, if the software crashes when opening a file or if
a particular feature operates too slowly, these cases are noted and sent back to the developers. Aside
from testing, there is also a need for documentation writing.
The open-source ideology has extended beyond software development to other community-
involved pursuits. Wikipedia is one of the best examples of this. The online encyclopedia receives
contributions from people all over the world who want to share knowledge. Unlike open source
software which requires some expertise as a programmer, Wikipedia only requires knowledge of a
particular topic and the willingness to contribute. With Wikimedia, knowledge-based contributions
extend to other media, namely images (whether drawings or photographic). We see artists sharing
their products through the Internet using various forms of social media such as through YouTube
and Bandcamp.

SECTION ACTIVITIES
1. We often hear of basement inventors who go on to make millions of dollars on their
inventions (of course we mostly only hear about the successes, how many other
inventors never profited from their inventions?) Torvalds made no attempt to profit
from Linux. Yet, as a software developer he has made an immense success for him-
self and is estimated to be worth well over $100 million. Research his personal his-
tory to learn how he turned Linux into a fortune without actually making much
money off of Linux itself.
2. In this section, we provided a URL that shows all of the Linux distributions. Use that
link to examine this amazing figure. Try to estimate how many Linux distributions
exist.
3. You have likely accessed and used other products of the open-source community like
Wikipedia, Wikimedia and YouTube. Come up with a list of other websites where
information is freely shared that you have used.
Linux 21

1.5 HOW DO YOU USE LINUX?

In this section, we look at the steps to install Linux. We examine several different Linux distribu-
tions. In each case, we make the assumption that the installation will be performed onto a virtual
machine. If you want to try any of these on your own computer, it is best to download and install
a virtual machine client program. VirtualBox from Oracle and VMWare Workstation are both
open-source products. For complete information on installing Linux into a VM, see lab 0 in the lab
manual that accompanies this textbook.
To install Linux, we need to get ahold of the Linux installation program, which is in the form of
an iso file. We download the needed iso file directly onto hard disk from which to perform the
installation. The versions of Linux we examine here are free (and available in open-source format
for those interested in looking at or modifying the code) where the iso can be found on the Linux
projects’ websites.
We perform a default installation in most cases although discuss some of the options. Later
in the textbook, we look at the steps required to perform a nonstandard partitioning of the Linux
computer’s file space. This section ends with a brief look at each of the Linux distributions we
installed including their basic desktop setup and how to open and use a terminal window to enter
commands.

1.5.1 Installing Debian Linux

The Debian installation image can be obtained from www.debian.org/distrib. For users who
have slow Internet connections, a small image is available that can be saved onto an optical disc.
Otherwise, the full image can be saved to optical disc or hard disk. A cloud image is available if
you have an account in one of the commercial clouds although it is likely that your cloud provider
already has a Debian image available so that you can skip installation and just create a copy.
Upon starting our VM software, we create a new VM. When asked for the type of OS, we select
Linux and then more specifically Debian. We are asked for a location of the installation image
and we select the downloaded iso file. Figure 1.4 shows the first four screens that we see during
installation. First, we select the type of installation. We have selected Graphical install to
ensure that our Linux installation comes with a GUI. Next, we are asked for our language (the
default is English) and location. The location is used to set the time. We are next asked for the key-
board configuration (not shown in the figure, we selected American English). At this point,
installation begins. A bar indicates the amount of installation completed. Messages appear during
installation describing what is currently being installed. The next step is to specify the root pass-
word. Instructions explain the importance of selecting a strong password. We are asked to enter the
password twice in this step.
As installation continues, the next step is to create an initial user account. We want to have a non-
root account available so that when we log in, we log in as a normal user instead of root. Logging in
as root through the GUI can lead to mistakes that could damage components of the OS or accidental
deletion of files. It is best to switch to root sparingly and only from the command line. For the new
user account, we are asked for the user’s full name. Debian creates an account for this user. We are
then asked to enter the new user account’s initial password, twice, much like we did for root.
At this point of installation, we are asked to select how we want the disk space partitioned. The
options are to have a guided approach or to perform partitioning manually. There are three forms
of guided approaches, each uses the entire hard disk available (which in the case of a VM is not our
computer’s full hard disk, just the section reserved for the VM based on the size specified when
we created the VM). One guided approach uses a standard partitioning, one uses a logical volume
manager (LVM, covered in Chapter 8), and one uses an LVM but employs encryption. Note that if
we were installing Linux on a dual boot computer, we would have to perform a manual installation
so that we do not wipe out the existing operating system and files.
22 Linux with Operating System Concepts

FIGURE 1.4 Four steps during Debian installation.

In Figure 1.5, we see the partition choices and, having selected Guided – use entire
disk, we see three options. It is preferable to separate /home (the partition containing the user
directories), /var (the partition containing various software data) and /tmp (the partition used
by software to save temporary information) from the rest of the operating system. We next see in
Figure 1.5 the recommended partitioning with sizes. Note that our disk space was limited to 32 GB
as we were creating this Linux computer in a VM with limited hard disk space).
With partitioning specified, installation continues with the core packages. We are later asked
if the GRUB boot loader should be installed in the master boot record. Our only choices are no
or yes. Selecting no will require that we install our own boot loader later. We select yes and are
asked where to place GRUB. This is shown in the lower right of Figure 1.5. The notation /dev/
sda represents our hard disk. The rest of the installation is handled with no user interaction.
Upon completion, the VM should boot to our Debian installation and we will be shown the login
screen like that shown in the left half of Figure 1.6. Here, there is only one user, the user we had
established during installation. Having selected this user, we are asked for the user’s password to
complete the login process. Notice in the upper right (shown in full in the left side of the figure but
not in the right side of the figure) are controls to change accessibility settings, network connection,
the volume and “power settings” (log out, shut down, reboot).
Upon logging in, we are presented a mostly blank desktop. Along the upper left is a menu labeled
Activities. Selecting this menu brings up a list of icons along the left margin, representing from top-
to-bottom, the Firefox web browser, the Evolution Email program, the RhythmBox music program,
LibreOffice Writer, the Linux File Browser, the Software program (software store), Debian Help and
applications software. Upon selecting the application software icon, the installed titles are displayed
in the desktop. On the right side of Figure 1.6, roughly half of the installed titles appear. A search
bar appears at the top for easy searching (useful if we had more software titles installed). You will
find that this basic setup is similar to both CentOS and Ubuntu.
Linux 23

FIGURE 1.5 Partitioning the Debian installation.

FIGURE 1.6 Debian login screen and desktop.

1.5.2 Installing CentOS Linux

At the time of this writing, there are two different “current” versions of CentOS: CentOS Linux
version 8 and CentOS Stream. In all previous releases of CentOS, the current version followed from
the most recent release of RHEL. Thus, CentOS 8 is what you would expect to install. However,
starting in 2020, CentOS announced that rather than releasing new CentOS versions based on the
most recent RHEL version, CentOS Stream would offer versions of Red Hat that were, at least in
some cases, ahead of the next RHEL version. This means that CentOS Stream releases may include
24 Linux with Operating System Concepts

features that are proposed but not yet available in the most recent RHEL releases. Because of this
shift in philosophy, CentOS has announced that CentOS 8’s end of life will occur at the end of 2021.
By the time you read this, it is likely that CentOS will have moved entirely on to Stream releases. In
this section and throughout this textbook, we focus on CentOS Stream rather than CentOS 8. With
that said, as of August 2021 the two releases are virtually identical.
We can obtain installation ISOs for both CentOS 8 and CentOS Stream at the centos.org
website. Specifically, we find versions of CentOS 8 at www.centos.org/centos-linux and
versions of CentOS Stream at www.centos.org/centos-stream. Download the iso of the
version you prefer (to match the textbook, Stream is recommended). Upon downloading the iso,
create a new VM and select the iso as the installation image.
The first step in installing CentOS is to select whether we want to install the OS, test the media
and install the OS or troubleshoot. The troubleshooting selection is for a partially or fully installed
OS that is not functioning. As we have just downloaded the iso and stored it on disk, there is no
need to test the media and so we select Install (which should be the first choice). Like with Debian,
we are asked for the language and keyboard layout, both of which default to English. Next, we
will be presented with the Installation Summary window. We see an example of this in
Figure 1.7. From the summary window, we are presented with choices that specify the remainder of
the installation. We step through these choices one at a time.
We must respond to selections which appear with an orange triangle and an exclamation mark
in it with a description listed in orange font. If all selections are in black font then the Begin

FIGURE 1.7 CentOS installation summary.

Linux 25

Installation button is accessible. In Figure 1.7, Installation Destination and Root

Password are the only two selections with the orange triangle. We can select any other item to
override the default but do not have to.
Selecting any item will take us to a new window so that we can specify our choice(s). For each
window, there will be a Done button in the upper left of the window. Selecting it returns us to the
Installation Summary window.
As we had previously selected Keyboard and Language Support, we can skip those.
Time & Date is already set for us and we would only select this if we needed to alter the default.
We will also not need to select Installation Source as this was specified when we started
to create the new VM by specifying the location of the iso. We will not need to modify KDump or
Security Policy. So, for us, we will concentrate on Software Selection, Installation
Destination, Network & Host Name, and Root Password.
The Software Selection defaults to Server with GUI (note that earlier versions of
CentOS defaulted to Minimal Install, which provides a text-based only version of Linux).
Although Server with GUI is fine, if you do not intend to run a server (like a webserver) from
your Linux VM, it may not be the best choice. The list of choices runs along the left pane, as shown
in Figure 1.8. For us, we will select Workstation.
Upon selecting one of these base environments, a list of Additional software is provided
in the right pane. The software listed is specific to the base environment selected. Among the items
available for a workstation are GNOME applications (GNOME is the GUI desktop), Internet
applications, Office suite, legacy UNIX compatibility software and devel-
opment tools. If we were going to use our Linux computer to write code, we would want the
last of these, perhaps the last two. For us, we will choose GNOME applications only. We select
Done to return to the Installation Summary window.

FIGURE 1.8 Base environment and software selection choices.

26 Linux with Operating System Concepts

FIGURE 1.9 Installation destination window to specify partitioning.

Next is Installation Destination. By default, Automatic partitioning is selected.

Should we wish to change this, select Installation Destination. The Installation
Destination window is shown in Figure 1.9. Here, we would select the disk(s) onto which to
install. There is only one choice in this case, labeled as VMWare Virtual NVMe Disk me
followed by a lengthy identifier. To select this, click on it twice. The first time highlights it, and the
second time adds a checkmark. Without the checkmark, the disk is not selected. Note that as we are
installing into a VM, we have a small hard disk size.
Selecting Done returns us to the Installation Summary. If we had chosen Custom,
selecting Done would take us to a Manual Partitioning Window, as shown in Figure 1.10.
We cover this step for completeness but suggest that you use the Automatic partitioning.
From the Manual Partitioning Window, we can select between Standard Partitioning,
LVM and LVM Thin Partitioning (the default is LVM). The Standard Partition selection
allows us to specify the exact number, type and size of partitions. We omit detail for a standard partition-
ing until we cover this in Chapter 8.
The LVM (also covered in Chapter 8) allows our partitions to grow as needed and is the more
reasonable choice, at least at this point. Thin Provisioning makes more efficient use of disk
space at the expense of added run-time overhead. LVM will be sufficient for our needs.
One issue with using an LVM is that we need to separate out the boot partition. We need to create
one separate partition, for /boot. Near the bottom left of the Manual Partitioning window
are buttons labeled + and -. Select the + to add a new partition. From the Add A New Mount
Point window (shown at the bottom of Figure 1.10), select /boot for the mount point and specify
a desired capacity. For CentOS Stream, it is recommended that this partition be 1 GB, so we enter
1024 and select Add Mount Point. After being returned to the Manual Partitioning win-
dow, select Done. We will be presented with a summary of the changes. Select Accept Changes
Linux 27

FIGURE 1.10 Manual partitioning.

and we will be returned to the Installation Summary window to continue. Note that should
we choose, we can return to Installation Destination, select Automatic and Done to
continue.
For Network & Host Name, the default is to disable the network interface. We might
want to change this to enabled. We can also change the default hostname, which is initially set to
­localhost.localdomain. We can also add other interface devices. The default device is an
Ethernet connection. Select Network & Host Name and from this window, enable the network
and select Done.
Selecting Root Password allows us to specify and confirm the root password. A bar indicates
how strong the password is. We would prefer to use a strong password. Use a password for root
that you will not forget! Upon returning from the Root Password window, the Installation
Summary has another entry that we can select, User Creation. Selecting this entry lets us
specify an initial user account. As noted in the subsection on installing Debian Linux, it is prefer-
able to have an initial user account so that we can log in as a normal user rather than root.
28 Linux with Operating System Concepts

From the Create User window, we are asked for the user’s full name. Typing in the name
causes CentOS to automatically create a username using the format first initial last name. We might
prefer to alter the default name. For instance, if we enter Frank Zappa as the user’s name, we are
given the username of fzappa but we might prefer something like zappaf or zappaf1. We are also
asked to specify the user’s initial password and confirm it.
Two checkboxes allow us to require a password for this account (selected by default) and to make
this user an administrator (and thus give this user account access to all administrator programs,
this is not selected by default and we want to leave it unselected). The Advanced… button lets us
tailor this account manually by changing the home directory, change UID/GID and group member-
ship. Do not bother changing the initial user’s default values. We explore such options in Chapter 7.
Selecting Done returns us to the Installation Summary where we are finally ready to per-
form the installation. We select Begin Installation.
Installation takes some time. Upon completion of installation, we are given a new option,
Reboot. We must reboot to start using Linux. Upon booting (and in all future instances of booting
or rebooting our CentOS VM), the first screen shown asks us which version we want to boot to. By
default, CentOS installs with two kernels: the normal kernel and the rescue kernel. The rescue ker-
nel is only needed if our OS develops some faults and we can’t successfully boot to it. The normal
kernel is selected automatically if we do not make a selection within a few seconds.
After rebooting, we are brought to an Initial Setup window with one choice, to view and
accept the License Information. The license agreement is displayed (its brief!); select I
accept the license agreement and Done. Upon returning to the Initial Setup win-
dow, select Finish Configuration in the lower right of the window. The computer then takes
us to a login screen very much like that of Debian (see the left side of Figure 1.6).
The first time a user logs into his or her account, CentOS runs a user setup program. The first
window is a Welcome screen whereby the user selects their language (followed by keyboard lan-
guage). These will default to whatever language we selected during installation (English in our case).
Next, the user can select whether to permit location services to run or not (privacy). Finally, the user
can select which online accounts the computer should connect to. This step can be skipped. After
this initial user setup is completed, the user is presented with a Ready to Go window, which is a
tutorial for showing us how to use GNOME. Closing this window brings us to the CentOS GNOME
Desktop. We can return to the GNOME Help window any time we like as explained below.
The GNOME Desktop in CentOS is very similar to that of Debian (see the right side of Figure 1.6).
The Activities menu brings up our list of favorites, just as it did in Debian, although the initial
favorites may differ. One of the items in this list looks like a life preserver. Selecting it returns us
to the GNOME Help window. Selecting the last entry expands all installed software. It is likely that
the CentOS Stream installation has fewer titles than Debian’s installation. One item is Utilities.
Selecting this displays the various CentOS utility programs. Two are of particular interest to us,
System Monitor (which is similar to Windows Task Manager and a program we explore in
Chapter 4) and Terminal. Right click on Terminal and select Add to Favorites. This
places the terminal window icon on the activities list for easy access. We can drag this icon to the
top of the list for even more convenient access.
Another of the software selections is called Settings. This presents a GUI much like Windows
10’s Settings tool, although there are fewer selections available. We see some of the selections in
the left pane of Figure 1.11 where we have selected Network. The available network settings are
shown in the right pane. Note that while we can use this GUI to modify settings, we will find other
ways to modify settings as well, including Cockpit (which we explore next) and through programs
launched from the command line.
As Linux users, we would likely not need administrative tools beyond the settings available through
the Settings tool. As a system administrator, we will need to be able to change any number of OS
settings, most of which are not available through the Settings tool. In older versions of CentOS/
RHEL, there were some administrator GUI tools available, including those to manage user and group
Linux 29

FIGURE 1.11 Changing settings in CentOS.

accounts, control KDump, start and stop services and alter the firewall. With Red Hat 8 (CentOS 8,
CentOS Stream, RHEL 8), most of the GUI tools no longer exist and instead we manage these tasks
either through command line or through the new Cockpit interface. Our access to Cockpit is through
a web browser using our computer’s IP address followed by :9090, as in 10.11.12.13:9090.
As Cockpit loads, we are asked to log in. If we log in under our user account, our access will be
restricted to mostly the same items as we saw in Settings. If we log in as root, we are given addi-
tional capabilities including user account management. Figure 1.12 shows the Cockpit interface with
System selected to show performance information. The controls along the left pane allow us to view
log files and examine currently used and available storage, network settings, current user accounts,
available software and other items.

1.5.3 Installing Ubuntu Linux

Having started the Ubuntu installation, we are presented with some installation screens like those
shown in Figure 1.13. The last two screens of the figure show some of the information that we are
presented with during installation. We are asked a few installation questions, similar to that of
CentOS: language and keyboard layout, time zone, type of software installation (our choices here
are normal, minimal or other), installation type and initial user account information. For the instal-
lation type, if there is already a version of Ubuntu installed, we are asked whether to erase it and
install the new one or install the new version alongside the existing version. Other choices are to
erase the disk, encrypt the installation and use an LVM. We can also select Something else to
specify our own partitioning. We skip these details.
The initial user account selection differs from that in CentOS and Debian in one significant way.
In CentOS and Debian, we are asked to provide a root password so that we can have user accounts
and a separate administrator account. In Ubuntu, the root account’s password is randomly gener-
ated and not given to the user. In place of having root-level access, the first user account is given full
30 Linux with Operating System Concepts

FIGURE 1.12 Cockpit.

administrator privileges through sudo. The sudo program, covered in Chapter 7, allows a user to
run programs under different access rights. In the case of Ubuntu, the initial user account is given
access to all system administrator programs so that this user never has to log in as root.
This change in approach to installing Linux originated with Ubuntu and is found in several
Linux distributions, mimicking to some extent Windows 10 installation for home users where the
first user account is given full administrator privileges. To specify the initial user, we are asked for
the user’s name, the username, the computer’s name and a password. We are not, however, asked if
this user should be made an administrator because this choice is made automatically. After instal-
lation, we are asked to reboot.
After rebooting, we are presented a login screen which will be similar to that of Debian and
CentOS except for the color scheme. After logging in, the user is presented with a desktop very
similar to that of Debian and CentOS except that there are two desktop icons already created (the
user’s home directory and a trash can). The Ubuntu desktop is shown in Figure 1.14.

1.5.4 Installing Linux Mint

Linux Mint is the easiest of all installations as there is almost no user interaction. Upon creating a
new VM and selecting the Linux Mint iso, we are presented with a menu of installation choices
much like in Debian (the upper left window of Figure 1.4). Installation proceeds from this point with
no interruption. Unlike the other Linux installations, Mint installs with a generic user account and
no initial password. This initial account, like in Ubuntu, has full administrator privileges as the root
password is unknown.
After installation, the desktop appears, as shown in the left half of Figure 1.15. Here, we see two
desktop icons for the computer and for the user home directory, and a list of icons along the bot-
tom left. The leftmost icon brings up a menu similar in style to the Windows 10 Start Button menu.
Upon selecting this start button, the menu, which we see in the right half of Figure 1.15, appears.
The other icons along the lower left, running from left to run, display the desktop (the default view),
open a web browser, open a terminal window and launch the file browser GUI.
Linux 31

FIGURE 1.13 Ubuntu installation.

32 Linux with Operating System Concepts

FIGURE 1.14 Ubuntu desktop.

FIGURE 1.15 Linux Mint desktop.

1.5.5 An Introduction to the Shell and Command Line

No matter which version of Linux you may have installed, they all have the capability of opening
a terminal window. A terminal window is a GUI component which itself runs a shell and an inter-
preter. The window has limited capabilities such as minimize, maximize, resize, zoom in and out,
Linux 33

and cut, copy and paste text from within it. The shell running inside the window provides the user
with a command line prompt.
From the prompt, the user inputs Linux instructions. Any instruction entered is then handled by
the shell’s interpreter. Most Linux users have a default shell of Bash, so commands are run by the
Bash interpreter. As we will explore in Chapter 2, we can open shell sessions from within a shell
and in doing so, change the type of shell (e.g., from bash to tcsh). In Chapter 7, we cover how to
change the default shell of a user.
Opening a terminal window from the desktop is handled differently depending on the distribu-
tion. In Debian, CentOS and Ubuntu, select Activities and from the favorites list, select the
Terminal Window (which looks like window with a black background and a white prompt). The
CentOS Stream Workstation installation does not have a terminal window icon in this menu and
so we have to add it as discussed previously to make it a part of our favorites list. In Debian, the
terminal is called XTerm.
We see an example of an open terminal window in CentOS in Figure 1.16. Notice at the top of
the desktop we have an added menu alongside Activities called Terminal. From this menu,
we can close our terminal window (by selecting Quit; we can also close the terminal window by
clicking on the x in the upper-right hand corner of the terminal window, or typing exit from the
command prompt) but we can also open additional terminal windows (New Window). The terminal
window itself has menus for controlling copying and pasting, zooming, etc. The File menu also
has a selection to open a new window, open a tab, close the window or close the current tab.
The terminal window gives us the ability to enter Linux commands from the command line
prompt in the window. Upon pressing <enter>, the interpreter executes the command for us.
We see some very simple interactions in Figure 1.17 where we first ask who we are logged in as
(whoami), the current time and date (date), where we are located in the file space (pwd) and who
else is logged in (who). These are among the simplest instructions available in Linux. We spend
most of the rest of this textbook looking at dozens of other commands.

FIGURE 1.16 A terminal window.

34 Linux with Operating System Concepts

[foxr@localhost ~]$ whoami

foxr
[foxr@localhost ~]$ date
Fri Mar 12 13:10:58 EST 2021
[foxr@localhost ~]$ pwd
/home/foxr
[foxr@localhost ~]$ who
foxr tty1 2021-03-12 13:11 (tty1)
zappaf pts/2 2021-03-10 08:44 (10.11.12.13)

FIGURE 1.17 Some simple interaction through a terminal window.

One additional instruction to learn is passwd, to change our password. It is likely that a user is
given an initial password from the system administrator and is told to change that password at their
first login. In our case, this is not necessary because we created our own initial password when we
installed Linux.
The passwd command, when issued with no parameter, attempts to change our password. We
are asked for our current password. As we type in the password, it is not displayed on the screen. We
are then asked for the new password and again, as we type it is not displayed on the screen. If the
password satisfies whatever strong password requirements are set up in the system, we are asked to
confirm the password. As we will explore in Chapter 7 when we look at user accounts, root can also
use password to change other users’ passwords or change attributes about passwords.

SECTION ACTIVITIES
1. Of the four versions of Linux we examined in this installation section, which would
you pick to use? Would you select the one easiest to install? The one that looked the
most user-friendly? The one with the most available preinstalled software? The one
that has the most games available?
2. If you are taking a Linux class, you will probably do some labs using Linux. If this is not
the case, download and install an open-source virtual machine client like VirtualBox
and then download and install one of the Linux distributions covered in this section.

1.6 CHAPTER REVIEW
Concepts and terms introduced in this chapter:

• Bare machine – a computer with no operating system installed to ensure the fastest pos-
sible hardware execution.
• BSD Unix – one of the most significant spinoffs of Unix, developed by Ken Thompson and
faculty and students at UC Berkeley; widely distributed in the 1980s and 1990s.
• Commercial support – the ability to ask for (and expect) assistance with software when
purchased; support includes timely bug fixes and help when you do not know how to
accomplish some task that the software should be able to perform.
• Device driver – a piece of software tailored for a specific hardware device allowing the
CPU to communicate with that hardware device.
• CentOS – a distribution of Red Hat Linux that is open source, lightweight and a popular
choice for servers.
• Cockpit – a recent addition to Linux to give the user and system administrator a uniform
means of viewing the system and changing settings; Cockpit runs through a web browser.
Linux 35

• Copyleft – a term coined by Richard Stallman about the GPL to express that the license
supports freedom rather than restrictions on software usage.
• Debian – one of the earliest distributions of Linux; popular because of its stable releases.
• Fedora – a distribution of Red Hat Linux that is open source and supported entirely by the
open source community.
• File descriptor – a means for the OS kernel to refer to a resource such as an open file.
• Free software foundation – the name originally given to the open-source community but
after a splintering is the group that feels that all software should be free.
• GNU – a project to develop a Unix-like operating system that was entirely free with no
licensing restrictions; the project was headed by Richard Stallman but never completed;
members of the GNU project contributed time and already implemented code to the devel-
opment of Linux.
• GPL – the GNU Public License, a copyleft which supports users’ (and developers’) rights
rather than restrictions on using a piece of software.
• HeartBleed – a flaw found in the encryption technology of OpenSSL which was patched
less than a week after the flaw was discovered, showing the responsiveness of the open-
source community.
• Hybrid kernel – a type of OS kernel which combines aspects of microkernels and mono-
lithic kernels.
• ISO – the abbreviation references the International Organization of Standards where ISO
9660 specifies optical disc storage; in this context, an ISO is the format used to store Linux
installation programs.
• Kernel module – in order to make a Linux kernel more efficient, components of the kernel,
called modules, can be loaded into and out of memory.
• Knoppix – a distribution of Linux descended from Ubuntu; Knoppix was the first Linux
distribution that featured live booting.
• Lightweight – the idea that an OS (or other piece of software) can run on limited resources;
many Linux distributions are considered lightweight particularly when compared to OSs
like Windows.
• Linux distribution – a specific version of Linux; there are hundreds of different distros
that are all based on the same Linux kernel but have different features, services, available
applications software and GUI components.
• Linux kernel – a monolithic kernel with modules to make it more efficient; most Linux
distributions are based on the same kernel.
• Linux Mint – a Linux distribution based on Debian Linux known for being lightweight.
• Live boot – the ability to boot from and run the OS off of an optical disc (or USB flash
drive) rather than one that is installed on hard disk.
• Microkernel – a form of OS kernel which hands off some of its duties to lesser programs
called servers.
• Monolithic kernel – a form of OS kernel which handles all of its tasks internally and thus
makes the kernel more complex; Linux, while based on a monolithic kernel, hands off
some of its tasks to modules and services (not to be confused with servers).
• MULTICS – an early 1960s operating system that introduced many new OS innovations
and was a basis for many of Unix’s original features.
• Open-source community – people who freely contribute their time and effort to developing
and supporting open-source software.
• Open-source initiative (OSI) – a splinter of the open-source community who believe
that some software can be commercially developed and distributed as opposed to the
Free Software Foundation; the OSI makes up the larger fraction of the open-source
community.
36 Linux with Operating System Concepts

• Open-source software – a software product that is made available in its source code for-
mat so that developers can download and modify the code; as it is available in source
code ­format it is freely available and usually also available in an easy-to-install executable
­format as well for non-developers.
• Operating System (OS) – a piece of software responsible for monitoring the resources of a
computer and for acting as an intermediary between the user, the application software and
computer hardware.
• OS kernel – the core program of any OS; the kernel is loaded into memory at the time the
computer boots and remains in memory while the computer runs; the kernel is respon-
sible for handling the most important tasks of the OS including process management,
resource management, memory management, interprocess communication and interrupt
handling.
• OS utility – a standalone program that is typically invoked by the user to help manage the
computer system; unlike the kernel and OS services, a utility runs in the foreground and
often presents to the user a GUI-based tool to interface with.
• Portability – the aspect of software where the program is written to run on multiple plat-
forms; Unix was the first OS developed to be platform-independent.
• Privileged mode – most processors run in one of two modes: user mode to run user pro-
grams and privileged (or supervisor) mode to run system software.
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) – the version of Red Hat that is only available as a
commercial product but comes with Red Hat, Inc. commercial support; CentOS is an open
source version related to RHEL.
• Red Hat Linux – one of the earliest distributions of Linux and one of the most popular;
Red Hat is somewhat unique because one of its spinoffs, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, is a
commercial product.
• Resident monitor – before OSs were created, many mainframes loaded and ran a resident
monitor to support simple user interactions such as loading and running programs off of
magnetic tape.
• Server – in the context of this chapter, a server is a piece of the OS separate from the kernel
and invoked by the kernel so that the kernel can be smaller in size; this strategy is used in
support of microkernels.
• Service – an OS program separate from the kernel used to support some functionality of
the OS; we find services used in OSs like Linux and Windows.
• Settings – a GUI tool available in most modern Linux distributions so that the user can
change personalized settings; similar in style to modern Windows operating systems
Settings tool.
• SLS/Slackware/SUSE Linux – SLS was the earliest Linux spinoff distribution which was
the basis for the improved Slackware which itself was used to create SUSE Linux.
• System call – an invocation by a user program or OS component to call upon a function
of the kernel.
• Ubuntu – a spinoff of Debian Linux which became popular because of its user-friendly
approach and a large number of software products.
• Unix – developed in the late 1960s by AT&T Bell Labs and modeled somewhat on
MULTICS, Unix became a popular, portable and powerful operating system; Linux’ look
is very similar to that of Unix.
• User mode – the default mode for processors so that user processes can only make requests
of the OS; the processor must switch modes to privileged mode to invoke the OS and
access system resources.
• Wrapper function – a system call invokes a wrapper function which itself invokes the OS
kernel; the wrapper function is responsible for handling pre- and post-invocation tasks
such as reporting an error to the user.
Linux 37

REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. Why is commercial support desired when purchasing software? What are some of the
guarantees that come with commercial support?
2. In what way is the HeartBleed bug a good indicator that open-source software does not
need commercial support?
3. Are all Linux distributions free?
4. One argument for using Linux over an OS like Windows is greater control. How does
Linux offer greater control?
5. Which of the following is true of the earliest mainframe computers: they were bare machines,
they had resident monitors, they had operating systems or they were virtual machines?
6. Explain the steps by which a FORTRAN programmer would compile and run their
FORTRAN program on a mainframe computer of 1958.
7. At what point in time would a resident monitor be loaded into memory? How long would
it remain in memory?
8. What resident monitor/OS was the first to provide time sharing (multitasking)?
9. Which role of the OS kernel allows multiple running processes to share data in memory?
10. Virtual memory would be considered a feature handled by which of the OS kernel’s roles?
11. Synchronization and deadlock handling are tasks handled by which of the OS kernel’s
roles?
12. Upon receiving a system call from a user process, the kernel switches the processor from
_____ mode to _____ mode.
13. Linux contains which type of kernel: microkernel, monolithic kernel, hybrid kernel?
14. Which of the forms of kernel is the most challenging to debug because of its complexity:
microkernel, monolithic kernel, hybrid kernel?
15. Examine the system calls in Table 1.4 to answer the following questions.
a. Which system call(s) would be involved in creating a new file?
b. Which system call(s) would be involved in starting a new process?
16. True/false: All device drivers are preinstalled into the OS.
17. Linux services run in the foreground or background?
18. List three types of OS utilities.
19. What members of AT&T Bell Labs worked on MULTICS and later started developing Unix?
20. What was the original name for Unix?
21. Who was Richard Stallman and what project did he begin?
22. Read Figure 1.3 (the GPL Preamble). Instead of restrictions on software, it talks about
users’ _____.
23. In what year did Linus Torvalds begin working on Linux? In what year was the first full
implementation made available?
24. Between SLS/Slackware, Debian and Red Hat, which appeared first?
25. List three popular distributions based on Debian Linux.
26. List three popular distributions based on Red Hat Linux.
27. In what way is RHEL different from CentOS?
28. How does CentOS Stream differ from previous CentOS releases?
29. What is the main difference between Debian-based Linux distributions and Red Hat-based
Linux distributions?
30. List three reasons for why a developer might contribute to open-source software.
31. What is an ISO file?
32. True/false: When installing Linux, you must specify how the disk drive is to be partitioned.
33. When installing CentOS Linux, what two choices are you required to specify from the
Installation Summary window? At what point does the Begin Installation button become
accessible?
38 Linux with Operating System Concepts

34. When installing a recent version of Debian, CentOS and Ubuntu, there is a similar Desktop.
What is the name of the only menu that appears when the desktop first appears?
35. What is GNOME?
36. As a user, what can you do through the Cockpit interface?
37. What is the name of the one menu available in current versions of Debian and CentOS
Linux?
38. List five types of settings that a user can change.
39. One difference between installing one of Debian or CentOS Linux from Ubuntu is that in
Debian and CentOS you are asked for the root password. How does Ubuntu provide root-
level access if the user does not know the root password?
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