You have received a copy of Knoppix. This is a version of Linux that fits onto a single CD-ROM, and boots the computer and runs without installation. It is not "normal" or "standard" than Linux would run from a CD. Normally it should be installed like Windows, on a hard-disk.
To boot successfully in Lab329, you should do the following:
(1)
Turn on the power
(2) Hold the DEL key to enter the
BIOS Setup program
(3) Check that the BOOT-SEQUENCE
starts with the CD (DVD) drive
(4) Insert the Knoppix CD
(5)
Press F10 to quite the BIOS setup
Now Knoppix will start, and you will see a command-line
prompt.
Press [F2] to stop the machine from booting through
the prompt (auto-run).
Now type: knoppix vsync=60 lang=us screen=1024x768
Sit back and wait while knoppix boots the computer.
The teacher will explain a few other things. Then you should try to answer all the following questions. Take notes!
(1) UI (User Interface) - Find two similarities and two significant differences betwenn Windows and Linux.
(2) Find out where you can change the screen resolution. Is this done in a similar way to Windows, or differently?
(3) What do you need to do to get a connection to the Internet? Why? Why is this not necessary in Windows?
(4) Find out how to change the speed of the mouse. Make it faster.
(5) What useful applications are available? Are these part of the operating system, or are they extra applications?
(6) How can you access the D: drive?
(7) Can you open a text file? A Micosoft word document? An HTML file? A Java source code file?
(8) Do Windows applications run under Linux? What about javascript in Web-pages? Java programs?
(9) Can you download pictures from the Internet?
(10) Can you download a Linux game or other Linux software?
Accessing Drives
Knoppix lets you access the hard-disk drives. It names them differently than Windows:
C: --> hda1 D: --> hda5 USB stick --> sde1
Mount
To use the drive, it must be mounted. Do this by right-clicking and choosing mount. Simpler is to click once on the icon - it will automatically be mounted, and you can READ files - but you cannot write them.
Where is the drive?
If you try to open or save a file to a disk drive, you will find it under: /mnt/hda1 or /mnt/sde1 , etc
Write Access = WARNING !!! VERY DANGEROUS !!!
To change from read-only to read/write access, right-click the drive icon, choose "actions", and select "change read/write mode". It will ask whether you are sure. This really is dangerous, so you probably don't want to do this with your C: drive. If you want to experiment, use the D: drive - better yet, use a USB stick.
UNMOUNTING - Don't Forget!!
If you save onto a storage device (e.g. Disk-drive or USB stick), you must UNMOUNT the device before removing it or shutting down the computer. Otherwise, the changes may still be sitting in a buffer, waiting to be written. The buffer only gets emptied (and the device gets updated) when you unmount it. DON'T forget to do this, and DON'T assume that Linux will do it automatically - it probably won't.
Connecting to the Internet
Knoppix is pretty good at auto-detecting hardware, including network adapter, DSL routers, and a DHTP server. That means if you boot Knoppix in your home PC, you have a good chance that your Internet access will just work - hint: use the Firefox browser which is a lot better than the KDE browser.
In our LAN, Internet access is routed through a Proxy Server. You can ask the browser to auto-detect the Proxy Server, but this doesn't seem to work at FIS. You need to enter the Proxy Server's IP Address by hand. Ask the teacher to help with this.
Printing
You can install a printer (that means setting up the driver) in Knoppix/Configure/Configure Printers. This is pretty straightforward with a parallel connection, but not so simple through the LAN. Networked printers collect their print jobs in a printer queue in a server. Since our LAN uses Windows as the network operating system, we might expect a few incompatibilities if Linux tries to connect to the print server. The very first problem is: how do you log-in? Get some help from the teacher if you want to do this.
FREE = Good
Linux is free? Yes, it is. It began as a student project by Linus Torwald. He wrote the kernel - the most basic part that runs in an infinite loop, processing commands (it's a bit more complicated than that). To become a "full-fledged" OS (operating system) it needed more stuff - drivers, utilities, etc. So he released his work to the Open Source software community - that's lots of programmers who share their work between themselves and with other people. Then lots of programmers started expanding it by adding modules, and pretty quickly (say 5 years) it was a usable operating system. Since nobody "owns" the software, and nobody paid for the development, it is now FREE. You can download Knoppix free from the web-site - http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html
Some Linux distributions can be purchased for 50-100 dollars. The companies producing these "distros" are not charging for the software, but rather for the work they do collecting applications, packaging the whole mess, and then providing support. If you purchase one of these commercial distributions, you may install it on any number of computers and have it used by any number of users with no further licensing costs. That makes it attractive for large organizations with hundreds or thousands of users.
USABLE? = Bad?
Linux made a big hit as a server OS. It was only many years later that it received a nice GUI (Graphical User Interface) on top of the basic OS. Over the past few years the developers have worked hard to refine the GUI to make it very similar to Windows. They didn't copy Windows because it is "good" - no, they copied it because that's what desktop user WANT! They know Windows, they know when to right click or double-click. If Linux wants to have a chance as a desktop OS, it needs to be USABLE - that means the users can get their work done efficiently. So the developers copied Windows' look and feel.
Was that enough? Well, it helps a lot. But some basic things
are still difficult. Installing software in Linux is still unpredictable
- there are several different "standards" for installation, and they
are generally more complex and require more decisions than Windows. Another
persisten problem is drivers for peripheral devices. These are
little service programs that make the devices work correctly. These are
often supplied by the hardware manufacturer. Unless there is a big demand,
they are not going to spend money to write a new driver for a new OS. They
will always supply a Windows driver, as Windows has 90% of the desktop market
share. They might supply Macintosh. But Linux only has a small market
share, so the demand isn't really sufficient.
Compatible = Maybe ! ? *
Compatible means you can do the same thing as another system. Can you look at the same web-pages? Can you edit the same documents? Can you play the same games?
Windows software (.exe files) do NOT run under Linux. There are some emulators that will run some programs, but certainly not all, and for the most part not big applications like MS Office. In the case of MS Office, there is a good substitute in the form of Open Office. It does quite a good job opening MS Word documents and allowing them to be edited. Sometimes the formatting is a bit off, but usually it is good enough.
Some applications are available in both Windows and Linux versions. An example is Mozilla Firefox - a web-browser. This requires two different executable versions to be produced for the two operating systems, but in this case they both do pretty much the same thing. This is called a cross-platform application.
As long as you stick to standard file formats (.html, .jpeg, .mp3, etc), you can probably use a Linux application instead of a Windows application. GIMP is a graphics editor that can do similar things to Photoshop. Both of them can edit lots of standard graphics formats, so you can edit your digital photos in Linux just as well as doing it in Windows.
But will your digital camera deliver it's photos to a Linux program? Probabably, as long as it connect through a standard interface - e.g. a USB port.
Can a Linux PC log-in to a Windows network and use the servers? Sometimes.
As interfaces and file formats and communication protocols become more and more standardized, there are fewer and fewer problems using Linux. But it still has not become a big success on the desktop. Estimates vary from 2% to 5% of desktop PCs running Linux. It has a long ways to go before before Microsoft gets worried.