Linux and Internet

GNU/Linux is a free UNIX-like operating system. It is composed of an operating system kernel (the core of an OS) called Linux and many supporting system software from GNU. The kernel is started from scratch by Linus in 1991 at the time when he was a university student. The supporting system software and utilities mainly come from GNU. Linux kernel and GNU software are free because they are released under GPL (GNU General Public License) -- a publicizly accepted with wide adoption license in free software/ open source community. GNU/Linux runs on a variety of platforms such as Alpha, SPARC/UltraSPARC, PowerPC, IBM S/390, Intel IA-64, MIPS, AMD x86 and so on, especially Intel x86 processor family.

GNU/Linux is well-known for it's reliability, flexibility, low cost of ownership, and technical elegance. Millions of people use GNU/Linux in a wide variety of environments, particularly as server operating system by many web sites and ISPs. Google -- one of the largest web search engine use GNU/Linux too. GNU/Linux is particularly welcomed by technical people, programmers and scienitific researchers/students. Nowaday, using GNU/Linux as day-to-day affairs for enterprise and home users is pretty common. GNU/Linux has been used as a design workstation by graphics artistis and generator of 3D graphics. Examples includes 3D animation used in the famous film -- Titanic and Sherk.

In this workshop, you will learn the basic concepts of a GNU/Linux operating system (we choose RedHat 7.3) and will have hands-on experience setting up GNU/Linux on x86 PCs.

Targets

Linux and Unix newbies. We assume no prior knowledge nor hands-on experience of Linux or Unix. Howerver, exposure to PC and Microsoft Windows is expected. At least, you should know what a `mouse' looks like or how to operate it. Remember, we do not expect power users in any regard!

Course description

• Introduction to Linux, GNU system and UNIX
• Installing RedHat Linux 7.3
• Setting up a miniature Internet

Handouts

Online Manuals

• 2002

  Oh, we don't have online version of manual this year. We emphasize on having fun this year. Do we need manual?

• 2001
  1. Installation Guide
  2. Users' Guide
  3. Administration Guide

Printed Manuals

They are all in Postscript format. If you're working on Windows, please download GSView which is a Postscript viewer. If you don't want to install GSView, you may try converting the files into PDF by Adobe Acrobat Distaller.

• 2002

  The specifications listed below are used in the summer course this year. They are by no means complete and enough for building up a network having various standard Internet services. On the contrary, they are extensively simplified and lack many essential details.

  1. Specification - DNS
  2. Specification - FTP
  3. Specification - HTTP
  4. Specification - SMTP
  5. Specification - IMAP
  6. Specification - Account
  7. Specification - Browser
  8. Site-wise user account sheet
  9. Site-wise host and IP address sheet
  10. Vi - text editor
  11. Network schematic

• 2001
  1. Installation Guide  (2-up)
  2. Users' Guide  (2-up) 
  3. Administration Guide  (2-up) 

Schedule (2002)

• Class 1:   Jul 23, 2002 10:00am-12:00noon, 2:00pm-4:00pm
• Class 2:   Jul 24, 2002 10:00am-12:00noon, 2:00pm-4:00pm
• Class 3:   Jul 25, 2002 10:00am-12:00noon, 2:00pm-4:00pm

Sugguestion

Should you have any suggestion on the course, feel free to let us know at linux@cse.cuhk.edu.hk. We will try our best to incorporate it into the course.

Gift

RedHat 7.3 3-CD set

Installation on PC incapable of booting from CDROM

In case you want to install Linux on a PC which does not support booting from CDROM, what you need to do is to create a RedHat 7.3 Boot Disk for Installation. Depending on the platform you wish to use for preparing the boot disk, you may need to download rawritewin for Windows or rawrite.exe for DOS. You also need to download the Boot Disk Image boot.img.

1. Download rawritewin for Windows or rawrite.exe for DOS.
2. Download rawrite documentation.
3. Download RedHat 7.3 boot disk image - boot.img.
4. Read rawrite documentation.
5. Run either rawritewin on Windows or rawrite.exe on DOS.
6. Follow the instruction on the screen to make a boot disk to boot your PC for Linux installation.