Linux With Other Operating Systems example essay topic

Linux Against Microsoft Windows Linux is a free operating system that was developed on the internet. It was formed by Linus Torvalds first, then he put its source code to his web page. After that, the internet hackers and the programmers developed it. It is a Unix-like operating system because it is the main reason to develop the Linux.

By the time, it becomes a big organization and now it is a powerful, advanced operating system. It has an important feature that is not available for other operating systems. You can run Linux with other operating systems like MacOS, DOS, Windows 95, Windows NT, Novell, OS/2 on the same machine. It is an advantage of linux that a user can easily compare Linux with other operating systems.

Unlike Windows, Linux is a capable of running on large variety of computer systems. One of them is Intel Based PCs. Most of the home users prefer Intel Based PCs. So they can run Linux on their computers (Windows can only run on Intel Based PCs). Digital Alpha systems are used by the huge companies. Linux has the capability of running on the Digital Alpha systems so it can reach the advanced users.

Other computer system is Macintosh Power PC that is used by graphical designers, press companies and advertising companies, can be run with Linux. The others are Sun Sparc&Sun Ultra, Amiga, 3 Com Palm Pilot which are rarely used. This capability of Linux provides a large user number and user kind that makes Linux more popular. (web) Linux has a powerful security system. It is almost impossible to write a virus for Linux because it must be 30-40 Mbytes.

Also it has firewall system to protect the network from the hackers. If we think that there are a lot viruses for windows that can harm all of your system, we can understand how Linux is secure. Linux is a stable operating system that never fails like Windows. When Bill Gates presented the Windows 98, an error message appeared on the screen that says you must shutdown your computer. In Linux, there are not error messages like that. You can kill a process that is not replying with kill command.

Linux has true multitasking property. It is true because it is not like Windows. You can run up to twelve process in the same time with no performance loss. Microsoft claims that Windows has the capability of multitasking but you can not run two process on the same time.

Linux has virtual memory. It means that you can use your hard disk as memory. You make a swap partition on your hard disk and Linux use it like a memory. If you have 16 Mb of ram and 64 Mb of swap place, that is a memory of 80 Mb for Linux. So you can run Linux only 8 Mb of ram and 16 Mb of swap place.

Windows requires at least 16 Mb of ram (32 Mb is recommended). Linux can be used by users that have limited systems. Multi-user capabilities of Linux provides to share one computer's resources by hundreds of people over a network, the internet or on computers and terminals connected the serial port of those computers. By this you can connect your computer or laptop to another computer and you can use it.

Multi-user capability of windows is limited. You can only transfer files from other computer. Linux has all the features that you can expect from an operating system. (Windows Inside&Out, Slackware Linux Unleashed 3rd Edition) Internet features of Linux make it more popular. Linux was developed on the internet so it has a wide support for internet tools and protocols. A free e-mail software called pine comes with Linux.

It was developed at University of Washington and it has all features of a mail program. There is also a free software called telnet. With telnet you can connect a computer with its IP number through internet. The famous web browser Netscape comes with Linux free.

You can surf on the internet with Netscape. It has all properties of Netscape that is used on Windows and it is easy to surf on the internet as Windows. There is also a browser called Archie comes with Linux free too. Linux has support for FTP (File Transfer Protocol).

You can use it by typing ftp on the command prompt. Also there is a free software called Nc FTP provides a graphical interface that comes with Linux free. FTP is the most common protocol e that is used to get files from internet. The talk protocol e is also supported by Linux. You can communicate with talk porto cole on a network or internet.

It is very useful in some situations. In the Math. Engg. days of ITU, talk protocol e is used to communicate with server room so you can say your problems to there and they tell you the solutions at the same time. IRC (Internet Relay Chat), one of the most popular protocol e on the internet, is supported by Linux.

You can download famous irc software's Mirc, Pitch and ICQ from internet. It is more secure to chat on Linux than Windows. You can not banned or nuked on Linux because there is a firewall in Linux and the viruses like trojan, that can harm your Windows system are not effective on Linux. These are the features for the users. There are also features for administrators. It is supported that a Linux system can be used as a WEB, FTP, DNS (Domain Name Service) servers.

Web servers are the main parts of the internet. The sites on the internet was saved on this servers so we can surf the sites on the web servers. Ftp servers have the files that we can get them with file transfer protocol e. Dns server is the important part of the internet.

It provides us to use words as address ses (like linux. org). If there is no d ns server, we must use numbers as addresses to connect a site (like 160.75. 20.20). Dns server look for the address if it has an IP number or not. If there is, it changes to it numbers. It is more complex and it is hard to remember.

Dns servers help us to easily connect to a site. A large part of administrators and internet companies prefer a Linux system as a Web, Ftp, Dns server. Linux's advanced security system also affects their decision. (Linux System Administrators Survival Guide) Linux was developed by programmers and it is usual that it has compilers and tools for programming languages. GNU C / C++ compilers come with Linux. C language was developed by Dennis Ritchie in 1972 at AT&T Bell Labs.

It was called C because there was a B programming language already. C is a high-level programming language. In fact, it is one of most popular languages. High-level languages are similarly like human languages unlike low-level machine language.

High-level languages have some advantages, also C has. They are readability, maintainability and portability. High-level programming languages are easy to read (they are like human languages), they are easy to maintain and they can be used on different computer pat forms. The C language's closeness to human languages (especially English) provides readability and maintainability. Each high-level language needs a compiler to translate high-level language into a machine language that a computer can understand and execute.

Linux has the free C compilers so you can develop C programs on Linux platform. C allows you to get control of computer hardware and peripherals. It is the reason that Linux and Linux software developed by C language. Many other high-level programming languages developed based on C. C++ language is an expanded version of C that makes object-oriented programming easier.

Also learning Java is much easier if you already know C. C++ compilers are available on Linux, too. (Teach Yourself C in 24 Hours) Java programming language is also available on Linux. One of the biggest advantage of the Java is that you can use it on the World Wide Web. Java programs can be used to create animated graphics, play games, present text in new ways.

Java was developed by Sun Microsystems developer James Gosling. He was unhappy with the way that the C++ language was working on a project he was doing, so he created a new language that is better. Java has a large number of user because it is a major part of the Internet's future. (Teach Yourself Java 1.1 Programming In 24 Hours) Linux has compilers for the FORTRAN language (FORTRAN 77 and FORTRAN 90). f 77 command compiles the FORTRAN programs.

FORTRAN was developed by a team of IBM. The leader was John Backus. They devolved a new language that provided a much more effective way of coding mathematical formulas thar had previously been available. It was named FORTRAN, taken from the first few letters of the words 'Formula Translation'. FORTRAN 77 supported CHARACTER data type, the IF...

THEN... ELSE control construct and standardized I / O (Input / output ) facilities. When more powerful languages become popular, FORTRAN 77 was improved to FORTRAN 90. FORTRAN is used by many of the engineers and scientists. It can be available in FORTRAN that you can get the value of big numbers.

Also there are mathematical constructs make FORTRAN more useful. (Upgrading To Fortran 90) Linux is a Unix-like operating system. Unix was developed by the companies for network systems. Unix is very expensive. Only some of the big companies can afford it. So Linux was developed for an free alternative to Unix.

Unix is designed for networks and it has powerful network options, so Linux has powerful network options. It has NFS (Network File Service) and NIS (Network Information Service) support. NIS and NFS provides a shared user account. You save the user accounts in the server and after that they are reachable from the clients.

This is the basic of a network. If a user can't login on a client, the system wouldn't called a network. By Nis and Nfs, system administration become available. There are also LAN (Local Area Network) and WAN (Wide Area Network) support. You can connect your local network to the Internet. It is very important for a company to communicate with its branch.

These are impossible on Windows 95/98. Linux have a lot of features and by the time its features are getting more. By the spreading of internet, Linux become more popular and more people learn that there is an operating system called Linux which is better than Windows. Linus Torvalds answers the question 'What makes Linux so successful?'. He says 'It is very simple. Because the software is free, there is no pressure to release it before its really ready just to achieve some sales targets.

Every version of Linux is declared to be finished only when it is actually finished, which explains why it is so solid. The other reason why free software is better is because the personal reputation of the developer is attached to every release. If you are making something to give away to the world, something that represents to millions of users your philosophy of computing, you will always make it the very best product you can make. That's the reason why Linux is a success. ' (web). We can understand that Linux (It is a free software) is not worried about sales, and it wants to give the best to the user..