04-Dec-2007

Introduction

All of the clusters that make up our shared computing resources run the Linux operating system. An operating system is the software that gives a user access to the components of a computer such as the hard disk drive, floppy drives, USB ports, printer ports, and so on. An operating system is much different than a software application. For example, Windows XP is an operating system made by Microsoft for use on desktop PCs. Microsoft Word is an application that requires Windows XP in order for it to run. Likewise, our clusters are running an operating system called Linux. There are many brands of Linux such as Red Hat Enterprise, Suse Enterprise, Debian, Fedora, and so on. Linux is based on the UNIX operating system which has its own brands (Sun Solaris, SGI IRIX, HP-UX, IBM AIX, and so on) that run on proprietary hardware manufactured by companies such as Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, HP, and IBM to name a few. Linux, however, is essentially UNIX for a PC and will run on most PC hardware.

How Do I Use Linux?

The Linux command line is very similar to the Unix command line. If you are familiar with UNIX, you should be able to use Linux with ease. If you have never used Linux or UNIX, then the Linux environment will be foreign to you. Rather than using a graphical interface as you do on Windows or on a Macintosh, you will instead be issuing commands from a command prompt. This will require you to understand the vast array of Linux commands and the layout of the Linux filesystem.

The Division of Information Technology at Rice maintains a collection of online guides for various computer training topics. Among these are Introduction to the UNIX Operating System and UNIX Reference Card. Both of these were written for older Owlnet systems which does not apply to our shared computing resources. However, the basic UNIX commands and file system structure still apply to Linux systems. For example, the Introduction to the UNIX Operating System guide contains sections on the following topics that are relevant to Linux:

There are also numerous tutorials and documents that can be found on the web. A collection of a few of them can be found in our Tutorial Guide.

You are encouraged to review these documents if you are new to the UNIX and Linux environments. For additional help, please contact the Help Desk.