Operating System Lab Lab – 2

Fall 2019 Linux Installation and Overview

Lab - 2: Linux Installation:

In the previous Lab there was a brief introduction about Operating System and
Linux. Objectives of today's lab is to learn how to install Linux (Ubuntu) and
setting up environment and some basic Linux commands.

Basic Terminologies:
When Operating system is power on, it loads operating system files into RAM.
This process is called boot a system. Program that perform this job is called
boot-loader.

people often talk to run multiple operating systems on the same machine. This is
possible in following ways

1. Dual-boot:
 One of the most common ways to achieve multiple usable operating
systems on a single computer is known as dual boot.
 It allows you to select an operating system during startup.
(see picture below)

 You can use only single Operating System at one time i.e computer
must be restarted whenever the user wants to switch to the other
operating system
 The advantage of dual boot is each operating system works practically
independent of the other,

2. Virtualization:
 Virtualization is a newer way of running multiple operating systems
on one system. virtualization requires a virtualization program such as
Oracle's VirtualBox ($0) or VMWare's VMWare Workstation (~$200)

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Operating System Lab Lab – 2
Fall 2019 Linux Installation and Overview
 The virtualization program is installed on your host or primary
operating system, and then your 'guest' operating systems are
installed within that application.
 The main advantage of virtualization over dual boot is that you are
able to run both of your operating systems simultaneously without
rebooting. (See picture below)

 The most obvious drawback of virtualization is that if your host OS is

not working right, your guest operating systems could be affected by
those problems.
 System hardware needs to support virtualization. This feature can be
disabled and enabled. Normally older systems don't support virtualization.
So first turn on virtualization setting from BIOS.
(see picture below)

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Operating System Lab Lab – 2
Fall 2019 Linux Installation and Overview

Hardware virtualization:
[Source: Wikipedia]
Computer hardware virtualization (or hardware virtualization) is the
virtualization of computer or operating systems. It hides the physical characteristics of a
computing platform from users, instead showing another abstract computing platform.
At its origins, the software that controlled virtualization was called a "control program",
but nowadays the terms “hypervisor” are preferred.

VMware
VMware, Inc. is a company providing virtualization software, founded in 1998 and based
in Palo Alto, California, USA.
VMware's desktop software runs on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, while
Vmware's enterprise software hypervisors for servers, VMware ESX and VMware ESXi,
are bare-metal embedded hypervisors that run directly on server hardware without
requiring an additional underlying operating system.
Desktop software
 VMware Workstation (first product launched by VMware in 1999). This software suite
allows users to run multiple instances of x86 or x86-64- compatible operating systems
on a single physical PC.
 VMware Fusion provides similar functionality for users of the Intel Mac platform,
along with full compatibility with virtual machines created by other VMware products.
VMware Player is a freeware virtualization software package from VMware, Inc.(a
company which was formerly a division of and whose majority shareholder remains EMC
Corporation). VMware Player can run existing virtual appliances and create its own
virtual machines (which require an operating system to be installed to be functional). It
uses the same virtualization core as VMware Workstation, a similar program with more
features, but not free of charge. VMware Player is available for personal non-commercial
use, or for distribution or other use by written agreement. No support is provided by
VMWare, but there is an active community website for discussing and resolving issues.
Download Link:
https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=vmware-workstation9

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Operating System Lab Lab – 2
Fall 2019 Linux Installation and Overview

Linux (Ubuntu Linux) Installation:

To install Linux you need to have VMWare/Virtual Box, and Linux ISO Image file.

Exercise
Follow instructions provided by your Instructor and install Ubuntu Linux on your
system or use live version.

Organization of the Linux File System

Unlike DOS, which permits you to organize your disks any way you please. the
Linux file system is organized into a standard directory structure. A portion of the
Linux directory structure is pictured below:
/(Root Directory)

etc/ bin/ usr/ home/ div/ lib/ sbin/ tmp/

bin/ lib/ info/ sbin/

Root Directory
The top most directory is called root directory. The hierarchical structure of
directory begins with a root directory. The name of root directory is /.
Directory
A file, which holds other files and sub-directories.
Subdirectory
A directory residing within another directory.
Home Directory
The directory selected by Linux as the working directory when a user logs on.
When a user logs on Linux selects home directory (its name usually matches
your login name) as his/her working directory.

Current/Working Directory
The directory currently being used.

Pathname
Pathname is a reference to identify a file within the directory structure.
For example the following file name indicates the file in the hierarchy of
directories:

/usr/users/bill/letters/pay

The first slash (/) indicates the root directory (start from root directory), move
down to usr, then users, then bill, then letters and finally to the file. So this
pathname is reference to the file pay with respect to the root directory.

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Operating System Lab Lab – 2
Fall 2019 Linux Installation and Overview
A path may be of two types.

Absolute Pathname

The pathname, which identifies a file or a directory irrespective of the current

state of the user. The user's "current directory" is part of the user's state. The
absolute pathname always starts from the root directory.

For example, to locate file any file in lib directory, the absolute path of the file is:
/usr/local/lib/filename

Relative pathname
The pathname, which identifies a file or a directory in a way that depends on the
state of the user i.e. users current directory. Relative pathname identifies files
with respect to user current directory.

Consider the following diagram.

Current Directory (Working Directory)

thesis

chapter4.tex

to refer a file chapter4.tex in the in the subdirectory thesis with respect to the
current directory, we use pathname.

thesis/chepter4.tex

Some standard Linux directories are given below:

/home Users’ home directory

/etc All system administrator commands, configuration files, and

installation control files.

/bin The core set of system commands and programs. Most

systems cannot boot (initially start) without executing some of the commands in
this directory.

/dev The device files used to access system peripherals (for

example, your terminal can be accessed from /dev/tty).

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Operating System Lab Lab – 2
Fall 2019 Linux Installation and Overview
/lib The standard set of programming libraries linked with Linux
programs.

/tmp Temporary files created and used by many Linux programs.

/sbin The system program used to boot the system.

/var Log files(Record of Web activity), spool files(temp files) etc.

/root The root user’s home directory.

/usr/bin Common commands and programs.

/usr/doc Documentation

/usr/games Games

/usr/include Header files

/usr/info Online documentation

/usr/lib Shared libraries

/usr/man Manual pages (help)

/usr/sbin All system administration utilities

/usr/share Shared information

/usr/src Source code

_______________________________________________________

Instructor:
Atizaz Ahmad,
Faculty of Computing, Riphah International University Islamabad

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