From: byron@cc.gatech.edu (Byron A Jeff) Subject: Re: LINUX NEWBIE, NEED INFO Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1993 18:20:45 GMT
In article <733@wtc34a.daytonoh.ncr.com>,
Steve Stasukewicz <sstasuke@wtc34a.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> wrote:
You can find all types of FAQ like files on sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/docs.
I'm glad to briefly answer your questions but you'll find much more info
than I can ever put into a single message at sunsite.
>I'm new to this group and also to the LINUX operationg system.
> Can someone give a brief descritpion of the LINUX OS.
Free UNIX clone for 386/486 class machines. Source code available. POSIX
complient.
> Will it run MSDOS/WINDOWS and/or MAC software?
DOS - Has an emulator (DOSEMU) runs most non protected mode programs. Not
read good for games.
WINDOWS - WINE is the Linux Windows Binary Executive project. Very young
with no Alpha release yet
MAC - Not that I know of.
> If not, can I configure my MSDOS machine to have both DOS and LINUX running.
Yes. Not at the same time of course. There are several boot loaders that
will allow you to choose which OS to boot.
> What are some of it's strengths and weaknesses?
Strengths - many
Free. Source available. Uses many of the common hardware devices on PC and
a few of the not so common. XWindows. Very stable. Has TCP/IP networking and
the shared filesystems (NFS) and printing that comes along with it. Can
mount and manipulate MSDOS files systems.
Weaknesses - few
Still late Beta so changes fast. Cannot yet run Windows binaries or COFF
files from SCO. Any others folks? Lacks a real WYSIWYG word processor but
the DOS emulator can run WordPerfect.
>Are there many applications (word processing, spreadsheet, utils, database
>managers, etc) for LINUX.
Not really (check out doc31),yes,yes,yes,yes.
> Because of it's name, I imagine it's similar to UNIX. Is this correct?
No. It is Unix.
> Will most UNIX programs run on LINUX?
Source compatible with most SYSV and BSD programs. Most things compile
with minimal modifications.
> Is it a developer's OS?
Is UNIX a developers OS? GCC, GCC+ and OBJGCC are all available. There are
Fortran and Pascal translators. It has all the typical Unix utils like
editors, perl, and whotnot.
> Does it support GUI?
Xwindows 11R5. Also MGR from Bell labs is supported.
>If there is an FAQ that answers some of these questions, please point me in
>the right direction. Thanks.
Check the top of the posting.
BAJ