Linux Professional Institute Learning Logo.
Skip to main content
  • Home
    • All Resources
    • LPI Learning Materials
    • Become a Contributor
    • Publishing Partners
    • Become a Publishing Partner
    • About
    • FAQ
    • Contributors
    • Roadmap
    • Contact
  • LPI.org
1.1 Lesson 1
Topic 1: The Linux Community and a Career in Open Source
1.1 Linux Evolution and Popular Operating Systems
  • 1.1 Lesson 1
1.2 Major Open Source Applications
  • 1.2 Lesson 1
1.3 Open Source Software and Licensing
  • 1.3 Lesson 1
1.4 ICT Skills and Working in Linux
  • 1.4 Lesson 1
Topic 2: Finding Your Way on a Linux System
2.1 Command Line Basics
  • 2.1 Lesson 1
  • 2.1 Lesson 2
2.2 Using the Command Line to Get Help
  • 2.2 Lesson 1
2.3 Using Directories and Listing Files
  • 2.3 Lesson 1
  • 2.3 Lesson 2
2.4 Creating, Moving and Deleting Files
  • 2.4 Lesson 1
Topic 3: The Power of the Command Line
3.1 Archiving Files on the Command Line
  • 3.1 Lesson 1
3.2 Searching and Extracting Data from Files
  • 3.2 Lesson 1
  • 3.2 Lesson 2
3.3 Turning Commands into a Script
  • 3.3 Lesson 1
  • 3.3 Lesson 2
Topic 4: The Linux Operating System
4.1 Choosing an Operating System
  • 4.1 Lesson 1
4.2 Understanding Computer Hardware
  • 4.2 Lesson 1
4.3 Where Data is Stored
  • 4.3 Lesson 1
  • 4.3 Lesson 2
4.4 Your Computer on the Network
  • 4.4 Lesson 1
Topic 5: Security and File Permissions
5.1 Basic Security and Identifying User Types
  • 5.1 Lesson 1
5.2 Creating Users and Groups
  • 5.2 Lesson 1
5.3 Managing File Permissions and Ownership
  • 5.3 Lesson 1
5.4 Special Directories and Files
  • 5.4 Lesson 1
How to get certified
  1. Topic 1: The Linux Community and a Career in Open Source
  2. 1.1 Linux Evolution and Popular Operating Systems
  3. 1.1 Lesson 1

1.1 Lesson 1

Certificate:

Linux Essentials

Version:

1.6

Topic:

1 The Linux Community and a Career in Open Source

Objective:

1.1 Linux Evolution and Popular Operating Systems

Lesson:

1 of 1

Introduction

Linux is one of the most popular operating systems. Its development was started in 1991 by Linus Torvalds. The operating system was inspired by Unix, another operating system developed in the 1970s by AT&T Laboratories. Unix was geared towards small computers. At the time, “small” computers were considered machines that don’t need an entire hall with air conditioning and cost less than one million dollars. Later, they were considered as the machines that can be lifted by two people. At that time, an affordable Unix system was not readily available on computers such as office computers, which were tended to be based on the x86 platform. Therefore Linus, who was a student by that time, started to implement a Unix-like operating system which was supposed to run on this platform.

Mostly, Linux uses the same principles and basic ideas of Unix, but Linux itself doesn’t contain Unix code, as it is an independent project. Linux is not backed by an individual company but by an international community of programmers. As it is freely available, it can be used by anyone without restrictions.

Distributions

A Linux distribution is a bundle that consists of a Linux kernel and a selection of applications that are maintained by a company or user community. A distribution’s goal is to optimize the kernel and the applications that run on the operating system for a certain use case or user group. Distributions often include distribution-specific tools for software installation and system administration. This is why some distributions are mainly used for desktop environments where they need to be easy to use while others are mainly used to run on servers to use the available resources as efficiently as possible.

Another way to classify distributions is by referring to the distribution family they belong to. Distributions of the Debian distribution family use the package manager dpkg to manage the software that is run on the operating system. Packages that can be installed with the package manager are maintained by voluntary members of the distribution’s community. Maintainers use the deb package format to specify how the software is installed on the operating system and how it is configured by default. Just like a distribution, a package is a bundle of software and a corresponding configuration and documentation that makes it easier for the user to install, update and use the software.

The Debian GNU/Linux distribution is the biggest distribution of the Debian distribution family. The Debian GNU/Linux Project was launched by Ian Murdock in 1993. Today thousands of volunteers are working on the project. Debian GNU/Linux aims to provide a very reliable operating system. It also promotes Richard Stallman’s vision of an operating system that respects the freedoms of the user to run, study, distribute and improve the software. This is why it does not provide any proprietary software by default.

Ubuntu is another Debian-based distribution worth mentioning. Ubuntu was created by Mark Shuttleworth and his team in 2004, with the mission to bring an easy to use Linux desktop environment. Ubuntu’s mission is to provide a free software to everyone across the world as well as to cut the cost of professional services. The distribution has a scheduled release every six months with a long-term support release every 2 years.

Red Hat is a Linux distribution developed and maintained by the identically named software company, which was acquired by IBM in 2019. The Red Hat Linux distribution was started in 1994 and re-branded in 2003 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, often abbreviated as RHEL. It is provided to companies as a reliable enterprise solution that is supported by Red Hat and comes with software that aims to ease the use of Linux in professional server environments. Some of its components require fee-based subscriptions or licenses. The CentOS project uses the freely available source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and compiles it to a distribution which is available completely free of charge, but in return does not come with commercial support.

Both RHEL and CentOS are optimized for use in server environments. The Fedora project was founded in 2003 and creates a Linux distribution which is aimed at desktop computers. Red Hat initiated and maintains the Fedora distribution ever since. Fedora is very progressive and adopts new technologies very quickly and is sometimes considered a test-bed for new technologies which later might be included in RHEL. All Red Hat based distributions use the package format rpm.

The company SUSE was founded in 1992 in Germany as a Unix service provider. The first version of SUSE Linux was released in 1994. Over the years SUSE Linux became mostly known for its YaST configuration tool. This tool allows administrators to install and configure software and hardware, set up servers and networks. Similar to RHEL, SUSE releases SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, which is their commercial edition. This is less frequently released and is suitable for enterprise and production deployment. It is distributed as a server as well as a desktop environment, with fit-for-purpose packages. In 2004, SUSE released the openSUSE project, which opened opportunities for developers and users to test and further develop the system. The openSUSE distribution is freely available to download.

Independent distributions have been released over the years. Some of them are based on either Red Hat or Ubuntu, some are designed to improve a specific propriety of a system or hardware. There are distributions built with specific functionalities like QubesOS, a very secure desktop environment, or Kali Linux, which provides an environment for exploiting software vulnerabilities, mainly used by penetration testers. Recently various super small Linux distributions are designed to specifically run in Linux containers, such as Docker. There are also distributions built specifically for components of embedded systems and even smart devices.

Embedded Systems

Embedded systems are a combination of computer hardware and software designed to have a specific function within a larger system. Usually they are part of other devices and help to control these devices. Embedded systems are found in automotive, medical and even military applications. Due to its wide variety of applications, a variety of operating systems based on the Linux kernel was developed in order to be used in embedded systems. A significant part of smart devices have a Linux kernel based operating system running on it.

Therefore, with embedded systems comes embedded software. The purpose of this software is to access the hardware and make it usable. The major advantages of Linux over any proprietary embedded software include cross vendor platform compatibility, development, support and no license fees. Two of the most popular embedded software projects are Android, that is mainly used on mobile phones across a variety of vendors and Raspbian, which is used mainly on Raspberry Pi.

Android

Android is mainly a mobile operating system developed by Google. Android Inc. was founded in 2003 in Palo Alto, California. The company initially created an operating system meant to run on digital cameras. In 2005, Google bought Android Inc. and developed it to be one of the biggest mobile operating systems.

The base of Android is a modified version of the Linux kernel with additional open source software. The operating system is mainly developed for touchscreen devices, but Google has developed versions for TV and wrist watches. Different versions of Android have been developed for game consoles, digital cameras, as well as PCs.

Android is freely available in open source as Android Open Source Project (AOSP). Google offers a series of proprietary components in addition to the open source core of Android. These components include applications such as Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google Mail, the Chrome browser as well as the Google Play Store which facilitates the easy installation of apps. Most users consider these tools an integral part of their Android experience. Therefore almost all mobile devices shipped with Android in Europe and America include proprietary Google software.

Android on embedded devices has many advantages. The operating system is intuitive and easy to use with a graphical user interface, it has a very wide developer community, therefore it is easy to find help for development. It is also supported by the majority of the hardware vendors with an Android driver, therefore it is easy and cost effective to prototype an entire system.

Raspbian and the Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi is a low cost, credit-card sized computer that can function as a full-functionality desktop computer, but it can be used within an embedded Linux system. It is developed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, which is an educational charity based in UK. It mainly has the purpose to teach young people to learn to program and understand the functionality of computers. The Raspberry Pi can be designed and programmed to perform desired tasks or operations that are part of a much more complex system.

The specialties of the Raspberry Pi include a set of General Purpose Input-Output (GPIO) pins which can be used to attach electronic devices and extension boards. This allows using the Raspberry Pi as a platform for hardware development. Although it was intended for educational purposes, Raspberry Pis are used today in various DIY projects as well as for industrial prototyping when developing embedded systems.

The Raspberry Pi uses ARM processors. Various operating systems, including Linux, run on the Raspberry Pi. Since the Raspberry Pi does not contain a hard disk, the operating system is started from an SD memory card. One of the most prominent Linux distributions for the Raspberry Pi is Raspbian. As the name suggests, it belongs to the Debian distribution family. It is customized to be installed on the Raspberry Pi hardware and provides more than 35000 packages optimized for this environment. Besides Raspbian, numerous other Linux distributions exist for the Raspberry Pi, like, for example, Kodi, which turns the Raspberry Pi into a media center.

Linux and the Cloud

The term cloud computing refers to a standardized way of consuming computing resources, either by buying them from a public cloud provider or by running a private cloud. As of 2017 reports, Linux runs 90% of the public cloud workload. Every cloud provider, from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to Google Cloud Platform (GCP), offers different forms of Linux. Even Microsoft offers Linux-based virtual machines in their Azure cloud today.

Linux is usually offered as part of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering. IaaS instances are virtual machines which are provisioned within minutes in the cloud. When starting an IaaS instance, an image is chosen which contains the data that is deployed to the new instance. Cloud providers offer various images containing ready to run installations of both popular Linux distributions as well as own versions of Linux. The cloud user chooses an image containing their preferred distribution and can access a cloud instance running this distribution shortly after. Most cloud providers add tools to their images to adjust the installation to a specific cloud instance. These tools can, for example, extend the file systems of the image to fit the actual hard disk of the virtual machine.

Guided Exercises

  1. How is Debian GNU/Linux different from Ubuntu? Name two aspects.

  2. What are the most common environments/platforms Linux is used for? Name three different environments/platforms and name one distribution you can use for each.

  3. You are planning to install a Linux distribution in a new environment. Name four things that you should consider when choosing a distribution.

  4. Name three devices that the Android OS runs on, other than smartphones.

  5. Explain three major advantages of cloud computing.

Explorational Exercises

  1. Considering cost and performance, which distributions are mostly suitable for a business that aims to reduce licensing costs, while keeping performance at its highest? Explain why.

  2. What are the major advantages of the Raspberry Pi and which functions can they take in business?

  3. What range of distributions does Amazon Cloud Services and Google Cloud offer? Name at least three common ones and two different ones.

Summary

In this lesson you learned:

  • What distributions does Linux have

  • What are Linux embedded systems

  • How are Linux embedded systems used

  • Different applicabilities of Android

  • Different uses of a Raspberry Pi

  • What is Cloud Computing

  • What role does Linux play in cloud computing

Answers to Guided Exercises

  1. How is Debian GNU/Linux different from Ubuntu? Name two aspects.

    Ubuntu is based on a snapshot of Debian, therefore there are many similarities between them. However, there are still significant differences between them. The first one would be the applicability for beginners. Ubuntu is recommended for beginners because of its ease of use and on the other hand Debian is recommended for more advanced users. The major difference is the complexity of the user configuration that Ubuntu doesn’t require during the installation process.

    Another difference would be the stability of each distribution. Debian is considered to be more stable compared to Ubuntu. This is because Debian receives fewer updates that are tested in detail and the entire operating system is more stable. On the other hand, Ubuntu enables the user to use the latest releases of software and all the new technologies.

  2. What are the most common environments/platforms Linux is used for? Name three different environments/platforms and name one distribution you can use for each.

    A few of the common environments/platforms would be smartphone, desktop and server. On smartphones, it can be used by distributions such as Android. On desktop and server, it can be used by any distribution that is mostly suitable with the functionality of that machine, from Debian, Ubuntu to CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

  3. You are planning to install a Linux distribution in a new environment. Name four things that you should consider when choosing a distribution.

    When choosing a distribution, a few of the main things that should be considered is cost, performance, scalability, how stable it is and the hardware demand of the system.

  4. Name three devices that the Android OS runs on, other than smartphones.

    Other devices that Android runs on are smart TVs, tablet computers, Android Auto and smartwatches.

  5. Explain three major advantages of cloud computing.

    The major advantages of cloud computing are flexibility, easy to recover and low use cost. Cloud based services are easy to implement and scale, depending on the business requirements. It has a major advantage in backup and recovery solutions, as it enables businesses to recover from incidents faster and with less repercussions. Furthermore, it reduces operation costs, as it allows to pay just for the resources that a business uses, on a subscription-based model.

Answers to Explorational Exercises

  1. Considering cost and performance, which distributions are mostly suitable for a business that aims to reduce licensing costs, while keeping performance at its highest? Explain why.

    One of the most suitable distributions to be used by business is CentOS. This is because it incorporates all Red Hat products, which are further used within their commercial operating system, while being free to use. Similarly, Ubuntu LTS releases guarantee support for a longer period of time. The stable versions of Debian GNU/Linux are also often used in enterprise environments.

  2. What are the major advantages of the Raspberry Pi and which functions can they take in business?

    Raspberry Pi is small in size while working as a normal computer. Furthermore, it is low cost and can handle web traffic and many other functionalities. It can be used as a server, a firewall and can be used as the main board for robots, and many other small devices.

  3. What range of distributions does Amazon Cloud Services and Google Cloud offer? Name at least three common ones and two different ones.

    The common distributions between Amazon and Google Cloud Services are Ubuntu, CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Each cloud provider also offers specific distributions that the other one doesn’t. Amazon has Amazon Linux and Kali Linux, while Google offers the use of FreeBSD and Windows Servers.

Linux Professional Insitute Inc. All rights reserved. Visit the Learning Materials website: https://learning.lpi.org
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Next Lesson

1.2 Major Open Source Applications (1.2 Lesson 1)

Read next lesson

Linux Professional Insitute Inc. All rights reserved. Visit the Learning Materials website: https://learning.lpi.org
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

LPI is a non-profit organization.

© 2023 Linux Professional Institute (LPI) is the global certification standard and career support organization for open source professionals. With more than 200,000 certification holders, it's the world’s first and largest vendor-neutral Linux and open source certification body. LPI has certified professionals in over 180 countries, delivers exams in multiple languages, and has hundreds of training partners.

Our purpose is to enable economic and creative opportunities for everybody by making open source knowledge and skills certification universally accessible.

  • LinkedIn
  • flogo-RGB-HEX-Blk-58 Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy and Cookie Policy

Spot a mistake or want to help improve this page? Please let us know.

© 1999–2023 The Linux Professional Institute Inc. All rights reserved.