Solaris is the flagship Unix operating system from Sun Microsystems, a company started by a group of graduate students from Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley. In fact, Sun comes from the Stanford University Network, where MBA student (and now Sun CEO) Scott McNealy studied.

Unix has a long and interesting history as an operating system, starting with its initial development at AT&T Bell Telephone Laboratories in the early 1960s. The first version of Unix was written so that the BTL folks had a computer that ran Space War, a very early computer game. Really!

The first few versions of Sun’s Unix OS (initially called SunOS — the Solaris name showed up later) were variants on UC Berkeley’s Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) Unix. Many of the top BSD developers at UCB ended up at Sun, most notably Bill Joy, who shows up time and again in this book...

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UNIX system administration used to be a skill learned by watching others, trying many things on spec, and scouring obscure magazine articles, obtuse man pages, and e-mail from others. In short, system administration was a skill that was learned over the years with no single reference to the role and functions a system administrator plays. UNIX, especially, was a tough system to administer properly because there were many versions of the software, a disparate support base, and few solid working applications. Luckily, time has changed these conditions.

With the popularity of computers in general, system administrators started writing down the details of their tasks. Publishers realized that there was a distinct and eager, albeit small, market for system administration books. The market grew as the number of systems and LANs expanded. The stabilization of the UNIX operating system in two, and now one, major version helped enormously as well.

Linux became a dominant UNIX product about two years ago when it started receiving worldwide acclaim as a reasonably stable PC version of UNIX. As more and more programmers got involved and started producing software for Linux, the attraction of the operating system continued to grow. Soon, PC users who didn't know anything about UNIX at all were running Linux and starting to deal with shells, filesystems, and devices.

After helping to write Linux Unleashed (a great book, definitely worth buying if you haven't already got a copy!), I realized that many users used that book and CD-ROM to get started with Linux, but they needed more advanced material on managing their systems and setting up network systems. That's when the Linux System Administrator's Survival Guide was born. This book expands on the Linux Unleashed material, providing more detail on many aspects of the operating system. Although some overlap exists between Linux Unleashed and this book, it has been minimized as much as possible. Relative newcomers to Linux will still find that that book is very readable, however...

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The Ubuntu distribution simplifies Linux by providing a sensible collection of applications, an easy-to-use package manager, and lots of fine-tuning, which make it possibly the best Linux for desktops and laptops. Readers of both Linux Journal and TUX Magazine confirmed this by voting Ubuntu as the best Linux distribution in each publication's 2005 Readers Choice Awards. None of that simplification, however, makes Ubuntu any less fun if you're a hacker or a power user.

Like all books in the "Hacks" series, Ubuntu Hacks includes 100 quick tips and tricks for all users of all technical levels. Beginners will appreciate the installation advice and tips on getting the most out of the free applications packaged with Ubuntu, while intermediate and advanced readers will learn the ins-and-outs of power management, wireless roaming, 3D video acceleration, server configuration, and much more...

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Introduction

I don't know how many times I have been asked what Red Hat is. When I say that it is a distribution of Linux, people tend to know what I am talking about. (At least the people I hang around with do!) The follow-up question is usually something like, "Okay, if it is a distribution of Linux, why should I use it, and not Linux itself?" This introduction should start to answer that question. Red Hat also answers the question on its Web page (http://www.redhat.com), which is summarized in this introduction.

Linux is a full-fledged operating system. It provides full multitasking in a multiuser environment. It gives a high quality of software for a cost far lower than other commercial versions of UNIX. Red Hat has opted to take Linux a step further...

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RPM is the "Red Hat Package Manager" and is the heart of the Red Hat Linux distribution. It's most basic functionality is to install and de−install packages. This document is geared toward installing RPM on a slackware system using an Intel processor, but the information contained herein should be applicable to any distribution. The latest version of this HOWTO is always available at http://www.threepoint.com/HOWTO/RPM+Slackware.html

For further reading, consult the RPM−HOWTO (available at your neighborhood LDP mirror). Also, consider buying a copy of the excellent book, Maximum RPM, by Ed Bailey of Red Hat Software, Inc...

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Linus Torvalds started Linux, an operating system kernel, as a personal project in 1991. He started the project because he wanted to run a Unix-based operating system without spending a lot of money. In addition, he wanted to learn the ins and outs of the 386 processor. Linux was released free of charge to the public so that anyone could study it and make improvements under the General Public License. (See Section 1.3 and Appendix A for an explanation of the license.) Today, Linux has grown into a major player in the operating system market. It has been ported to run on a variety of system architectures, including HP/Compaq’s Alpha, Sun’s SPARC and UltraSPARC, and Motorola’s PowerPC chips (through Apple Macintosh and IBM RS/6000 computers.) Hundreds, if not thousands, of programmers all over the world now develop Linux. It runs programs like Sendmail, Apache, and BIND, which are very popular software used to run Internet servers. It’s important to remember that the term “Linux” really refers to the kernel - the core of the operating system. This core is responsible for controlling your computer’s processor, memory, hard drives, and peripherals. That’s all Linux really does: It controls the operations of your computer and makes sure that all of its programs behave. Various companies and individuals bundle the kernel and various programs together to make an operating system. We call each bundle a Linux distribution...

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Welcome to SUSE Linux 9 Bible! This book is for anyone who is interested in running a SUSE Linux system—at home or at work, “for fun or for profit.” It covers all the currently available versions from SUSE: The “9” in the title refers both to Enterprise Server 9 and SUSE Professional and Personal 9.x. Most of the content applies equally to previous versions also, however. We shall also describe SUSE’s two other business products: the OpenExchange Server and the SUSE Linux Desktop.

The book aims to supplement the documentation provided by SUSE and to show the reader how best to carry out a particular task on a SUSE system, making full use of SUSE’s configuration utilities. Many Linux books and “howto” documents provide generic instructions for carrying out particular tasks; however, it often turns out that these are either incorrect in details or unnecessarily complicated when applied to a particular distribution. In this book we aim to describe the best ways of working with SUSE in a wide variety of situations, making full use of SUSE’s specific configuration tools...

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SUSE Linux is an increasingly popular Linux distribution that competes Shead-on with Red Hat’s Linux versions. SUSE Linux’s fortunes have been on the rise following Novell’s acquisition of Germany’s SUSE Linux AG for $210 million. SUSE is looking for more growth in the U.S. marketplace, helped in part by IBM’s $50 million investment in Novell as part of the SUSE acquisition deal. On another positive note, after acquiring SUSE, Novell announced that SUSE’s famous YaST installation and configuration tool will become open source, licensed under the GNU General Public License. All these developments have generated a distinct “buzz” around SUSE Linux as the up-and-coming Linux distribution for everyone from home users to enterprise servers.

A significant factor in SUSE Linux’s increasing popularity is that unlike its competitor Red Hat’s singular focus on the enterprise market, Novell continues to address both the enterprise market and Linux enthusiasts. Specifically, the SUSE Linux Professional product is aimed at small-office/home-office users as well as those wishing to experiment with the SUSE Linux as their desktop system. SUSE Linux Professional is sold as boxed sets through distributors as well as online stores. SUSE Linux Professional with a typical retail price tag of $89.95 (with lower prices for students and for those updating from a previous version) is a complete Linux distribution, suitable for small office/home office or even an enterprise. This book includes a DVD with a Special Edition version of SUSE Linux Professional, with everything you need to use it as a personal desktop system. This book also includes a coupon that you can use to purchase a copy of the full SUSE Linux Professional distribution...

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Boot Up Ubuntu®, Fedora™, KNOPPIX, Debian®, SUSE™, and 11 Other Distributions

Christopher Negus

Iconsider anyone who has contributed to the open source community to be a contributor to the book you are holding. The backbone of any Linux distribution is formed by the organizations that produce the distributions, the major projects included in Linux, and the thousands of people who give their time and code to support Linux. So, thanks to you all!

As for direct contributors to the book, the good people at Wiley put together a great team of people to help bring the Linux Bible 2007 Edition in on time. Primary contributors include Wayne Tucker (who originally wrote and then updated the chapters on Debian, LAMP servers, and mail servers) and Eric Foster-Johnson (who worked through updates to six of the chapters). Bill von Hagen contributed updates to the SUSE, Yellow Dog, and Ubuntu chapters. Jaldhar Vyas updated the Linspire chapter...

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