Diary of Friday, 11th February 2005
Prepared by: Yebeni Batidao Kouagou
The day of Friday February 11 was entirely devoted to the GNU/Linux Operating
System under the control of Dr. Sebastian Büttrich from the
company Wire Less of Denmark (http://wire.less.dk). In the morning
there was a theoretical presentation titled "Introduction to
GNU/Linux" made in two parts by Dr Sebastian Büttrich.
Among other topics, the lecturer presented the history of Linux, clarified
the concept of "freedom" in the GNU/Limux world, and pointed out the specific
characteristics of some GNU/Linux distribution; he also gave a nonexhaustive
but very important list of softwares for GNU/Linux and some URLs for further
reading.
The story of GNU/Linux started in 1984 with the
GNU (=Gnu is Not Unix) project that was launched by Richard Stallman
"to develop a Complete (= kernel + application softwares) Unix Operating
System which is free. He then created the Free Software Foundation (FSF).
Many application softwares were developed but no kernel before 1991.
In 1991 Linus Torvalds, a student from the University
of Helsinki (Finland) who was not yet a member of the FSF developed
a Unix-like kernel and put it under the GNU Public License which is the
license of the FSF; that kernel has been called Linux. Nowadays Linux
(or more precisely GNU/Linux) stands for the Linux kernel + the application
softwares developed by the thousands of contributors over the Net.
There are many GNU/Linux distributions, all using the same kernel
lineage, the difference being the way the daemons, the commands and
softwares are combined within each distribution to fit special needs.
The GNU/Linux Operating System is stable, reliable. It comes with many design features
for the Base System (multi-task, multi-user, multi-language support,
powerful support for network and Information Technology tools, security,
Logical Volume management, RAID support, dynamic reconfiguration, etc..)
and for some extensions to the Base System (clustering, load balancing,
fault tolerance, journaling file system, distributed filesystem, etc).
There are many Linux distributions, and Linux can run on as well
on a computer of scanty means as on a large computer; some distributions
(eg Knoppix, Ubuntu) even come with a live version that you can run directly
from a CD without installing it live version.
During all the day the talented Dr Büttrich succeeded in maintaining the attention
of a varied audience in which there are as well uninitiated persons
as people who are expert users.
During the lab works, we first used the Ubuntu GNU/Linux live CD
to see how it works and play with some commands and then we installed
Ubuntu GNU/Linux using the installation CD.
Laboratory works are collectively framed by all the lecturers
(Prof Pietrosemoli, Prof Struzak, Dr Enrique Canessa, Dr. Carlo Fonda,
Dr Marco Zenaro,..) in a very slackened environment which, with each day,
becomes more like a family.
In the evening (9 pm) Carlo Fonda projected a movie,
"The Net" of (with Sandra Bullock, direced by Irvin Winkler)
which prepared us for good sleep.
Dr Yebeni Batidao KOUAGOU
Professeur-Assistant
Institut de Mathematiques et de Sciences Physiques (IMSP)
01-BP-613 Porto-Novo
Republique du Bénin