Linux Evolution and Popular Operating Systems

0:05<v ->Hello, and welcome to Linux Essentials.</v>

0:07My name's James Conrad.

0:08It's my pleasure to be here with you

0:10as you delve into Linux.

0:13Now, I've gotta tell you, this course is mostly

0:15for those of you that are new to Linux

0:17or you've really never worked with it,

0:19or you've just kind of dabbled with it,

0:22but it doesn't necessarily mean you have to be new to IT.

0:24I mean, I've worked with Windows for, gosh,

0:27since the early 90s,

0:29whenever the first version of Windows came out.

0:31So a long time.

0:32I've also worked with Linux off

0:34and on for probably the past 20 years,

0:36although, to be honest, it's been with Cali Linux,

0:40which is the the hackers version of Linux.

0:43Don't tell anybody.

0:44So, yes, some of us might have more experience than others,

0:48but I'm gonna teach this course

0:50so that even if you have little

0:51or even no experience with Linux, you're gonna be able

0:54to progress through it to a point

0:55where you're gonna feel some competency with it

0:58by the time you're done.

0:59Alright, stick around.

1:01We're gonna have a great fun with this course.

1:03Let's take a look at the next video

1:04where I talk about the operating system itself.

0:01<v ->Alright, let's take a look at Linux.</v>

0:02But before we get too far in it,

0:04I want us to understand really what an operating system is.

0:06It might seem a little obvious what an operating system is,

0:09but sometimes that line gets a little bit fuzzy

0:12as we start to work with various applications as well.

0:15So let's just establish this right from the beginning

0:17what an operating system is right here.

0:19Okay, first of all, really it's a platform for software.

0:22Your operating system itself, it's not really very useful

0:26unless you can run some kind of software on it, okay?

0:29If you think about what your day-to-day is,

0:30most of us, for example, will use a web browser today.

0:34A web browser is software, okay?

0:36It's a application or a program

0:39that runs on top of the operating system

0:42and it interacts with the operating system.

0:44We cannot run that application

0:45without the operating system, okay?

0:47It also interacts with the hardware.

0:50It uses some other things called drivers,

0:52but the basic idea there is the operating system

0:55is what communicates with the hardware

0:58so that when I type something on my keyboard,

1:00when I draw something on my screen,

1:02which I can do right here,

1:03that is me interacting with the operating system,

1:07which then communicates to the hardware

1:09and sends some kind of an instruction to it.

1:12There's also, I/O from the user,

1:15and by the way, that's what this is

1:16when I'm writing on the screen,

1:17which I'm doing right now with this stylus,

1:20that's I/O from the user.

1:22So again, the operating system is what is able

1:25to send and receive input and output.

1:29Now, let's take a look also at the kernel.

1:31What is that?

1:32That's pronounced like kernel as in,

1:35Colonel Sanders or something like this,

1:37but really it's a core part of the operating system.

1:41It's kind of the heart of the operating system if you will,

1:44the programming that's at the very center of it,

1:47that actually provides the operating system itself.

1:50There are other things that can kind of

1:52bolt onto the operating system, if you will,

1:55or augment it, or improve it, or change it to some point,

1:59But the kernel itself is really

2:01the most central part of this.

2:03So, for example, when you step up to your computer,

2:06in other words, your hardware, this is your computer

2:09and you hit the power button here

2:11and it turns on, what happens?

2:14Well, it has to load an operating system,

2:16and that's what happens next.

2:17It loads an operating system, and it could be anything.

2:20It could be Windows, it could be Linux,

2:22it could be a MacOS,

2:24so whatever the operating system is, that's what loads.

2:28Once that operating system loads,

2:30then it can communicate with the application.

2:34And the applications, which you decide to open,

2:37or which some of 'em open automatically as well,

2:39those are what the user then interacts with, okay?

2:43So the user will interact with that operating system,

2:47interact with that application,

2:48maybe they're typing something on the keyboard,

2:50it pops in words in the application,

2:53and then the application

2:54will display that to the user, okay?

2:56So the user generally interacts with both

2:58the applications that are on the computer

3:01as well as the operating system itself.

3:03Now, I also want you to be aware of

3:05a word called binaries, just in case,

3:07because sometimes people will refer to binaries.

3:10What is that?

3:11These are the actual files.

3:13These are the code files that comprise the kernel

3:17and or the operating system.

3:19You'll also hear binaries referred to in software.

3:22So when you're working with, say, Microsoft Word

3:24or some word processing application,

3:28well there are binaries that make up Microsoft Word.

3:32Similarly, there are binaries that comprise Linux.

3:36We're gonna be taking a look at

3:37some of the specifics of Linux in the next nugget

3:40so I'll see you there.

0:00<v ->So where did Linux actually come from?</v>

0:02It's actually invented by a specific person,

0:05but it kind of has its roots in another operating system.

0:08Let's take a look at it.

0:09So in the history of Linux here,

0:12it's really started by a guy named Linus Torvalds.

0:15Okay? Linus Torvalds.

0:16He was a student, I think he was in his twenties.

0:20I don't remember that specific detail,

0:21but he was at a university in Helsinki, Finland at the time.

0:26And in 1991, he decided he wanted to create Linux,

0:30which, by the way, is a combination of something called Unix

0:34and his name, that's where the spelling comes from.

0:36So Linus would be L-I-N-U,

0:39and then he took the X off of Unix and made it Linux, okay.

0:44Just quickly, what's Unix,

0:45since we're getting our roots of Linux, out of this?

0:491970s-ish, AT&amp;T had an operating system called Unix,

0:56and it was designed to run smaller computers, and-

0:59(short laugh)

1:00Computers back in those days, you have to understand

1:02if you're not familiar with them,

1:04the technology I have in my iPhone is more than we had,

1:09probably, to shoot a rocket into space

1:12and land a person on the moon, okay.

1:14So back in those days, there were entire rooms

1:18with less power than what my phone has right now.

1:21And so Unix would run on a lot of these large,

1:25large computers and was just very cumbersome

1:30in a lot of ways, right?

1:31Well, Mr. Torvalds here, he wanted to create Linux so that

1:37it would run on smaller computers.

1:39Now with Linux, there's no actual shared code base

1:42with Unix, okay, with that operating system.

1:46It didn't borrow from Unix or anything like that,

1:49particularly.

1:51It's only the principles that are similar there

1:54between Linux and Unix.

1:55Now, the other thing about Linux, is it's designed

2:00to be run on what's called an X-86 processor.

2:02Now, without getting into all the history

2:04of the various processors, back in those days,

2:07back in the 90's, we had processors

2:10that were considered what we call X-86.

2:12These would be basically the Intel processor, okay?

2:16Intel came up with that architecture.

2:19Other companies later on also had the same architecture

2:22or similar architecture, but that's where it started.

2:25And it follows us even today.

2:27So if you have a computer right now, that's not a Mac,

2:30it probably follows some version

2:33of this early Intel architecture, there.

2:35The roots of that will still be in your computer now.

2:39Anyway, Linus Torvalds wanted Linux to be able to run

2:42that kind of computer because that would be something

2:45that anybody could run, right?

2:47They were more affordable,

2:48you didn't have to have a million dollars

2:51to buy a server room and pack it full

2:53of all of these gigantic computers that Unix used to run on.

2:57Now, another thing that's unique about Linux

2:59is that it's not owned by a specific company.

3:02Microsoft Windows, obviously, Microsoft owns Windows.

3:05The Mac-OS, obviously, Apple owns the Mac-OS.

3:09But with Linux, nobody really owns it.

3:12It was a shared code base, it was open source,

3:15meaning that Linus Torvalds and all of the people

3:19that have succeeded him in the years to follow,

3:22they made Linux available, publicly available,

3:25so that anybody could look into it.

3:28Usually the kernel of an application,

3:31which we looked at in our last nugget,

3:33the kernel and the source code and all of that,

3:35is a very closely guarded secret with, you know,

3:38for-profits or for proprietary applications

3:42and operating systems.

3:43Well, with Linux, they just opened it up to the world.

3:46This gave it tremendous power because people with

3:50technical capabilities and programming capabilities,

3:53they could kind of as a group, improve and build

3:58upon what Linux originally was.

4:00So that's kind of where it's very unique there.

4:03Now, because it's open source,

4:04because it's not specifically owned by anybody directly,

4:07there's really no service or support offerings, okay.

4:10However, some of the various flavors,

4:13or we also call them distributions or distros,

4:16some of the various distros of Linux

4:19do offer service and support.

4:21So there is a for-profit model in it.

4:23When we say that Linux is free, that doesn't mean

4:27that it prohibits any kind of profit.

4:29Somebody could definitely profit from it and, and many have,

4:32but you don't have to pay for it if you don't want it, okay.

4:34If you don't want to pay for it, you can get Linux for free.

4:37So that's a little bit about where Linux came from.

4:39Yes, there's a whole lot more to the story,

4:41but we're not gonna get into that

4:43as a full history lesson here.

4:44I just want you to be aware of, kind of its origins.

4:47And then in our next nugget, let's take a look at

4:50how Linux compares to another operating system

4:53you may have heard of, Microsoft Windows.

0:00<v ->If you've used personal computers at all,</v>

0:03you've probably used

0:04some flavor of Microsoft Windows in the past.

0:08In the recent years, we've had,

0:10oh, let's say Windows 8, which was not very well received.

0:14A lot of people didn't like it very much,

0:16but then Windows 8.1 was a little bit better.

0:19Windows 10 was pretty good.

0:21And now we're on Windows 11,

0:22which is actually a pretty good operating system.

0:25So since many of you have worked with Windows in the past,

0:28I thought it'd be a good idea here

0:29if we could kind of compare Windows to Linux

0:33so you can kind of get a grasp of how they're the same

0:35and how they're different.

0:36Now, first of all, obviously Windows 11

0:38uses a graphical user interface.

0:41Likewise, Linux uses a graphical user interface.

0:45By the way,

0:46why do I have a picture of some penguins up there?

0:49To represent Linux.

0:50Well, there's a lot of different stories behind it,

0:53but one of the stories is that a Linus Torvalds,

0:57of course, again, the person who founded Linux

1:00had a penguin kind of nibbled on his finger one time,

1:03and he thought it was really cute or something like that.

1:06Now, there's other stories as well.

1:07I'm not sure which one's true, but regardless,

1:10turns out now that the penguin

1:12and this is not the official picture of it,

1:15of a Linux penguin, so to speak.

1:17I'm not sure there is an official one,

1:19but there are many pictures of penguins out there

1:22that look similar to this that represent Linux.

1:24Anyway, Linux also does have a graphical user interface.

1:28In fact, let's just go ahead and take a look at that

1:31just briefly.

1:32And here I've got an installation of Linux.

1:36This is the flavor of Linux

1:38that we're looking at here is Ubuntu,

1:41and it's one of the various flavors.

1:42There's different ones,

1:43which we're gonna be looking at in future nuggets,

1:45like there's a Debian Linux,

1:47which I also have somewhere over here.

1:50And there's this one, and there's Kali Linux,

1:52which is actually based upon

1:54one of the other versions of Linux.

1:55So, like I said, there's a lot of different distributions

1:58or flavors of Linux.

2:01When it comes to Windows, there's only Windows, okay?

2:04But regardless,

2:05here we see that there definitely

2:06is a graphical user interface.

2:08See, I've got wallpaper here.

2:10I've got icons I can click on over here.

2:12I can go to the Firefox web browser, for example,

2:14allows us to browse to the internet.

2:17So we've got a browser here

2:18and we've got Thunderbird mail here,

2:21which you can use to check our email.

2:23We've got several different other things throughout this.

2:25We're not gonna exhaust that right now,

2:27but you get the idea.

2:28It's gotta graphical user interface.

2:30I'm using my mouse to move a mouse pointer around,

2:33and I could use my keyboard here

2:35to type in stuff if I wanted to type an email

2:38or something like that.

2:39Likewise, there's something similar to a start menu.

2:42So in Windows 10,

2:44there's a start menu that's down the lower left

2:47where my mouse pointer is right now.

2:49You can see it right down there.

2:50In Windows 11,

2:51it's a little bit closer to the center,

2:52like maybe about where my mouse pointer is now.

2:54But regardless, we have this kind of central point

2:57where you click on it

2:59and then you can see other applications

3:02that become available to you.

3:04So I can access a calendar here.

3:06I could access a Solitaire game.

3:08Oh, hold on just a second.

3:09So that goes there.

3:11Am I stopped already?

3:12Oh, geez.

3:14Anyway...

3:15Oh no, look, I can do that.

3:16I don't know why it won't let me put the king over there.

3:18Anyway, oh, I guess this is Klondike.

3:20Anyhow, the point I'm making here is,

3:22yes, we have a graphical user interface,

3:24and yes, there are other things that we can do with it

3:26that are very similar to Windows.

3:28So if you are used to Windows,

3:31or even the macOS, by the way,

3:33would be similar in a lot of different ways

3:35then you can access your applications.

3:38You can just click on icons that we see here.

3:40You can play games and all that kind of stuff.

3:43And there you go.

3:44Very, very easy to work with.

3:45Now, that's not necessarily how Linux started,

3:49because originally it was text only.

3:52Yeah, so you would just have a terminal window

3:55where you would type in bash commands of some kind.

3:58I'll get to that a little bit later on.

4:00And in fact, when it comes to people

4:02that become more intermediate to advanced

4:05in Linux operating systems,

4:07well, they're gonna be probably pretty well acquainted

4:09with that command line.

4:12Now, also, Windows 11 is right now

4:15the most widely used operating system

4:17or a flavor of Windows.

4:19Windows eight or 8.1, or Windows 10, or Windows 11.

4:22And then there are also Windows servers out there.

4:25Regardless, on desktops,

4:27Windows is the most widely used operating system

4:31on the planet.

4:32So if I even go to this particular website right here,

4:35and you can go there too, if you want to,

4:36just out of curiosity or something,

4:38then we can see that I've got Windows

4:41as a desktop operating system

4:43which is very prevalent.

4:44Right now it's looking at all platforms,

4:46which includes Android,

4:47which actually there's more Android than Windows,

4:50but on the desktop,

4:51like for a computer as opposed to a mobile device

4:54then you can see here this blue line is Windows.

4:57It's way up here.

4:58Way far away from these other operating systems.

5:00The next closest one would be at 14% of the market share.

5:05And that would be OS X.

5:07Linux at this time, I think July is how far this goes.

5:12Yeah, July, right now it's a poultry 3% market share

5:18in terms of installed desktops.

5:20Now, does that mean

5:21that we're headed in the wrong direction?

5:23We really shouldn't pay attention to Linux,

5:24because after all, Windows is way up there.

5:27No, Linux actually appears in many other operating systems.

5:32So for example, I'm getting ahead of myself,

5:34but if I go back here

5:36and go to all platforms again,

5:38remember what the top one was right here,

5:40this orange line right here, that's Android.

5:42Android has a lot of roots in Linux.

5:46So when it comes to learning Linux,

5:48you are not wasting your time.

5:49There's a lot there, and there are a lot of very reliable

5:53and powerful servers that run Linux.

5:56In fact, Microsoft has a cloud-based service called Azure,

6:01and they even make Linux servers available

6:04to install in Azure.

6:06So even Microsoft has acknowledged

6:09and they also use some Linux servers, by the way,

6:11for their own purposes.

6:13So certainly, Linux is used less frequently

6:17on fewer desktops than Windows 10, 11, something like that,

6:21less frequently used.

6:22But it is growing fast

6:24and it's actually appears in many places

6:26that you might not expect it.

6:27Now, on Windows 11, the focus of this operating system

6:32is going to be Microsoft's servers.

6:34They have servers that are usually named

6:37after years, like server 2016,

6:41Windows server 2019,

6:43Windows server 2022,

6:45and presumably there will be a Windows server 2024, '25,

6:50or something like that in the future.

6:52Now we also have desktop users.

6:55Those numbers I was showing you a moment ago,

6:56those relate to desktop computers

6:59where people just perform daily work

7:02or play games or entertainment.

7:05They have one on their desk at home, that sort of thing.

7:09When it comes to Linux,

7:11there's a bigger focus probably on servers.

7:15We're gonna be looking at this in the future,

7:16but Linux is very, very efficient in the resources

7:21that it uses on a server.

7:22So it can also be very inexpensive.

7:25And that's the other thing, remember Linux on its own,

7:28there's no charge for it,

7:29whereas Microsoft can get expensive.

7:31We also have Linux in special purpose.

7:33That might be devices in your home,

7:36such as various types of thermostats

7:38or various types of interactive appliances.

7:42Things like this could actually be using Linux

7:46as the base operating system.

7:47And we also do have desktops for it.

7:50That's what I was showing you earlier

7:52when I started a solitaire game

7:55that I could barely even get started.

7:57Anyway, now, when it comes to issuing commands

8:00to Windows, how do we do that?

8:02When we tell Windows we want it to do something,

8:05or even if we're just using an application on Windows

8:08and we want that application to do something,

8:10how do we interact with it?

8:11How do we do it?

8:12We use the graphical user interface.

8:14That's what I was showing you earlier with Linux,

8:16for example, where how to start menu.

8:18You click on stuff, same thing with Windows.

8:20You could just click around

8:22whatever you can see there, right?

8:24There is also a command line there

8:26where you have to type in a command, for example.

8:29So for example, I've got a Windows command prompt open here.

8:33If I wanted to know what my IP address was,

8:36I could do IPconfig like this,

8:39and it would show me what my IP address is.

8:42So we could see down here,

8:43one of them would be 172.25.240.1.

8:46Now you don't have to memorize that or anything.

8:48I'm just showing you that we can use a command

8:51what I just issued right here,

8:53to get a result in a command prompt window.

8:56Oh, well, we can also use something called PowerShell.

8:59PowerShell was developed several years ago

9:01by some folks at Microsoft,

9:03and it is very powerful,

9:06as the name seems to imply you can do a lot with it.

9:09It allows you to do lots of kinds of automated

9:12and repetitive tasks so that instead of doing a task

9:15one at a time,

9:17PowerShell can automate it for you

9:18and you can use it to create scripts

9:20and everything like this.

9:21Getting a little ahead of myself.

9:22Anyway, when it comes to Linux,

9:25we do the same kind of thing initially.

9:26We can use a GUI, you saw me use that earlier.

9:29Graphical user interface.

9:30They also have something called bash,

9:32which stands for the born again shell.

9:36I'm not gonna go into the history of that,

9:38but that's what that means.

9:38Anyway, it's another thing that you would type in in the UI,

9:43and you can do that from within

9:44what we call a terminal as well.

9:46Lemme give you an example of that over on Linux.

9:49So here, for example, on my Ubuntu system,

9:52if I wanted to use a command to type in

9:55and to learn my IP address on this computer,

9:57I would go to terminal.

9:59So I'm clicking on that start menu,

10:00and I'm going to terminal right here.

10:03And this is where we would enter in something

10:05to find a result or to issue a command.

10:08Here I want to find out my IP address.

10:10So I'll do an IFconfig.

10:12It's different in Linux than it is in Windows.

10:16In Windows it's IPconfig, here it's IFconfig, very similar.

10:20And I get the same kind of information.

10:22So for example, here it's telling me

10:24that my IP address is that right there.

10:27192.1 68.177.130.

10:31Again, you don't need to memorize that,

10:33I'm just telling you that we can use a typed in command

10:38to get a result and to operate that computer.

10:42Another thing is Windows 11 has a very large code base.

10:47There are millions of lines of code in Windows.

10:51I can't remember what it is now,

10:52but one of the earlier versions,

10:53I think it was Windows seven.

10:55So for years ago,

10:56years and years ago, that was over 40 million lines of code.

11:02That's huge.

11:03When Linux first came out,

11:04and of course this was the old version that was very small,

11:07it was originally very tiny.

11:10There were only 88 files that comprised Linux,

11:13and the entire size of it was 231 kilobytes.

11:18Operating systems nowadays

11:20are the sized many, many gigabytes in size.

11:25And to be fair,

11:27the newer versions of Linux are also getting much larger

11:30because of this.

11:31They're using a graphical user interface

11:33that takes a lot of programming,

11:37a lot of stuff that makes the whole application bigger.

0:00<v ->All right, so we've looked a little bit about</v>

0:01the history of Linux

0:02and some of it's characteristics and things,

0:04but do we still want to use it?

0:06I mean, sure, it's interesting, but is it useful?

0:09The answer to that is definitely a, yes.

0:12So if we take a look at Linux here,

0:14let's identify some of the reasons why we'd wanna use it.

0:17One of the things we already mentioned

0:18in the origins of Linux is that it is open-source.

0:21So, does this mean that I am going to program into Linux

0:26or change its code or modify it somehow?

0:28No, I'm not a programmer,

0:31and I don't wanna be, honestly,

0:32my brain just does not think that way.

0:35And yours may not be either.

0:37However, the advantage is,

0:39that because it's open-source, other people,

0:42these are supposed to be people here, (chuckles)

0:45we can magnify the expansion capabilities

0:49and features of Linux,

0:51because there's so many other smart people out there

0:54that know how to modify it,

0:55and customize it,

0:57and provide additional value to Linux.

1:00We're not just dependent upon

1:02some giant multi-billion corporation

1:05in Redmond, Washington somewhere, okay?

1:07So that's one of the reasons.

1:08The other reason is similar to that,

1:09and that is that it's customizable, yeah.

1:11So we have people that are capable of customizing it,

1:16adding additional features, making it work,

1:18and even, you don't have to program, okay?

1:20There are a lot of things within Linux,

1:23you don't have to be a developer

1:24to be able to do those sorts of things.

1:27So it has a lot of flexibility

1:28built into the operating system.

1:30And, in my mind, I'm kind of comparing some things

1:33to Microsoft and to Windows.

1:35Sure, Windows is also customizable,

1:38but with Linux,

1:39because of the first point we made here,

1:42there's an additional level of customization

1:44that could happen, that normally

1:48a company might not want, but that we can do.

1:50So, it's also stable and secure.

1:53Now, this is somewhat variable,

1:55the stable part, all right?

1:56There are installations of Linux,

1:59which stay up and running,

2:00not only for months at a time,

2:02but for years at a time.

2:05And one of the key things in servers especially,

2:07and I'm thinking about servers right now, particularly,

2:10is that you want something called five 9s, okay?

2:14Okay, it looks like a 5 foot 9, which actually I am.

2:16But anyway, you want five 9s here,

2:18and that means 99.999% uptime.

2:24That's about five minutes of unplanned downtime per year.

2:27This is kind of the gold standard for servers.

2:31And so if we can get our servers to be stable

2:33so that they're up with five minutes or less

2:35of unplanned downtime per year, that's pretty good.

2:38And, in fact, a lot of data centers

2:40and a lot of high-end server functions and products

2:46only promise four 9s.

2:47So, you take a look at that,

2:49and you look at the fact that a lot of Linux servers

2:51can be up for years without any downtime,

2:53that's pretty darn good.

2:55Now, the reason why I said

2:56that's a little bit fuzzy sometimes

2:57is because it's open-source and it's customizable, okay?

3:00So, somebody may have been

3:02into the source code of it some places,

3:05and if they fiddle with it,

3:06they could also make it less stable.

3:09But there's a lot of vetting that goes into that,

3:11a lot of checks and balances,

3:13and a lot of other, developers normally,

3:15which will area check your code,

3:17and help to be more stable.

3:19But I'm just saying it's more possible.

3:22There is a window of opportunity for it

3:24to be less stable in some instances.

3:26It is also very secure.

3:27It follows very good security standards

3:29that are very well-established and mature,

3:32and it can follow along with all of those things.

3:34In terms of things like high-level encryption,

3:37so you can encrypt files, you can encrypt entire disks,

3:40you can use certificates to do a lot of different functions,

3:45such as, again, additional encryption,

3:47or to perform digital signatures, log on security,

3:51all kinds of things, are very, very secure there.

3:53If you use it, okay?

3:55No operating system is secure

3:57if you turn off certain security features, okay?

3:59So, provided that you're using it.

4:01Now, the other part of that is,

4:02let me clean up a little bit, cost effectiveness.

4:05Yes, again, you can get Linux for free,

4:07certainly for the desktop I've downloaded a few,

4:10just looking at the past couple of weeks here.

4:12I'm just using it for free,

4:13I don't have to pay anybody.

4:14On a Windows machine,

4:15if you wanted to download the Evaluation Version,

4:18you know, here's the desktop right here,

4:20and down in the lower corner over here, it'll say,

4:22You have 30 days until your trial version is over,"

4:26and then it gives you this countdown.

4:28You have five days left, and so on, and so forth.

4:31There's ways of kind of cheating that

4:33and extending it a little bit,

4:34but you can only go so far,

4:36and eventually, you're gonna run out,

4:38and then you're gonna have to pay however much it costs

4:40to license that edition of Windows.

4:42Now, with a desktop,

4:43I think you can get Windows

4:44for less than a hundred bucks now.

4:45So, not overwhelming.

4:48I would just have to give up Starbucks

4:49for a week, okay?

4:51In order to be able to afford that.

4:53Now, with Linux, I don't have to give up my coffee,

4:55I've got it right here, in fact, okay?

4:57So, it's very cost-effective that way.

4:59Now, there are expenses

5:01as we mentioned before in previous nuggets,

5:03where if you use something that's a major vendor,

5:07such as Red Hat, we'll be getting to this in a little while,

5:09you can still get a low cost, or almost, or just about free,

5:13but if you want some kind of support

5:16or backing from Red Hat Linux,

5:19then you're gonna have to pay a little bit.

5:20And finally, it's just plain fun to work with Linux.

5:25There're really boundless opportunities

5:26for finding new things to do and new features,

5:30and there's all kinds of online resources

5:32for finding out additional items.

5:34And that's another reason to use Linux, by the way,

5:36I didn't really put it in a bullet point,

5:37but a big community of enthused Linux fanatics out there

5:43that are usually very willing to help

5:45if you're running into any problems

5:47or willing to help you figure out how to do something.

5:49And again, it is just plain fun.

5:51If you get tired of one distribution,

5:53you've kind of worked your way through it,

5:54which is gonna take a lot of time.

5:56If you work your way through it,

5:57and you want something else,

5:58move on to a different distribution or distro.

6:01What are these distributions?

6:02Stick around for the very next nugget,

6:04where I'll be discussing that.

0:00<v ->Alright, so we talked about the various distributions</v>

0:03of Linux in the past.

0:04We kind of touched on it, but what is it really?

0:07By the way, we call it distribution,

0:09or we'll call it a distro just for short.

0:12And sometimes we'll also call it a flavor,

0:14a flavor of Linux.

0:16I don't know where that came from.

0:17But anyway, that's what we call it.

0:18These are all considered synonymous.

0:20Penguin is sitting right on my head, let me get out of here.

0:22That penguin sure knows

0:23how to create some uncomfortable moments.

0:25Okay, anyway, so what is a distribution?

0:27It's a bundled package.

0:29Now that package can include a lot of different things.

0:31One of those would be the kernel.

0:32Remember we talked about the kernel

0:34kind of as being the core, if you will,

0:36of the operating system itself, okay?

0:39Beyond that kind of as a wheel of spokes, if you will,

0:43you'll have other things.

0:44I mean, there's drivers, there's services, things like this

0:49that can help to interact with the hardware

0:52or that can perform

0:53a continuously running action of some kind

0:55that's often what a service might do.

0:57And then beyond that, in another circle out here,

1:00you would add onto that an additional ring here

1:03where you might have your applications, okay?

1:05So anyway, all of this out of the box, if you will,

1:09when it's brand new, for example,

1:10and you first download an ISO or a distribution

1:13and you install it, it might include all

1:15of these things by default.

1:17So by way of example here, I've just popped over

1:19to another installation of Linux.

1:21This is Debian Linux.

1:23Now, what's unique about this

1:25is that it looks like it's already installed, right?

1:28But here it says install Debian.

1:29Well, wait a minute, is it installed

1:31or do I still lead to install it?

1:33Well, it's not installed.

1:35This is actually running directly off of the ISO,

1:38so I can run it off of a media.

1:40So you could run that, for example, if you wanted to,

1:42you could put it on a thumb drive.

1:44This is true of most installations

1:45of Linux, probably all of 'em really.

1:47You could run it off of a thumb drive

1:49and then just kind of plug it into a machine boot

1:51off of that thumb drive and diagnose something, you know,

1:55fix something, do something, whatever.

1:57It's also very useful for hacking, by the way.

2:00Anyway, so here we have this, okay,

2:03this is just running the core.

2:04I've not made any modification to this.

2:06It's just running the core of Linux,

2:09which is the Debian version.

2:10That's what this a little symbol here in the middle is.

2:12That's kind of their symbol.

2:14The logo included in this particular distro

2:17were of various applications and things,

2:20which you see over here on its start menu, okay?

2:23I didn't install any of that.

2:24Those are just already there, okay?

2:27So again, that is part of the distribution.

2:29Now, each distribution

2:31or flavor will have a specific goal in mind or a purpose

2:36or an audience in mind, that sort of thing, right?

2:39So one of those would be one we looked at

2:41in previous nuggets, and that would be Ubuntu.

2:44It's generally considered

2:46a good desktop distribution of Linux.

2:48It's got a nice graphical user interface or GUI.

2:51It's very user-friendly.

2:53You can click your way around it

2:54and kind of figure out where you need to go

2:57and what you need to do.

2:58It's very popular and there's a lot of different ones

3:00that are geared toward the desktop.

3:02Initially, when Linux first came out,

3:04as I mentioned several nuggets ago,

3:06it was command line only, which is not very user-friendly,

3:09and it's kind of geeky, okay?

3:12So a lot of times people did not gravitate towards Linux,

3:16and I think early in the early days it was only us geeks

3:19that kinda liked it.

3:20Now with the desktop, it's starting to gain more traction

3:23and it's had a desktop for a few years now.

3:25The server, this is something that, again,

3:27for most administrators,

3:29you're probably gonna mostly run it from the command line.

3:32In fact, a lot of distributions of Linux,

3:34you're not even gonna use a GUI really at all.

3:36You're just gonna do everything command line.

3:38But the other thing with a server is

3:40it's generally got a very efficient resource usage.

3:43So you can run an installation of Linux

3:47as a server without using hardly any resources,

3:50and that way it will save your CPU, it'll save your memory.

3:55It's usually pretty light on disc space that it has to use,

3:58and yet it can perform a lot

4:00of powerful functions just using that.

4:03Each distribution will also use

4:04what we call a package format.

4:07Now, you may have heard of different kinds of ways

4:09of packaging up files, okay?

4:11One of the most common ways you might have heard of

4:13would be something like a ZIP file.

4:15This is really just compression,

4:16but you might have, you know, a bunch

4:18of different files here,

4:19which you can compress into a ZIP file.

4:22And then in Windows, at least,

4:23if you double click on the ZIP file, it exposes the contents

4:26of that ZIP file and you can drag them out somewhere

4:29or you know, expand them somewhere, something like that.

4:31A distribution is somewhat similar in that respect,

4:34and we'll get into this a little bit more later,

4:36but the file extensions will usually be Deb for Debian

4:40or Red Hat Package Manager or RPM.

4:43Now, there's gosh, dozens, maybe

4:45of different Linux distributions.

4:47Most of them will use one

4:49or the other as their primary package format.

4:52So they don't all have their own unique package format,

4:56just for sake of standardization.

4:58They usually gravitate towards one of these,

5:00and there are more distributions

5:01than we can really practically cover here.

5:03Like I said, there's gotta be dozens of different ones

5:05and some homegrown ones and stuff like that.

5:08But some of the more common ones,

5:09we'll start here with Debian, okay?

5:12Debian, it's a very popular one.

5:14The basis of it is a distribution of Linux called GNU,

5:18and this is probably the,

5:21one of the biggest ones out here, okay?

5:22It started by somebody named Ian Murdock in 1993.

5:26The goal here with Debian is reliability.

5:30It'll run forever.

5:31It's very stable and reliable.

5:34And this also incorporates someone else,

5:38someone named Richard Stallman's principle

5:40that the OS is free to use, study and distribute

5:44and improve, okay?

5:45That does not mean that you can't charge

5:48for it if you're a company

5:49and you want to charge for the support

5:51or some kind of a service package

5:53or something like that, okay?

5:55Now where do we get the name Debian?

5:57Well, this is a hybrid of the name Debra and Ian.

6:01I think Debra was Ian's wife or girlfriend at the time,

6:04or no, it was girlfriend at the time, later his wife,

6:07then later his ex-wife okay,

6:09so a little family history in that.

6:11Anyway, that's Debian.

6:13Now let's move on here to the next one.

6:15And that's one I use quite a lot as well.

6:17That would be Ubuntu.

6:18I kind of recommend Ubuntu

6:20if you're new to Linux, you're getting started

6:22and you'll want to kind of ease into it

6:24in a very user-friendly way.

6:26This was started by someone called Mark Shuttleworth,

6:29and he had a team that also was with him here,

6:32and they started this in about 2004.

6:34The goal was exactly this, an easy to use desktop version.

6:39That's why I recommend that you start with Ubuntu

6:41if you are new to Linux.

6:43This again is gonna have free software,

6:46some free software that's included with it.

6:48It also has a very low service expense.

6:51I do know of some companies that have installed Ubuntu

6:54as the user desktop because it's very cheap.

6:58I mean, you don't have to really pay for anything,

7:00like you'd have to pay for Microsoft products, for example.

7:03So I keep giving Microsoft a hard time.

7:05It's a good product, but you do have to pay for it.

7:08And if you want really expensive,

7:09then you would have to go to Mac.

7:11If you had gave everybody a Mac workstation or a MacBook Pro

7:15or something like that, or a MacBook Air

7:17or something like that,

7:18their hardware is extremely expensive,

7:19although they're very good.

7:21Well, again, with Ubuntu,

7:23we're running this on off the shelf PC hardware

7:26or PCs that you could put together if you wanted to.

7:28But PC hardware is generally less expensive.

7:31The operating system here, I mean, you can't compete

7:34with free folks.

7:35In terms of its updates and everything like that,

7:37it does have a biannual release for major servicing,

7:41and then there's a long-term support release

7:43every two years, which generally

7:45that will encompass everything that has been released

7:48in the biannual releases prior to that.

7:51And then we have Red Hat, oh, this is fun.

7:53Wonder if I can put, no, I can't quite get up there.

7:55Anyway, then we have Red Hat here.

7:57This is another one

7:58that's kind of a gold standard really with Linux.

8:02Its name recognition has been around for quite a while.

8:05It is an organization that was acquired by IBM in 2019.

8:10Now, why would IBM be interested in acquiring Red Hat?

8:13IBM is in the business of making money, okay?

8:16So it kind of rubbed some people the wrong way,

8:18but there's a long history in that as well.

8:20However, they do offer a good product for this.

8:23They offer Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

8:27Enterprise Linux here is exactly what it sounds like.

8:30It's for installation on servers that you intend to run

8:34for a very, very high uptime.

8:36Remember we talked about five nines in a previous skill,

8:39previous nugget, well, that's what you get

8:41with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, extremely powerful,

8:44extremely reliable, and it's got backing by IBM there.

8:49So it's an enterprise solution,

8:51and again, there's gonna be some fee-based subscriptions

8:54and licenses that you can pay for along with that.

8:57It's been a while since I was here,

8:58but I thought I'd just take you

8:59to the Red Hat website here at redhat.com

9:03so you can kind of see what they have.

9:05You can buy Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

9:07Let's just take a look at what some of the prices are.

9:10A server by itself, $349.

9:12That's likely cheaper than a lot of the Microsoft licenses,

9:17but look at this one.

9:18Virtual Data Centers, $2,499.

9:22Now, I'm not gonna get into all the pricing,

9:24I'm not gonna get into all of what you get with that.

9:26I just wanna point out that yes, Linux is free,

9:28but if you want high level of services along with them,

9:32or high level of features especially, in the enterprise,

9:35that does need to be paid for.

9:37And most companies are happy to pay for that.

9:39Alright, let's take a look here also at Fedora.

9:41Now, the purpose here is also for desktops,

9:43much the way Ubuntu was.

9:46The thing here is that it's gonna be also maintained

9:48under kind of the Red Hat umbrella.

9:51It's sometimes used for pre-release

9:54or late breaking features or updates.

9:58I don't wanna quite say it's, you know, beta,

10:00but it can, you can kind of think of it

10:01that way a little bit.

10:02The only reason why that's significant

10:04is because for some installations

10:06of any operating system, could be Windows, whatever,

10:09a lot of corporations don't want the newest update

10:13or the newest feature

10:15because they want time to test it out first.

10:17They don't want it to suddenly get installed

10:19on all the computers and then find out

10:21that there's some kind of an incompatibility

10:23with an application that they have

10:25or something that they're doing,

10:26and then it crash the entire organization.

10:29So if you're kind of on the bleeding edge a little bit,

10:31you might be a little bit more interested in Fedora

10:34for the latest stuff, okay?

10:36And again, as I mentioned, I think in our last nugget

10:39all Red Hat is generally gonna use

10:41Red Hat package manager package format.

10:44Oh no, I mentioned that earlier in this video,

10:45didn't I, okay.

10:47I don't what to say.

10:48Hey, I just learned I'm gonna be a grandpa,

10:50so I'm a little distracted today, folks.

10:52I'm probably gonna have to start acting my age now.

10:54Alright, okay. There's also CentOS.

10:56Now the advantage here is that you get a taste

10:59of Red Hat Enterprise Linux,

11:01'cause it uses the free parts

11:03of Red Hat Enterprise Linux Code.

11:06Again, it's free to use, but there's no support.

11:08So a lot of organizations might like this

11:10because if they're a new organization, they're on a budget,

11:13whatever, or they want to kind of test this out

11:16and see if they really like how it's how it operates,

11:18they can use this completely for free.

11:21If they decided they wanted to,

11:22maybe they would then migrate to the paid version

11:24of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

11:27There is also SUSE.

11:29Now the temptation is to call this Susie Linux, alright.

11:33The people at SUSE have made great efforts

11:37and even at conferences

11:38and things to emphasize that the name is SUSE.

11:42They even created a musical YouTube video on it.

11:45You can Google it if you want to.

11:48It was a little hard to watch for me folks.

11:50But anyway, SUSE Linux is another great product.

11:53This uses the YaST configuration tool to install

11:56and configure software, hardware,

11:58set up servers and networks, okay?

12:00We're not gonna get into that any further right now.

12:02It just uses a specific configuration tool

12:04called YaST, alright.

12:06SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is similar

12:08to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

12:10Again, you have different tiers of this.

12:13You have SUSE for maybe a desktop goal

12:16or desktop configuration,

12:17but on the higher end you might have something

12:19that's a little bit more similar

12:20to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, okay?

12:22And again, as I mentioned,

12:24there's a desktop version as well.

0:00<v ->All right, now as we conclude this particular skill,</v>

0:02let's take a look at some kind of outliers

0:04of the Linux operating system.

0:06And when I say that, I don't mean they're uncommon,

0:08I just mean that you don't interoperate with them

0:10in the way you would on a desktop

0:12operating system or on a server.

0:14So those other Linux flavors, if you will,

0:16will be one of those would be Android.

0:18Okay, so Google got into this game about 2003

0:23and then again in 2005, and they have of course

0:26kind of pioneered the whole Android operating system,

0:28which is a flavor of Linux, if you will.

0:31So, you've seen Android many times on tablets, phones.

0:34Android phones are the most prevalent phones,

0:36smartphones in the world ahead of iPhone.

0:39You'll also see it on other devices

0:41such as touchscreens, televisions.

0:44I think I mentioned before, I have a television over there.

0:46I think it's got a version of Linux on it.

0:48And I say that because when I saw it do an update once

0:51it briefly flashed a console that looked like

0:54it was a Linux terminal.

0:55Anyway, you'll see it on watches,

0:57gaming consoles, all kinds of stuff.

0:59But then you also have this Android Open Source Project.

1:02I don't know if they like us to pronounce this AOSS

1:04or not pronounce it at all.

1:06But regardless, these are open source apps, of course.

1:09Google implements this a lot

1:11for many of their various services,

1:12such as their calendaring, Google Play.

1:16They use it in Chrome,

1:17they use it in a lot of different things there, okay?

1:20Embedded Linux can be used in things

1:21like home automation, factory floor computers of some kind

1:25that can control some kind of an automation there,

1:28machinery, all kinds of different things.

1:31And the embedded ones,

1:32there's not generally gonna be someone like in a console

1:35that works on it from day to day.

1:38Generally, these have single-purpose functions

1:41that can carry out very consistent and regular operations.

1:46There's Raspberry PI, which is quite fascinating.

1:48This started from an educational charity

1:50in the United Kingdom.

1:51And what it is, is it's this right here.

1:53If you take a look at it,

1:55it's got a lot of different things on here

1:57that you would have on a normal desktop computer.

1:59It's got an HDMI port there, ethernet connection,

2:03it's got USB here, there's an audio in and an audio out.

2:07So, a lot of the same stuff there

2:09that you'd see on one of those types of devices.

2:12Now the thing is, lemme show you,

2:13they're about the size of a credit card.

2:15This is just a gift card my sister got me

2:17so I can go to the movies.

2:18Anyway.

2:20So, but they're about this size, though.

2:21Can you imagine a whole computer this size?

2:24Well, you can't really use it for everything,

2:26but they are very effective and useful

2:28for their form factor, right?

2:31They also normally use an ARM processor,

2:34which as opposed to an X86 type of a processor

2:37or an Intel processor.

2:38Reason why a lot of organizations like to use ARM

2:41is because they are a more efficient instruction set.

2:45So they like the way that they program to it.

2:48And because it's more efficient,

2:49it requires less cycles for a lot of things,

2:51and therefore will consume less power.

2:54Less power also means less heat.

2:56So there's a lot of different advantages to ARM,

2:59and that's some of them you that I just described.

3:01But the version of Linux or the flavor of Linux

3:04will be compiled so that it can work with ARM processors.

3:08Now, notice some things that are missing here.

3:10We don't see a video card, but there is video.

3:12That's why we have an HDM there, but it's just basic video.

3:16You're not gonna play, I don't know, World of Warcraft

3:19or what's another one, Call of Duty or something like that

3:21on one of these kinds of machines.

3:23The other thing you'll see here is some risers, okay?

3:26So, there's an expansion there.

3:28So with that, you can add in

3:31what we call extension boards, for example.

3:34Do notice that there's no storage

3:36on here particularly, okay?

3:38So the way, you can't even boot it on its own.

3:40Normally for these, you're gonna put in an SD card

3:44into a reader, and then you'll boot off of that.

3:47We also have cloud, right?

3:50So Linux, actually, you would be surprised to know this,

3:53Linux is actually on 90% of the cloud workload worldwide.

3:58So I think normally we kind of tend to think that,

4:00oh, it's Amazon Web Services or AWS,

4:03or we think that it's Microsoft's Azure.

4:06Well, the cloud consists of 90% Linux devices.

4:10Even Microsoft's own cloud, Azure, uses Linux devices

4:15and you can even set up a Linux server in Azure.

4:18So anyway, I'm kind of getting in the weeds there,

4:20but point is Linux is pretty well permeated into the cloud.

4:25When we use Linux in the cloud,

4:26it's usually for infrastructure as a service or IAAS

4:30as we call this.

4:31Without getting into too many details with that,

4:34that's various types of services

4:36that you can make available in the cloud.

4:38So it could be for a security purpose of some kind.

4:41It could be something simple like a DNS servers,

4:44something like that.

4:46What are the advantages for using a Linux device

4:49in the cloud is that they're very fast to spin up

4:52and make available.

4:53And so, those are some of the other versions

4:56or flavors of Linux or some of the other ways that it's used

4:59out there in the world.

0:01<v ->All right, let's go ahead and take a look at</v>

0:03what the correct answers are for this particular scenario.

0:07So I'm not gonna reread the whole question,

0:08but just bear in mind that we have user desktops here

0:12and we have a budget of exactly zero.

0:15It reminds me of how much money my wife gives me.

0:17Anyway, so what operating system would be best

0:20for the desktops under a zero budget?

0:24Okay, that would probably be Ubuntu Linux, okay?

0:27Now, why is that?

0:28Because remember, they also had an objective here

0:31that it must be user-friendly as possible, right?

0:34User-friendly, free, that's just definitely Ubuntu, right?

0:37We looked at that.

0:38Now, the IT staff, look here,

0:41we have a requirement that we install a distribution

0:45that's known for pre-release features, okay?

0:48So these might be, you know, new features or new functions

0:52within Linux that are not really as publicized yet,

0:55haven't been tested as much yet,

0:57we looked at that previously as well.

0:59And if you recall, that would've been Fedora.

1:02Okay, that's Fedora.

1:03Now, manufacturing, let's take a look at that one.

1:05And by the way, my answers may not appear

1:08in the same order yours do, these get randomized, okay?

1:11So first one I did was desktops,

1:13the second one I did was IT staff,

1:15the third one will be manufacturing.

1:17Again, your order might be different.

1:18So what do we have?

1:20Okay, the new department will be operating

1:22an automatic hat maker and needs a credit-card-sized device,

1:26that should say sized device.

1:28(instructor laughing)

1:29I'll fix that before you get this.

1:31So what would that be?

1:32Remember, we talked about

1:33it's really not just operating system in this case,

1:35it's also hardware, right?

1:37So we don't really specify the operating system here,

1:39but we do know that something that's credit-card-sized

1:42would be Raspberry PI, okay?

1:45And then, of course, you can put whatever version of Linux

1:48that you needed on there.

1:49Remember that that's also an ARM processor, all right?

1:53Now, the server, if we take away the server,

1:55remember, it must have a subscription or service plan,

1:59and the supervisor's willing to pay for those services.

2:03Remember, Red Hat Enterprise Linux,

2:05or RHEL as we sometimes refer to it as well,

2:09is not free, but you do have to pay for a subscription

2:13or a service plan for that.

2:15And I think you probably know the last one for sure.

2:17Any operating system for the smartphone

2:20that is not Apple, okay?

2:23There's only really a couple of choices anymore,

2:25there used to be a Windows phone,

2:27and that was about as successful as a lead balloon

2:32that died a quick and glorious death.

2:34Anyway, so the other choice you'll have here,

2:36of course, will be then Android.