At the end of this lecture you will be

able to:

• Linux operating system

 Definition of an OS

• An operating system forms a very

important part of the computer. It is a
software program designed to act as an
interface between a user and the
computer. It controls the hardware,
manages system resources and supervises
interaction between the system and its
users.
 Functions of OS
• As a peripherals Manager: The OS
manages the devices attached to its
system. Inputs from the keyboard are
taken as commands by the computer. The
result of a command is sent to the printer
or to the monitor as output. This task of
accepting the input and producing the
output is managed by the OS. This is called
peripheral Management.
 About the Linux
• The Linux operating system has many
unique features.
• Kernel programming Interface: The kernel
is the heart of the operating system,
responsible for controlling the resources
and scheduling user jobs in such a manner
that each user gets equal share of system
resources. All the programs interact with
the kernel through the system calls, which
are special functions.
 About Linux
 Many users at a time: A multi-user
operating system allows many users to
access all the system resources almost
simultaneously.
Many tasks at a time: Linux is fully
protected multitasking operating system. It
allows a user to run more than one job at a
time. The processes can communicate with
each other and also protected from one
another.
 About Linux
File system: The Linux file system provides a
file structure where files are arranged under
a directory.
Linux is rich in its software development
environment. Many computer languages
have interpreters and compilers. The
languages that are available for Linux include
Ada, Pascal, Lisp, Fortran etc.
 Structure of Linux
DBMS, Word processor, Mail &Message
Shells and utilities
Linux Kernel
Hardware
 Kernel
Kernel forms the core of the LINUX
operating system. This interacts with the
hardware. It is loader into the memory when
a system is booted. Its functions are
Managing the system resources.
Allocating time for different users and
processes.
Deciding process priorities and performing
them
 Tools and Applications
LINUX supports business applications
oriented packages like word processors,
Electronic spreadsheets, databases etc. which
makes it a favorite among operating systems,
used in offices.
 Security
The process of entering into the LINUX
system is called Login. It can also be called a
sign on, log on etc. The complementary
process of this is log out, log off, sign off
respectively. This login is given to user by the
system Administrator. It offers system
security to user files through passwords. The
password should be entered in lower case
only, since It is case sensitive.
 File system in Linux
Linux treats all information as files. They are stored
in hierarchical order and are grouped together. The
Linux file system is also called a tree. This consists of
a set of connected files.
/bin directory contains the executable file.
/etc directory contains maintenance & admi
/lib directory contains all library functions.
/dev directory stores related to the devices.
/user directory is created for each user to have
private work area.
/tmp where temporary files are kept.