Linux and FOSS in 10 minutes

[gaurav]

Ten reasons to discard this document

I do not have 10  minutes to spare
Linux?? FOSS ???whats this ,not of my use..
There is no problem with my PC .
Linux is tooooo hard to understand and work with
Linux does not help me with my professional work
Linux is for servers not for desktop PC
I will have to pay to get support on Linux
I am afraid to explore new avenues/ideas.
I am happy to use pirated software
I do not prefer free advice.

.....add up your reasons if they are different from these


This might tend to be a spam in your mail,but you can always spare 10
minutes out of your busy schedule to know about something about the
technology you have not explored yet and why the people all over the
world are going mad over this.
have a look at http://foss.in to see what we are up to in India.FOSS
stands for "Free and Open Source software"

If this gets you interested ,pl keep on reading.
Please forward this to your freinds if you like forwarding it.

We will start with the basics now.

Basics of Operating System (O.S),Kernel,Linux,Free Software,Open Source Software

Operating system: In computing, an operating system (OS) is the system
software responsible for the direct control and management of hardware
and basic system operations. Additionally, it provides a foundation
upon which to run application software such as word processing
programs, web browsers and others.

Example of Operating systems: Windows Xp.windows 2000, windows 98
Suse Linux , Redhat linux,Debain linux,mandrake Linux  etc etc


Kernel: In computer engineering, the kernel is the core of an
operating system. It is a piece of software responsible for providing
secure access to the machine's hardware and to various computer
processes (a process is a computer program in a state of execution).
Since there are many programs, and hardware access is limited, the
kernel also decides when and how long a program should be able to make
use of a piece of hardware, which is called scheduling.

Coming to Linux....

Linux:  In the narrowest sense, the term Linux refers to the Linux
kernel, but it is commonly used to describe entire Unix-like operating
systems (also known as GNU/Linux) that are based on the Linux kernel
combined with libraries and tools from the GNU Project and other
sources. Most broadly, a Linux distribution bundles large quantities
of application software with the core system, and provides more
user-friendly installation and upgrades. The Linux Kernel was written
by Linus Torvalds

GNU : GNU is a free software operating system. Its name is a recursive
acronym for "GNU's Not Unix", which was chosen because its design is
Unix-like, but it contains no actual UNIX code. The GNU system,
combined with a third-party kernel called Linux, is one of the most
widely used operating systems in the world, commonly known as either
"GNU/Linux" or often simply "Linux"
GNU project was started by Richard Stallman.

Free Software :
``Free software'' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the
concept, you should think of ``free'' as in ``free speech,'' not as in
``free beer.''

Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy,
distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it
refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

 * The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
 * The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your
needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for
this.
 * The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
 * The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements
to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3).
Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Open Source Software:
The basic idea behind open source is very simple: When programmers can
read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of
software, the software evolves. People improve it, people adapt it,
people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that, if one is used
to the slow pace of conventional software development, seems
astonishing.

There is absolutely no problem with your PC, but your PC can be used
to give much better performance if you could try different operating
systems or different software on different O.S. Everything you could
try is new and difficult at the beginning. You need to devote some
energy and time into this so that you Can learn from it and benefit
from it Linux as it has evolved nowadays is increasingly used for
Desktop PCs as well so there is no dearth of applications in Linux for
desktop users.
In fact you will find usage of Linux/Foss in some areas where no other
OS can match its capabilities .Like graphics,multimedia,UTF-8 encoding
support etc etc.

To get a feel of free software on your present OS, you can download a
copy of FireFox browser and use it as an alternative to Internet
explorer .It won't take much of your time to realize why FireFox is
now used by millions of users on all platforms.

Keeping in true spirit of the community , you Can always get a free
tip or advice related to Linux or free software from some very good
forums like
www.linuxquestions.org
or any
Linux User groups.
to start with using Linux you can download or ask some of your friends
using Linux for a  free copy of Live CD based Linux
these do not require to be installed in your Hard disk
They run directly from the CD some of the popular ones are
knoppix, Puppy Linux,Ubuntu Live

why i am giving away free advice and spamming your account?

I do not Spam any email accounts but I just make a try once in couple
of months so as to encourage people to learn more about Linux and Foss
so that they can also benefit from it.this is my way to
contributing/supporting to the Linux/Foss community.
apart from this you can have a look to past articles at my website
http://www.gnulinuxclub.org

Any word of encouragement from your side will be  boost for me to
continue over this

More On this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU
http://www.gnulinuxclub.org
regards

Gaurav Masand
System administrator
IT centre
DAVV,Indore
--
my site:http://www.gnulinuxclub.org
my blog:http://linux4all.blogspot.com
my project:http://masand.sourceforge.net