REPORT FORM 2019 / 2020

Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research

University of Baghdad
Department of Computer Science

Student name:Hamsa Mohamed Bader

Tittle: Linux Operating system

Course: First

Stage: Fourth

Lecturer name: Sinan Mahmood

 INTRODUCTION

As biological data sets have grown larger and biological problems have become
more complex, the requirements for computing power have also grown. Computers
that can provide this power generally use the Linux operating system

• Linux is a command line interface, used by most large, powerful computers.

• It is very popular, and very easy to find information and get help

• Linux is very stable - computers running Linux almost never crash

• Linux is very efficient which can smoothly manage extremely huge amounts of
data

• Most new bioinformatics software is created for Linux - its easy for the
programmers.

METHODS & APPLICATIONS

Operating System An operating system (OS) is a resource manager. It takes the
form of a set of software routines that allow users and application programs to
access system resources (e.g. the CPU, memory, disks, modems, printers network
cards etc.) in safe, efficient and abstract way. Operating systems (and different
flavours of the same operating system) can be distinguished from one another by
the system calls, system utilities and user interface they provide, as well as by the
resource scheduling policies implemented by the kernel. Linux is a layered
operating system. The innermost layer is the hardware that provides the services
for the OS. The operating system, reffered to in Linux is the kernel, which interacts

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directly with the hardware and provides the services to the user programs. These
user programs don’t need to know anything about the hardware. They just need to
know how to interact with the kernel and its up to the kernel to provide the desired
service. User programs interact with the kernel through a set of standard system
calls. These system calls request services to be provided by the kernel. Such
services would include accessing a file: open close, read, write, link or execute a
file; starting or updating accounting records; changing ownership of a file or
directly; changing to a new directly; creating, suspending, or killing a process;
enabling access to hardware devices; and setting limits on system resources.

The kernel provides low-level device, memory and processor management

functions (e.g. dealing with interrupts from hardware devices, sharing the
processor among multiple programs, allocating memory for programs etc.) Linux
is a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system. You can have many users logged
into a system simultaneously, each running many programs. It is the duty of the
kernel to keep each process and user separate and to regulate access to system
hardware, including cpu, memory, disk and other I/O devices.

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Linux is a free open source Linux OS for PCs that was originally developed in
1991 by Linus Torvalds, a Finnish undergraduate student. The open source nature
of Linux means that the source code for the Linux kernel is freely available so that
anyone can add features and correct deficiencies. The open source approach has
not just successfully been applied to kernel code, but also to application programs
for Linux .As Linux has become more popular, several different development
streams or distributions have emerged, e.g. Redhat, Suse, Slackware, Mandrake,
Debian, Ubuntu etc. A distribution comprises a prepackaged kernel, system
utilities, GUI interfaces and application programs.

Architecture of the Linux Operating System Linux has all of the components of a
typical OS

• Kernel The Linux kernel includes device driver support for a large number of PC
hardware devices (graphics cards, network cards, hard disks etc.), advanced
processor and memory management features, and support for many different types
of filesystems (including DOS floppies and the ISO9660 standard for CDROMs).
The kernel (in raw binary form that is loaded directly into memory at system
startup time) is typically found in the file /boot/vmlinuz, while the source files can
usually be found in /usr/src/linux.The latest version of the Linux kernel sources .

• Shells and GUIs Linux supports two forms of command input: through textual
command line shells similar to those found on most Linux systems (e.g. sh - the
Bourne shell, bash - the Bourne again shell and csh - the C shell) and through
graphical interfaces (GUIs) such as the KDE and GNOME window managers. If
you are connecting remotely to a server your access will typically be through a
command line shell.

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• System Utilities Virtually every system utility that you would expect to find on
standard implementations of UNIX has been ported to Linux. This includes
commands such as ls, cp, grep, awk, sed, bc, wc, more, and so on. These system
utilities are designed to be powerful tools that do a single task extremely well (e.g.
grep finds text inside files while wc counts the number of words, lines and bytes
inside a file). Users can often solve problems by interconnecting these tools instead
of writing a large monolithic application program.

Advantages of Linux:

FREEDOM:

Most Linux distros are free….. users do not need to pay for a copy, but this is only
one aspect of freedom enjoyed by Linux users! In addition, Linux distros can be freely
downloaded and legally installed on as many computers as you want and freely (and
legally) given to other people. Because most distros are open source, you have access
to the source code and can customize Linux to be whatever you want it to be; you can
even create your own distro if you like!Linux is easy to install! In many instances, it
is actually easier to install Linux to your computer than Windows.

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LINUX IS VERY STABLE!
Linux systems rarely crash, and when they do, the whole system normally does not go
down. The “blue screen of death” familiar to Windows users is not a worry for Linux
users.
LINUX IS LESS VULNERABLE TO COMPUTER MALWARE!
Because most computer malware are designed to attack Windows (often
through Active X which is not typically found in Linux) the odds are considerably less
for Linux to be infected with a virus than Windows . The same holds true
with spyware, trojans, and worms. While Linux malware does exist, they are
relatively few in number and none have become widespread so far . While Linux is
very secure by its nature, users should still employ good sense while surfing the
Internet; click here to learn more . As long as Linux users download and install only
from their distro’s official software repository, then security is greatly increased. One
nice security feature In Linux is that files must be made to be executable by someone
with administrator privileges, which requires a password. So even if a Linux virus is
loaded on a Linux computer, it will not be able to run without the user who has
administrator privileges intentionally making it executable. Another important aspect
of Linux security is the fact that it is open source. Because the programming code is
available for anyone to view, there are many eyes constantly examining it, which
makes it highly difficult for malware to be hidden within the code . Also, security
patches normally come much quicker to Linux than other operating systems because
so many people are contributing to it.
LINUX TYPICALLY DOES NOT SLOW DOWN OVER TIME!
Unlike Windows, Linux does not easily become bogged down with spyware,
viruses, trojans, etc., which can greatly reduce a computer’s performance. Also,
because Linux does not have a registry like Windows, it is not plagued with
registry errors which can slow down a computer over time. Finally, the hard drives
on Windows (especially Windows XP and older) computers need to
be defragmented on a regular basis in order to maintain faster performance, due to
being formatted in NTFS. On the other hand, because Linux is normally formatted
in a different way using ext4 among others, there is no need to defragment a Linux
hard drive.
LINUX CAN BREATHE NEW LIFE INTO OLD COMPUTERS!
If you have an older computer (especially Pentium III or later) laying around, you
can install Linux and in essence have a new computer. In many cases Linux will
run faster and you can do all of the basics such as browse the Internet, email, play

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games, and create and edit documents, spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations.
It should also be mentioned that Linux runs great on newer computers as well.

Disadvantages of Linux:

MANY WINDOWS PROGRAMS WILL NOT RUN IN LINUX.

iTunes, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer and many other Windows programs
will not run natively in Linux. The good news is that there are decent ways around
most of these problems. For example, music libraries can be managed with an iPod
using programs such as Amarok, Banshee, or Rhythmbox in Linux. Mozilla
Firefox and Google Chrome are outstanding Internet browsers which can be used
in the place of Internet Explorer. It is also possible to run iTunes in Linux
using Wine, VirtualBox, or Parallels, though it is difficult to have good
results. LibreOffice and OpenOffice are excellent office suites which can be used
in the place of Microsoft Office, but while overall compatibility in both suites is
good with Microsoft Office formats, it is not perfect. Click here to learn more
about Linux equivalents to software commonly used in Windows [14].

THERE IS A SMALLER SELECTION OF PERIPHERAL HARDWARE

DRIVERS FOR LINUX.
There is a smaller selection of peripheral hardware drivers (for printers, scanners,
and other devices) in Linux as compared to Windows, though many new Linux
hardware drivers are constantly being added. Closely related to this issue is the fact
that not all Linux distros work with all sets of computer hardware, so a person may
need to try more than one distro to find one which works well with his/her
computer. When it comes to printers, some manufacturers offer better Linux
support than others; for example, HP offers excellent printer support for Linux.

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THERE IS A LEARNING CURVE FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE NEW TO
LINUX.
Despite this, most Linux distros, especially the major ones, are very intuitive and
user-friendly. Also, the desktop environments in Linux are in many ways similar to
Windows in their appearance. One thing which should be emphasized is that there
is also a learning curve for Windows XP users who switch to a newer version of
Windows.

RESULTS & CONCLUSION

As far as the software goes, free alternatives to most mission-critical applications
for Ubuntu are just a download away. As an operating system, Linux is completely
customizable, from the kernel to the GUI and beyond, which is not something that
can be said about Windows.

Today, we have more quality choices of operating systems than ever before, and
choices are always a good thing. Choice inherently means that there are
differences, and with computers, that usually leads to specialization. If you need to
build a rig on the cheap or just like to do-it-yourself, then Linux is for you, and
today the Ubuntu distribution is where to start. If you are a hardcore PC gamer, I'm
afraid that due to DirectX 10, you're stuck with Vista (or waiting for Windows 7)
for the time being. If you need your hand held, then go buy a Mac.

REFERENCES
1. Linux Online (2008). "Linux Logos and Mascots". Archived from the original on August 15, 2010.
Retrieved August 11, 2009.
2. ^ "GNU Userland". Archived from the original on March 8, 2016.
3. ^ "Unix Fundamentals — System Administration for Cyborgs". Archived from the original on October 5,
2016.
4. ^ "Operating Systems — Introduction to Information and Communication Technology". Archived from
the original on February 21, 2016.
5. ^ "The X Window System". Archived from the original on January 20, 2016.
6. ^ "PCLinuxOS Magazine - HTML". Archived from the original on May 15, 2013.