Redhat Linux features

Does Linux have a future? –

                       No matter what version of Linux you use, the piece of code common to all is the Linux kernel. Although the kernel can be modified to include support for the features you want, every Linux kernel can offer the following features –

A- Open Source –

                 The idea behind Open Source software is rather simple: when programmers can read, distribute and change Code, the code will mature. People can adapt it, fix it, debug it, and they can do it at a speed that dwarfs the performance of software developers at conventional companies. This software will be more flexible and of a better quality than software that has been developed using the conventional channels, because more people have tested it in more different conditions than the closed software developer ever can. The Open Source initiative started to make this clear to the commercial world, and very slowly, commercial vendors are starting to see the point. While lots of academics and technical people have already been convinced for 20 years now that this is the way to go, commercial vendors needed applications like the Internet to make them realize they can profit from Open Source. Now Linux has grown past the stage where it was almost exclusively an academic system, useful only to a handful of people with a technical background. Now Linux provides more than the operating system: there is an entire infrastructure supporting the chain of effort of creating an operating system, of making and testing programs for it, of bringing everything to the users, of supplying  maintenance, updates and support and customizations, etcetera. Today, Linux is ready to accept the challenge of a fast-changing world.

B- Ten years of experience at your service –

                                                     While Linux is probably the most well-known Open Source initiative, there is another project that contributed enormously to the popularity of the Linux operating system. This project is called SAMBA, and its achievement is the reverse engineering of the Server Message Block (SMB)/Common Internet File System (CIFS) protocol used for file- and print-serving on PC-related machines, natively supported by MS Windows NT and OS/2, and Linux. Packages are now available for almost every system and provide interconnection solutions in mixed environments using MS Windows protocols: Windows-compatible (up to and includingWinXP) file- and print-servers. Maybe even more successful than the SAMBA project is the Apache HTTP server project. The server runs on UNIX, Windows NT and many other operating systems. Originally known as "Apache Server", based on existing code and a series of "patch files", the name for the matured code deserves to be connoted with the Native American tribe of the Apache, well-known for their superior skills in warfare strategy and inexhaustible endurance. Apache has been shown to be substantially faster, more stable and more feature-full than many other web servers. Apache is run on sites that get millions of visitors per day, and while no official support is provided by the developers, the Apache user community provides answers to all your questions. Commercial support is now being provided by a number of third parties. In the category of office applications, a choice of MS Office suite clones is available, ranging from partial to full implementations of the applications available on MS Windows workstations. These initiatives helped a great deal to make Linux acceptable for the desktop market, because the users don't need extra training to learn how to work with new systems. With the desktop come the praise of the common users, and not only their praise, but also their specific requirements, which are growing more intricate and demanding by the day. The Open Source community, consisting largely of people who have been contributing for over half a decade, assures Linux' position as an important player on the desktop market as well as in General IT application. Paid employees and volunteers alike are working diligently so that Linux can maintain a position in the market. The more users, the more questions. The Open Source community makes sure answers keep coming, and watches the quality of the answers with a suspicious eye, resulting in ever more stability and accessibility. Listing all the available Linux software is beyond the scope of this guide, as there are tens of thousands of packages. Throughout this course we will present you with the most common packages, which are almost all freely available. In order to take away some of the fear of the beginning user, here's a screenshot of one of your most-wanted programs. You can see for yourself that no effort has been spared to make users who are switching from Windows feel at home.

C- Multi-user –

             Not only can you have many user accounts available on a Linux system, you can also have multiple users logged in and working on the system at the same time. Users can have their own environments arranged the way they want: their own home directory for storing files and their own desktop interface (with icons, menus and applications arranged to suit them). User accounts can be password-protected, so that users can control who has access to their applications and data.

D- Multitasking –

                  In Linux, it is possible to have many programs running at the same time, which means that not only can you have many programs going at once, but that the Linux operating system can it self have programs running in the background. Many of these system processes make it possible for Linux to work as a server, with these background processes listening of the network for requests to log in to your system, view a web page, print a document, or copy a file. These background processes are referred to as daemons.

E- Hardware support –

                   You can configure support for almost every type of hardware that can be connected to a computer. There is support for floppy disk drive, CD-ROMs, removable disk (such as DVDs and USB flash drives), sound cards, tape devices, video cards and most anything else you can think of. As device interface, such as USB and FireWire, have been added to computers, support for those devices has been added to Linux as well.

For Linux to support a hardware device, Linux needs a driver, a piece of software that interfaces between the Linux kernel and the devices. Drivers are available in the Linux kernel to support hundreds of computer hardware components that can be added or removed as needed.

F- Networking connectivity –

                       To connect your Linux system to a network, Linux offers support for a variety of local area network (LAN) card, modems, and serial devices. In addition to LAN protocols, such as Ethernet (both wired and wireless), all the most popular upper-level networking protocols can be built-in. the most popular of these protocols is TCP/IP (used to connect to the internet). Other protocols, such as IPX (for Novell network) and X.25 (a packet-switching network type that is popular in Europe), are also available.

G- Network servers –

                       Providing networking services to the client computers on the LAN or to the entire Internet is what Linux does best. A variety of software packages are available that enable you to use Linux as a print server, file server, FTP server, mail server, web server, news server, or work-group (DHCP or NIS) server.

To make a Linux distribution useful, components need to be added on top of the Linux kernel. For humans to access a Linux system, they can enter commands to a shell or use graphical interface to open menus, windows, and icons. Then you need actual applications to run. In particular, a useful Linux desktop system includes the following:-

H- Graphical user Interface (X Windows system) –

                       The powerful framework for working with graphical application in Linux is referred to as the X window System (or simply X). X handles the functions of opening X-based graphical user interface (GUI) applications and displaying them on an X server process (the process that manages your screen, mouse, and keyboard). Fedora and RHEL focus on the GNOME and KDE desktop environments, but also have several other desktop environments and window managers available.

I- Application support –

                        Because of compatibility with POSIX and several different application programming interface (APIs), a wide range of free and open source software is available for Linux system. Compatibility with the GNU C libraries is a major reason for the wide-ranging application support. Often, making as open source application available to a particular version of Linux can be done by simply recompiling the source code to run on that Linux version.

J- Advance Security –

                     SSL is the advance security in linux operating system.