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Now Linux has given the high-competition with its KDE and GNOME desktop systems and display managers. The Linux offers office suites like OpenOffice or KOffice, similar to MS-Office. Its desktop comes with a full set of email, FTP, news clients, and web browsers.

The Linux servers, which include web, mail (IMAP, POP, Sendmail, Postfix), FTP, INN news, CUPS Print, Squid Proxy, and MySQL database servers, can be easily downloaded and installed on the machine.

Linux Security

  • Linux users are least concerned about security as a lot of security precautions available like public & private key-based encryption, authentication, and firewall.
  • File systems encryption with Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS)
  • IPSec tools use the IPSEC protocol that encrypts and authenticate network transmissions.
  • SE Linux for comprehensive and refined control of all networks and system resources
  • SSH Secure shell provide secure remote transmission
  • Kerberos provides secure authentication
  • Netfilter (IPtables) provides firewall and encryption to protect the system

The administrators are managing user files, devices, and kernel to find Linux as a goldmine. The various functions performed by administrators include:

  • monitoring, mounting and managing file system
  • selecting run levels
  • scheduling shutdowns
  • setting up users and groups
  • configuring network interfaces
  • IP addressing and assigning IP's using IPV4 Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
  • configuring RAID devices and LVM volumes with HAL (Hardware Abstraction Level) & udev

The Linux is now for every user and, no doubt, going to capture the maximum of the Windows market.

Kernel Administration

It performs core tasks like managing memory, disk access, and interfacing with the hardware. The user sends requests Kernel for access to devices, and the Kernel handles the lower-level task sending appropriate instructions to a device. New-devices added through a procedure referred to as building or compiling the Kernel. Mostly devices get automatically detected and configured.

The Linux Kernel is multitasking and multiuser.

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