Era of Open Source Softwares-Linux

Of all the open source operating systems, LINUX heralded an era of freedom from licensed softwares and signalled the end of the road for monopoly softwares from the giant Microsoft. With the arrival of LINUX and its many versions, users got themselves liberated from the shackles of Windows operating systems and soon found that they could edit and tinker with LINUX to generate new versions of the famous OS. Linux has gained an unexpectedly large amount of interest in the home market over the past two years. This could be due to any number of reasons including, it’s both free and open source, almost all applications are free and open source, the stability is unsurpassed, the code is constantly revised, updated and added to by a numerous amount of programmers across the world. Linux is undisputable a giant in the OS world, with just the name Linux being a symbol of stability and security. With the interest in Linux growing, many new distributions have surfaced offering easy installation and configuration. Well-established distributions such as Redhat are also striving to meet the same goals.

Linux is an operating system and therefore is the basic set of programs and utilities that make the computer run. Some other common operating systems are Unix (and its variants BSD, AIX, Solaris, HPUX, and others); DOS; Microsoft Windows; Amiga; and Mac OS.Linux is Free Software. In a nutshell, software that is free in the sense that Linux is distributed along with its source code so that anyone who receives it is free to make changes and redistribute it. Users are free to make copies of Linux and give them to friends, it’s also fine to tweak a few lines of the source code.The only catch is that the user who modifies it has to necessarily make available the source code to all users. Linux is not owned by anyone. One misconception many first-time Linux.com readers have is that this site, Linux.com, is similar to Microsoft.com, which is owned and controlled by the company that produces the Windows operating system. No one company or individual “owns” Linux, which was developed, and is still being improved, by thousands of corporate-supported and volunteer programmers all over the world.

Users are generally provided with Linux distribution that contains not only the basic Linux operating system, but also programs that enhance it in many ways. Anyone who wants to put together his or her own Linux distribution is free to do so, and we know of more than 200 different Linux distributions that fill special “niche” purposes. But we advise new users to stick with one of the five or six most popular general-purpose Linux distributions until they know a little about what Linux can and can’t do. You can get Linux from a number of online software repositories, including the official Web sites for each distribution. It helps to have a fast connection and a CD burner so you can quickly download an .ISO image of the distribution and burn it onto a CD. You then can load the bootable installation programs that lead you, step by step, through the process of getting Linux on your computer.

The more popular distributions are available in many computer stores and directly from each distribution’s publisher. The convenience of a distribution on CDs, including manuals, generally makes your first installation so much easier that it is well worth the money.

Linux boasts of some of the best free online support for its operating system.Take advantage of some free, expert technical support: the Linux Users Group, or LUG. The heartbeat of Linux support, and of Linux itself, is the LUG. There are LUGs in almost every country in the world, where you can get Linux advice and help from people who live near you, speak your language, and are willing to donate their time so that new users can learn about Linux without going through any more head-scratching than necessary.Each LUG operates independently and has its own style and meeting schedule. Note that if there is no LUG close enough for you to conveniently attend meetings, most LUGs maintain email lists you can join and use to get answers to any Linux questions you have.

The best-known corporate GNU/Linux distribution is REDHAT. Mandrake Linux was the first Linux distribution that worked hard to make Linux easy for ordinary desktop users. Freely downloadable version available; commercial versions have pre-integrated sofware packages and are easier for first-timers to set up than the download edition. There are other distributions like Fedora, Debia, Knoppix,Suse, Slackware, MEPIS, Gentoo and so on.

Computer Repair Tips on Linux Booting

Most of the times notebook users with Linux operating system as their OS used to get tensed over the anticipation if that system gets corrupted how they can save their invaluable data and folders? Computer repair technicians suggest of using different data recovery software to take the backup of the data and save it in the way. But questions still come into the mind of the users? Will the data recovery software restart the task again? If not, then what can be done to solve the issue? Some tech support on these issues will be discussed in the article.

For the notebook users using a thump drive is easy and by creating a boot USB drive to boot the system ca be done. With some computer repair help you can get the USB drive on the system.

For booting Linux from a USB drive you will need to have 1 GB USB drive and you will need to ensure that you have taken backup of f the USB drive. You will need one good computer, Ubuntu notebook remix ISO and an ISO image File. You need to remember this configuration is only for the notebook users and for the desktop the configuration will be changed totally.

Once you have got all these things you can go ahead with booting your Linux from USB drive. First of all you will need to go to the ubuntu’s website and download the ISO image file for the notebooks. Now you need to copy the ISO file to the USB drive. Now you will have to run the USB creator. If it is already not installed you can get it from the Synaptic Package Manager. Now you will need to select the option -other’ and then you will need to locate the ISO image. When you have located the image you will have to insert the USB drive that you intend to boot from. By this time you will get the USB drive in use notification. Before you start to create the boot disc check that you have connected the devices correctly. If you see -two partitions created’ type error you can select both of them and any of these two will work. If it does not work reboot your system and try to boot from the USB drive once again. By now the disc is ready for your use. You can now try to boot your system using the thumb drive. But before trying to boot the system make sure you have moved to the system BIOS and have put the hard drive.

Computer repair technicians suggest when you are trying to boot your Linux from a USB drive you need to be careful on some facts. You need to ensure that you have used a quality USB drive for bootable disc. It has been suggested by experts that you must go for a branded and proved USB drive. Actually, the main point here is the data saving issue and even the branded USB drive can cause to lose data let apart the non branded USB drives.

James Madison who has extensive knowledge on subjects like tech support, computer support and computer repair is an expert in computer related services. He is a contributing writer on these topics and he loves to help the non technical persons in resolving the bugging computer issues though his writings.