No. 3 | Getting Started With Linux

I. What Is Linux?

In 1991, at the University of Helsinki, Linus Torvalds created Linux as an alternative to ms-dos. At that time the least expensive UNIX machine cost around five thousand dollars. Linux is not a UNIX derivative, but was written from scratch. Over one hundred developers contributed to the project which was officially released to the public in March 1994.

Linux is both a system and a kernel. A kernel is the heart of the OS layer that sits between the hardware and the software. On its own, the kernel isn’t enough to perform the tasks of a regular computer. The kernel requires additional components including: system libraries, graphical user interfaces, email utilities, and web browsers in order to form a complete operating system.

As an OS, Linux comes in the form of many distros, or distributions. Each distribution is tailor made to help support particular functions or operational goals. Some of the most commonly used distros include: RedHat, Ubuntu, Debian, Open SuSe, Linux Mint, Arch Linux, Slackware, and CentOS,

RedHat is a very popular distro among large service based industries. RedHat is often the solution of choice for Airlines, Banks, Healthcare Providers, and Telecommunication Companies. CentOS, a RedHat Unix derivative,

As an alternative to RedHat, many technology based companies use Ubuntu. Ubuntu is popular among tech startups, Software-as-a-Service (Saas) type companies, Social Networks, and other product/store owners who rely heavily on Cloud Computing.

You have to pay to use RedHat, however CentOS is free open source software (FOSS) version of RedHat that can be operated without a license. If you want to learn RedHat, CentOS is basically RedHat with different branding and logos. More distros can be found at https://distrowatch.com/.

Linux offers many advantages to alternative OSs. Linux can run on many hardware platforms, it’s lightweight and customizable which leads it to have a small footprint. Its stability, reliability, and wide array of custom security features also make it a great choice for building servers and other cloud based services.

II. Installing LINUX from an Image

What are the requirements to install LINUX?
You can install a Linux OS as a virtual image on top of any existing OS through Virtual Box. Virtual Box is a multi-purpose solution for creating and maintaining virtual machines on Mac, Windows, and Linux. Most basic CentOS distros recommend 1024 MB or 1GB of memory allocated for the virtual machine.

The latest CentOS distros can be found here: https://www.centos.org/download/

1. Enabling Hardware Acceleration

To complete setup, you will also need to enable any virtualization options that are set in your computer’s BIOS. You can access these settings on most computers by pressing that computer’s particular BIOS key (*https://www.lifewire.com/bios-setup-utility-access-keys-for-popular-computer-systems-2624463)during its boot process.

• Enabling VTX for intel processors.
• AMD_V for AMD processors.

2. Installing Virtual Box

Install VirtualBox from https://www.virtualbox.org/downloads.
Confirm the prompts that guide you through the self-installing executable.

Confirm and launch the program.

3. Knowing your host key?

Before proceeding any further it’s very important to figure out what your operating systems host key is?
Possible options:

For most MAC users:
For most Windows users:

You’ll need to know the host key in order to switch or exit the hosted virtual machine once its up and running back to your computer’s normal functionality.

4. VM Setup Part 1: Allocating Memory and Creating the Virtual Machine

The following steps walk us through the setup for virtual machine we are about to create.

This includes:

• 1. submitting a name for the virtual machine
• 2. Selecting Linux and Red Hat (64 bit) as type and vendor
• 3. Setting a minimum RAM of 1gb or 1024 MB.
• 4. Allocating a hard disk memory of 8gb or 8192 GB.

Next we…

• 5. Selective hard disk type: as the default VDI.
• 6. And selecting either a dynamically allocated memory, which would use as few system resources as necessary, or a fixed size, which provides better performance.
• 7. 20 GB should be sufficient for basic use.

So far we’ve set up the virtual machine, but now we need to install a disk image for the machine to boot up.

4. VM Setup Part 2: Configuring Settings

configure settings
force unmount? Machine reset
Ready to go!

8. Gnome Tutorial

9. Activities > Terminal ?

dependencies / insert guest cd image,

capture, run

III. Summary

In this article we learned a little bit about the origins of Linux, the differences between the Linux kernel and OS and how to install Linux through Virtual Box.