By Raghu Bharadwaj

I would like to introduce you to a chronology of events that happened in the early 80′s and 90′s.

Richard Stallman, founder of the GNU project

For Richard Stallman things started to look bad with the collapse of the free community at the Artificial Intelligence lab at MIT in the early 80′s, with modern era operating systems, none of them free software, were coming with a nondisclosure agreement which said, you are not allowed to share or change the software and if you want to get something changed, ask us to do it for you.

This sounded anti-social to the software-sharing community that had existed for many years at the MIT, who enjoyed and agreed sharing their programs with universities and companies. And to see or to change the source code of an unfamiliar program to create a new one was quite common.

After losing his community, Stallman always had the choice of joining the proprietary software world, writing code under nondisclosure agreements, which he believed divided the software society and a means for not helping a fellow hacker (“Someone who loves to program and enjoys being clever about it”) or quitting the computer field, which was rather an unpleasant thing to do as it would have wasted his skills as an operating system developer. Other way round was to build the community back by writing free programs again.

GNU Project

Now the idea was pretty clear, what was needed first is an operating system. With a free operating system, a community of cooperating hackers would be able to use a computer without starting to deprive his or her friend. He chose to make the system compatible with UNIX so that it would be portable, and UNIX users could easily switch to it. The name GNU was chosen for the project following a hacker tradition, as a recursive acronym for “GNU’s Not Unix”.

The GNU project started with an objective to create a “free software” society, here the term “free” is often misunderstood and it has nothing to do with price. It is about freedom. It is defined as:

»You have the freedom to run the program, for any purpose.

»You have the freedom to modify the program to suit your needs. (To make this freedom effective in practice, you must have access to the source code, since making changes in a program without having the source code is exceedingly difficult.)

»You have the freedom to redistribute copies, either gratis or for a fee.

»You have the freedom to distribute modified versions of the program, so that the community can benefit from your improvements.

After quitting his job at MIT in 1984 Stallman began writing the GNU software. First he began by writing a compiler from scratch, which is now popularly known as GCC and the GNU Emacs editor for writing and editing his programs.

Free Software Foundation

As users of Emacs were growing, more people were getting involved in the GNU project, and this forced Stallman to look for some funding. So in 1985 the Free Software Foundation (FSF) was created, a tax-exempt charity for free software development. Since then Free Software Foundation employees have written and maintained a number of GNU software packages, two notable ones are the C library and the shell.

Gradually more and more programs were added to the GNU system and most of them gained popularity as they could run on the Unix systems, and users began extending them and porting them to the various incompatible versions of Unix, and sometimes to other systems as well.

By 1990 the GNU system was almost complete, with a major missing link, the kernel, which actually does the job of managing the system resources. The decision was to implement the kernel as a collection of server processes running on top of Mach, a microkernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University and then at the University of Utah. This kernel named the GNU HURD (or “herd of gnus”) could run on top of Mach, and do the various jobs of the UNIX kernel.

GNU/Linux System

In 1991, a student from Finland named Linus Torvalds developed a Unix-compatible kernel and called it Linux. And around1992, combining Linux with the not-quite-complete GNU system resulted in a complete free operating system, the GNU/Linux system. It is due to Linux that a version of the GNU system could be run today.

GPL (GNU General Public License)

All the software under the GNU project were distributed under the GPL, which says that you can copy and distribute exact copies of the program’s source code as you have received it. You can make changes or modify the program and again redistribute under the first mentioned condition, with clear notices of your changes and date of that change.

Linux Distributions

Many Linux distributions based on the GNU/Linux system are currently available both as free copies and commercial distributions. Most of these distributors add up their own features, targeting specific areas like Enterprise, Desktop, Multimedia etc., to the existing GNU system, to cater diverse user sections. Some noted ones are RedHat, Fedora (an open project by RedHat), Debian, Suse from Novell, Mandriva, Ubuntu, Sabayon, PCLinuxOS, SimplyMEPIS, Knoppix, Gentoo etc. All these distributions intend to target different set of users. So you, now have the options of choosing the distribution based on your intended use, like suse, ubuntu, PCLinuxOS for user friendliness, debian, fedora for development, RedHat for Enterprise and so on. Least to say programming would be delightful on all of them.

Where do I get Linux?

Most of the Linux distributions are freely available for download from the Internet;

Fedora from download.fedora.redhat.com

Suse from novell.com

Debian from debian.org

There are also other links from where you can pull down these distributions. And if you do not want to waste time downloading, buy them from people like OSDisc.com, LinuxCD.org etc., but I am sure you would definitely find one, among your colleagues.

Windows Vs Ubuntu

By: Cameron Craig

This topic has had a lot of controversy over the years but it is time to dive into it head first.

When many people hear the word “Linux” they immediately think of  an operating system that is strictly used by computer hackers, computer programmers or people that are incredibly computer savvy.  Although these things are true, Linux operating systems are starting to steer further and further away from this stereotype.  To the right are logo’s of both Windows® and Ubuntu, a popular distribution of Linux.  If this image was shown to the majority of people that use a computer they will not only not know what the Ubuntu logo is, but they will recognize the Windows® logo first due to their commercial success.  It is becoming more and more obvious that people are starting to be less and less intimidated by Linux OS’s which is why the heading of this post is more significant today than it would have been 10 years ago.

With the release of Ubuntu 10.04 (now up to ver. 10.10) came a cult following of people that want to know more about “The Desktop Linux”.

Top 10 Pages Hit at Distrowatch.com

Distrowatch.com is a very popular location to read up on and download various distributions of Linux.  As you can see from the picture on the left, Ubuntu is ranked 1st among the other top 10 distro’s.  If you go to Distrowatch.com almost the entire homepage is dedicated to different versions of Ubuntu.  Ubuntu is starting to become the “Windows®” of the Linux world.

Now that we have touched based with Windows® and Ubuntu lets get a little deeper by talking about how they both operate and function:

Any bench test will show you that hardware will give better performance in Ubuntu than Windows 7 but this is not the only advantage of Linux over Windows® 7.  Virus’ are aimed mainly at Windows® users because A.) it is the most commonly used Operating System and B.) it is relatively easy to get unwanted software to be downloaded and run on Windows® platforms as opposed to a Linux or Macintosh® platform.  Perhaps hardware performance isn’t of much importance to you, perhaps you are willing to sacrifice performance and security for a GUI that is so commercial.  You could put the average computer user in front of a machine with a distro of Ubuntu on it and they will not know how to navigate or use the system nor will they want to learn how; but if you put that same user that has only had experience in Windows® XP in front of a machine with Windows 7 on it, they will be a little lost but will be WILLING to learn how to navigate and use this system even though it is relatively native to them.  Why?  Because over the years Windows® has won over the computer market with commercial success and as long as people see that Windows® logo at the bottom left hand corner of the screen they feel safe and secure.  The best choice is obvious, but why don’t people make the best choice in their choice of operating system?  Because they are ignorant to what Linux can offer them.  Linux is no longer just for the computer elite, it is for anyone and everyone that has the desire to have a powerful yet easy to use platform at their fingertips.

It is starting to become more and more obvious that Windows® is not the best OS to use and hasn’t been for many years now. Does anyone but me find it funny that Microsoft© offers both x86 and x64 images of Windows 7 available for download DIRECTLY FROM MICROSOFT.COM that you can LEGALLY use for 30 days without the need for activation? As if pirating software was not easy enough… Could it be that Microsoft© is FINALLY embracing the fact that no one will ever be able to stop pirating?  Or could it be that they are starting to go the route of Ubuntu with the philosophy of “Desktop Operating Systems should be free of charge”?

No longer are people intimidated by Linux, no longer are people afraid how to navigate and use Linux and the evidence of this is everywhere!  The developers offer tutorials on how to use their software WITH THE FREE DOWNLOAD of their operating system!

Whether you just use the computer to surf the internet, check e-mails, listen to music or do vulnerability scans on specific networks,

L I N U X IS FOR YOU!

Download your copy today!

WebTekDirect© All Rights Reserved

Linux Or Window System? Which One Works For You?

By Darren Thomas

Windows and Linux ( also being known as UNIX ) are two of the most popular platforms today, each has their own favorite followers and so-called fans because each of these platforms have their own advantages, so to speak.

Come on and let us study together what are the advantages of these two platforms,

i. Reliability – many specialists such as developers cited that UNIX is way more reliable than Windows. However many others who have been with Windows NT4.0 claimed that the reliability of Windows can be very close to UNIX, and this is especially true relying on the proficiency of the non-professionals whom are using Windows.

ii. Performance – well, I guess after some good debates, Windows and Linux are equally great in sustaining the quality of their hosting tasks and therefore had been performing well in their Hosting performance consistently.

iii. Cost – UNIX is definitely a lot cheaper than Windows, due to the fact that majority of the UNIX software products are distributed under a free of charge license while for Windows, this has never being the case. Comparatively UNIX hosting is more popular than Windows because for the same level of performance and flexibility among these two platforms but one is mostly free of charge or very likely to be a lot cheaper than the other platform, which one would you choose as a consumer?

iv. Accessibility and ease of use – today, there is really no significant differences between these two platforms in the perspective of user-friendliness. Both of them can be used with great ease. However, if you are a professional in the web hosting world, then UNIX would be your optimum choice, while for new-comers, you can choose any of these platforms as both of them are comes with a user friendly control panel with a user interface over the website.

v. Open source – one of the greatest advantages of UNIX is its open source based, with that, It is highly compatible to work with many different operating systems with ease. However as Windows is not of open source based, it is not as flexible as UNIX.

vi. Stability – although each of these platforms has their own fans as said before, however because UNIX or Linux are mostly servers, they tend to be more stable and it is the best choice for users who need a stable environment to deliver their tasks such as for a developer or even for a secretary.

vii. Linux work best for professional games – Games which are created for Linux work seamlessly, and in addition to that, some of the Windows games can be enabled to work in Linux. One good example is the: Play-station 3 is now being shipped with Linux pre-installed on the hard disk.

viii. Support and guidance – because of the significant number of users using Windows today, it is often found to get support and assistance easier should you have any issues with Windows platform. The turn-around time for fixing any issues for resolution is much faster for Windows, no doubt on that.

Despite whether you are an avid fans of Windows or Linux, you deserved to be complimented on the great work you have done in working on Windows or Linux to discover many of their benefits over the other in many different areas.

This is one great knowledge sharing among us as consumers because to be able to pick yourself a good hosting provider, paying to every little details are essential.

When you are searching for web hosting, reverse researching is important where you should find out the complaints about the host. Which field they are weak in? What mistake they always do? This can give you a clear picture on their performance. For more information, check out web hosting reviews.

Darren is a full time web developer attached with a web hosting company.

Recently my nephew came to visit and brought his computer. It was running WinXP and he said the CD drives were broken, and it needed a new motherboard! Well, since he’s only 12 his diagnosis was understandably quite a bit off. There’s no need to pay a technician huge sums of money to “fix” this broken system, with my trusty case full of live Linux discs I was ready to start.

First, we booted into Windows– It did not recognize the CD drives in the computer, Device Manager reported a problem with the drivers, indicated by yellow exclamation points.

Now, normally a casual Windows user would have to start jumping through hoops trying to figure out how to fix the drivers problem, but in this case he was done with Windows, what with all the spyware and general instability problems, and he was ready to give Linux a try. So, we turned off the PC, let it sit for 10 seconds, then turned it on, inserted the Linux Live disc (Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala), and booted up into Linux.

Some argue that Windows is inherently easier to use than Linux, while that may have been true 15 years ago before the Graphical User Interface became increasingly popular for Linux distros, nowadays there are new advantages to the less-savvy computer to really like about Linux.

For instance, look at this example about problems with drivers for CD-ROM drives. Most Linux distros come complete with CD-ROM drivers, video drivers, USB device drivers (Like my Linksys Wireless-G stick) which has never been the case with Microsoft’s Windows. When you first install Windows on a PC you aren’t done yet–Oh no, it will probably a couple hours for you to track down all the proper drivers for your system. Linux- put your Live CD in the drive, boot up and go!

And, if you want to add more software to your Linux system, you have the convenience of Package Managers.  All the biggest Linux distros have thousands of all different types of applications available from games, to business, to development specifically put together for that particular distro. For instance, Ubuntu has over 20,000 different programs known as “packages” that are each uniquely tailored to your particular ditribution. Package managers resolve dependency problems which have historically plagued operating systems like Linux because there were specific versions of individual files required by some programs that weren’t already installed on the system, resulting in problems.

Getting out of the “Windows mindset” gives one the freedom to expand his horizons when it comes to getting the most out of one’s computer system with the least cost.

#1 Families with kids who use the computer

Those of us who have kids know that they aren’t so savvy about what not to click on especially when surfing the Internet. Without a mindful grownup watching everything his child does online, problems are soon to crop up. Leave a 10 year old alone for an hour by himself on the family PC and I will say with almost 100% certainty that their will be spyware and viruses on that computer! Besides the obvious danger involved in letting kids surf the web without proper filters, the great chance of them clicking on those fancy “animated cursor ads”, or any of a vast number of fancy Flash attention grabbers will absolutely fill your Windows PC with security threats.

So what’s the solution, you ask

The solution to this problem is to use a Linux Live CD on that computer! Simply put a Live CD in the CD-ROM drive, shutdown your Windows machine, and when you turn it back on, you will have a menu appear that will allow you to boot into one of many Linux Operating Systems, and they can click and surf with abandon since the Linux Live environment will not touch your installed Windows system.

The image above shows what you see when you put in the Linux disc, in this case we use Ubuntu, it’s the most popular but there are surely scores of other Linux distros that will work very well.

Using Linux as a Live CD is certainly a fun endeavor, but it does have a few drawbacks–namely, the most important difference for most of them is that anything you do in Linux while in the Live environment will not be save once you’re done and restart the computer. Anything you change, like adding programs, changing system settings, etc., will all be gone for next time. But this shouldn’t be a problem for the casual Linux dabbler.

#2 People who use many different computers

What do you do when find yourself with several different computers at home, and you like to go to your friends’ houses and use their computers? Maybe you want to show them what your doing on your computer, but you don’t really want to drag an entire desktop computer to someone’s house, do you?

So what’s the solution, you ask

The answer is, you can install your entire system onto one of those small USB memory sticks. As long as the computer you stick it into supports booting from USB (and most modern computer do), then you can simply take your PC with you in your pocket!

And Ubuntu makes this very simple to do since they have a command to create a “USB Startup Disk”:

It’s really that simple- Once you have your “Startup Disk”, you really have a full Ubuntu installation on a Flash drive that ‘s only limited by the capacity of the drive.

As you can see, these are just two examples of how people who wouldn’t normally think that they would have a good use for that “other” operating system, there really are some great “out-of-the-box” uses for Linux besides the everyday use some may find intimidating.

Check back here for more great uses of Linux and thanks for reading!

In these times of financial turmoil, one must find as many ways to save money as possible. One of the most important areas of life people may spend a big chunk of their money on is with their computer. That is why finding ways to lessen bills relating to using your computer(s) can become evident so quickly. By following my tips below you can find yourself immediately starting to see the costs of your PC use drop dramatically.

First, and most important is to use Linux. Linux is a free, and open source competitor to Microsoft®, and Linux is the “kernel”, or fundamental coding of the Operating System, which is utilized through one of hundreds of different Linux distributions, or distros. The details may seem complicated to a lifetime Windows user, but a bit of research can make it all plain in no time. Distrowatch.com is a great place to start looking at all the different, exciting types of distros that are out there to pick from. The freedom to choose and setup just the Linux system makes it very exciting too, if you want to have the control, and not have a big corporation somewhere tell you what you can and can’t do with your own computer. That’s another very important advantage of Linux- It is not “owned” by any single organization, so you have the freedom to do what you want.

First of all, lets compare the initial costs of putting the latest Linux distro on a new computer, or the latest Windows, which is currently Windows 7. We will use Ubuntu as the Linux distro since it is the most popular, but would could use any Linux example, now couldn’t we?

From Ubuntu.com

$0.00

Now Windows:

From Microsoft.com

$199.99 to $319.99

As you can see, right off the bat you are hundreds of dollars ahead just by choosing Linux as your operating system!

Let’s choose one more example. This time, since we already have our operating system selected, we need an office suite, right? Well, Microsoft® has a very popular one, ubiquitously known as “Microsoft Office”. Well, don’t fret Linux users, you can’t use that app, but we have one that is quite compatible, and some would argue better, Sun’s Open Office. Let’s compare prices:

From Openoffice.org

$0.00

Now Microsoft Office:

From Microsoft.com

$149.95 to $679.95

As you can, we can save lots of money in the basics by taking the Linux route, versus the mainstream-friendly Windows path.

Grand total for a full-featured operating system, and robust office-suite:

Windows = $349.94

Linux   = $0.00

Kismet is a network detector, packet sniffer, and intrusion detection system for 802.11 wireless LANs. Kismet will work with any wireless card which supports raw monitoring mode, and can sniff 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g traffic. The program runs under Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Mac OS X. The client can also run on Microsoft Windows, although, aside from external drones, there’s only one supported wireless hardware available as packet source.

Kismet-2.7.1 Screenshot

Distributed under the GNU General Public License, Kismet is free software.

Kismet is unlike most other wireless network detectors in that it works passively. This means that without sending any loggable packets, it is able to detect the presence of both wireless access points and wireless clients, and associate them with each other.

Kismet also includes basic wireless IDS features such as detecting active wireless sniffing programs including NetStumbler, as well as a number of wireless network attacks.

Kismet has the ability to log all sniffed packets and save them in a tcpdump/Wireshark or Airsnort compatible fileformat.

To find as many networks as possible, kismet supports channelhopping. This means that it constantly changes from channel to channel non-sequentially, in a user-defined sequence with a default value that leaves big holes between channels (for example 1-6-11-2-7-12-3-8-13-4-9-14-5-10). The advantage with this method is that it will capture more packets because adjacent channels overlap.

Kismet also supports logging of the geographical coordinates of the network if the input from a GPS receiver is additionally available.

Kismet has three separate parts. A drone can be used to collect packets, and then pass them on to a server for interpretation. A server can either be used in conjunction with a drone, or on its own, interpreting packet data, and extrapolating wireless information, and organizing it. The client communicates with the server and displays the information the server collects.

I made a good find on Digg.com today that reveals the author’s 24 top Linux programs, and I like the list so much I thought I should blog about it.

Do yourself a favor and have a look:

http://laptoplogic.com/resources/top-24-linux-apps

Well, I tried to get Puppy Linux installed on my old Presario notebook PC as I wrote about recently, but I just couldn’t get the install to take.

Old Compaq Presario

For some reason we could not get the Grub boot loader to boot it up properly. No big deal, that gave me a good excuse to try another distro, and I’m glad I did!

CrunchBang Linux 8.10 is the distro that I was interested in trying on this old machine because it was advertised as being lightweight, and made for lesser machines. I tried the “Lite” version, that ran very well, so I the opted for the “Standard” version, and it’s been great ever since. It installed without a hitch.

CrunchBang is tightly based on Ubuntu with Openbox as the window manager, a much lighter-weight one than Ubuntu’s standard, Gnome.

CrunchBang Linux 8.10

It is also interesting looking because it makes use of Conky, which is a free software system monitor for the X Window System. and since it is prominently sitting on the desktop, it makes it seem easy to check it out and start to configure it, with all the examples out there it really isn’t that tough. CrunchBang ran great on that 192MB of RAM dinosaur with Firefox running (with the included Adobe Flash, by the way!), only bogging down when the Package Manager was also running.

All in all, whether or not your PC is old and worn out, CrunchBang Linux is a great player in Linux arena!

Linux has many advantages over other operating systems as people who actually like to use their computers can attest.

This is a list of the most notable reasons why Linux is the King of the operating system world:

• This OS is supported by thousands of folks dedicating their time and resources all over the world from the kernel level all the way up through the layers, right up to the desktop manager of each distro
• There is no bureaucracy or politics involved every time a bug or security enhancement is needed
• Since the software used is FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) the emphasis is placed not on how much money can be made by the corporation behind it, but rather how great and functional it can be made for the end user
• You have far more choices for the latest technology with Linux than you do with Windows or Macintosh — Have a 10 year old PC? No problem, distros like Puppy Linux will let you plug in that brand new USB memory stick without having to go out and try to find a driver for it.
• You don’t have the virus and malware problem on Linux machines as you do with Windows
• You can make the Linux desktop look as fancy or not as you want, with Linux the choices are up to you
• With the major Linux distros downloading new software is a snap- most distros have literally thousands of packages available in just a mouse-click or two
• Feature-to-feature comparisons of Linux and Windows show Linux is the most secure OS out there

As this list shows, there really are many important reasons why these days Linux is what we all should be running on our computers!

Buy Linux on disc today