LINUX System and Network Administration at Base IT Ltd.

Abstract

The Linux operating system involves a special position in the world of computer science. Unlike the great preponderance of operating systems, which are generated by commercial developers and sold at a value, Linux is produced and managed by a coterie of tireless volunteers and is distributed with no license fees whatsoever. It is available in several versions that run with almost identical looks and feel on various groups of hardware platforms. Linux is famed both for its steadiness and for its efficiency, often running for months, or occasionally years at a time without having to be rebooted, while also achieving excellent performance. It conveys many of the properties of UNIX that have made that operating system highly tourist among computer science professed. Linux reference code is as easily available as the executable code, thus giving users complete independence to change and adapt the operating system to the special demands of their systems. Linux maintains the tradition of openness and voluntarism that originally characterized the UNIX world, while at the same time avoiding the concomitant fragmentation experienced by UNIX into a variety of dialects. Linux is possible to continue to grow in importance.