PhDLinux: A Linux Crash Course for PhD Students

Davide Eynard David Laniado

[email protected] [email protected]

PhDLinux: a Linux crash course for PhD Students

2

Davide Eynard – David LaniadoDEI

Introduction Which distro? Linux basics Our first installation And now? Conclusions

Table of contents

3


Richard Stallman and the Free Software

1983: GNU project (GNU's Not Unix)1985: Free Software Foundation

Free as in freedomas in “free speech”, not “free beer”

1989: General Public License (GPL)copyleft -> to protect sw freedom

0. Freedom to run the program for any purpose.

1. Freedom to study and modify the program.

2. Freedom to copy the program so you can help your neighbor.

3. Freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

4


Linus Torvalds and the Linux kernel

1991: “Just for fun”, Linus Torvalds, a finnish young student, decides to develop the linux kernel

Hello everybody out there using minix -

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.

Linus shares his code on the internet: hundreds of users-developers begin to collaborate

1992: Linux under the GNU GPL licence1994: release 1.0, 500.000 users

5


The Cathedral and the Bazaar

• “experts”• hierarchy• isolation

• “users-developers”• decentralization• collaboration• sharing• natural selection of ideas

6


Linux distros

7


Some Linux basics

There are some concepts you should be aware of, even before your very first installation:

filesystem and devices the shell apps and packages

8


Filesystem and devices

Devices: everything's a file• Hard disks: hda, hdb, sda1, ...• Network cards: eth0, wlan1, ...• Other devices: usbdev, stdin, null, ...

Filesystem structure

Linux as a multiuser system: permissions and sudo

9


The Linux shell

the login help!

• man

• try to write ”commandname help”

main file commands• ls, cd, cp, mv, rm, mkdir, rmdir, touch

view/edit• cat, more, less, vi, grep

processes• top, ps, kill

archive• tar, gzip, bzip

10


Applications and packages

applications are packaged, and (almost) every distro has its own package format

• ours is .deb different tools are used to manage packages

• shell is power, learn apt-get, dselect or aptitude apt-get

• apt-cache search name• apt-get install name• apt-get remove name• apt-get update• apt-get dist-upgrade

11


Ubuntu installation

12


... and now?

Once the system is installed, you can: see what's inside it configure your apps install new software

Need help? Ubuntu Guide Ubuntu Forums Windows replacements

http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Hardy

http://ubuntuforums.org/

http://www.linuxrsp.ru/win-lin-soft/table-eng.html

13


Software configuration – old skool

14


Software configuration – new skool

15


Software installation

Add/Remove apps

Synaptics

16


Synaptics: add repositories

choose “partner” repository add: deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ hardy free non-free

see also: http://www.medibuntu.org/

17


Software installation

Internet software• Thunderbird, Opera, Azureus, Amule• GFTP, XChat, Skype

Write papers• LaTeX and Kyle

Scientific software• Abaqus, Labview, Matlab, MSC Patran for Linux• Scilab, GNUplot

Development• Eclipse

... add your software here• Still need windows apps? Try Wine!

18


Matlab installation

or: here's how things work here ;-)

get ISO at http://cdserver.cia.polimi.it/iso/matlab/unix

the file is a multipart RAR archive: uncompress it withunrar x Matlab_2007b_linux_mac_solaris_nov2007_3001.rar.part1.exe

once you have the ISO, you can burn it or mount it on your current filesystem

mkdir tmpsudo mount -o loop Matlab_2007b_linux_mac_solaris_nov2007_3001.iso tmp/

for the license file, remember to use the very last version!(it has been sent to us by email recently)

19


So, now?

Gaining a full knowledge of Linux in a couple of hours is pretty difficult.We hope that now, at least:

you have an idea about what Linux is you have some curiosity towards it you are able to get started with an easy distro you know there's other people here at DEI using it

... why don't we network and share info and help about Linux?

20


Conclusions

Questions? ;)

PhDLinux: A Linux Crash Course for PhD Students

Technology

Transcript of PhDLinux: A Linux Crash Course for PhD Students