What is Linux? What is Redhat? How DO I use Redhat?

[TAylor34]

Sorry I am new to the computer world. I am going to be a college freshman, I want a degree in computer engineering and a career of computer forensics, or some type of computer security. I just wanted to know How do i use redhat? what is it? and what is linux??? Help is very much appreciated!

thanks

[oz]

I just wanted to know How do i use redhat?
what is it?
and what is linux???

Hello and welcome aboard!

You'd need to install Red Hat on your computer to use it, then you would use it like you would any other Linux operating system.

Red Hat is a Linux distribution. Check here for more on the various Linux distributions:

DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.

Linux is an operating system used to allow you to communicate through software with your computer. Check the link in my signature for lots of good information on getting started with Linux.

You can check the Red Hat website for information on obtaining, installing, and using it:

redhat.com | The World's Open Source Leader

Good luck to you with Red Hat and Linux.

[hazel]

Linux is a computer operating system like Windows. But Windows belongs to Microsoft and its sole purpose is to make money for Microsoft. Linux belongs to the community of Linux users and its purpose is to make computing more rewarding for users. It is free open-source software: free in the sense of being free of all legal entanglements and licensing agreements (and you can easily get it free of charge too), and open-source meaning that interested people can look at the source code and make their own modifications and improvements.

Because Linux can be freely copied and modified, there are many different varieties known as distributions (distros). Red Hat (properly Red Hat Enterprise Linux) is one of these. It is mainly used in offices. How can you use it? Any way you like!

Strictly speaking, Linux is the name of the kernel (the program that manages all the hardware and supervises the other programs) and the operating system should be called GNU/Linux, but mostly people just call it Linux.

[HalluxSinister]

Linux is a computer operating system like Windows. But Windows belongs to Microsoft and its sole purpose is to make money for Microsoft. Linux belongs to the community of Linux users and its purpose is to make computing more rewarding for users. It is free open-source software: free in the sense of being free of all legal entanglements and licensing agreements (and you can easily get it free of charge too), and open-source meaning that interested people can look at the source code and make their own modifications and improvements.
[...]

Hazel... how... dare... you! "like Windows?" OMG... anyway... Linux is NOTHING LIKE WINDOWS. Okay, actually it is, but the way you wrote it seems to me, IMHO, is that you are saying they're similar. Stating that Linux is an OS like Windows is like stating that a Mercedes Benz is a car like a Ford Pinto. (With apologies to all trademark holders, etc.) Of course it IS, but you see what I'm getting at?

Windows and Linux are as different as night and day, or as different as a gentle kiss from a lover (that is Linux) is from being repeatedly punched in the face, (which is more reminiscent of using Windows). I know whereof I speak, I have been using Misro$oft Win/DOS (as I call it) since BEFORE M$-DOS 2.0, WAAAY before Windows, and began my Linux Odyssey around 1995, when I had my first exposure to UNIX, and 1996 when I first saw (the then-primitive and much less user-friendly than it is now) Linux.

We do agree on most points though, I just take issue with some of the phrasing.

TAylor34, the fact that you posted here means you've found Linux Forums, so you're already in the right place. Two roads diverge in a field, a road to slavery to the whims of Misro$oft, and one less-traveled. Take the less-traveled one, it will make all the difference.

Here's my two cents: Linux is a FLOSS operating system, (FLOSS being an acronym for "Free/Libre..." (meaning free as in 'free speech' and free as in 'free beer!') "Open-Source..." (meaning members of the developer community contribute to it and are allowed to distribute it themselves, with few restrictions) Software). Coupled in most cases (though not necessarily) with tools and utilities, other programs from the GNU project/group, it is often known as "GNU/Linux," especially by purists, but anyone in the community will know that if you say "My computer runs Linux" what it is you mean by that, since Linux, technically, is just the core of the OS, the program that launches and supervises other applications, and ensures they all play nice together.

Anyway, Linux is a reimplementation of the venerable old UNIX system. You can get it FOR FREE from MANY different sources, and everyone who has used Linux for more than a day or two has a favorite. My own personal favorite is LinuxMint, (downloadable legally and freely from Main Page - Linux Mint) which I've been using for about 3 days. It has numerous advantages, which I will list:
1. It is not from either of the companies which form the modern-day software Axis of Evil, Misro$oft, or CrApple. (Sorry, I don't like cults.)

2. Despite what you may have heard, you CAN use it without installing it. LinuxMint is a distro (one of several) which produce Live-File-System Installation Media. Others are Knoppix, Fedora, and many others. More on this later.

3. Rock-solid stability and security. Unlike Misro$oft, who I am convinced make software with security holes and bugs left, right, and center, ON PURPOSE so that they can get people to keep buying their wretched software, and as an anti-piracy measure. (That is, the reason, I feel, why there are so many security holes is that it makes it insane to go online with a computer running their so-called OS, if it's not up to date. Keeping it up to date can only be done if the software is registered. That requires you to have purchased a unique copy/instance of their software LEGALLY, of course. You really need your head examined if you're getting online with a new computer running WinDOS, because your computer will be electronically sodomized within 30 seconds of your getting on the net if it doesn't have some kind of defense.)

Linux, unlike any wretchware from Misro$oft, was designed from the ground-up to replicate the functions of UNIX, a multiuser, multitasking OS originally written when Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were kids in school, which has been the go-to OS for all REAL computers for decades now. It is tried-and-true, and most of the internet, plus countless mission-critical systems run on some variant of UNIX or Linux. Oh, by the way... Apple's Mac OS-X is, (as I understand it) *ALSO* a descendant of UNIX, and is where it has derived much of its strengths.

4. Linux, being Open Source, is maintained by people dedicated to great software, not dedicated to ripping you off over and over again. The people behind it have no incentive to make something you'll have to patch and upgrade over and over just to maintain the illusion of safety and security. Case in point: there are about 50 different Anti-Virus and anti-malware products designed to protect users of M$-Win/DOS from holes and mistakes in the code... until recently there were virtually NONE for Linux. I understand there are a couple now, but they're not for protecting Linux users' computers, they're for Linux users to use to check files they got from or are giving to those poor, unfortunates who are still victims of the Misro$oft Monopoly, so they (the Linux users) can check the pictures, music files, documents, etc., they are passing TO the Win/DOS users, to ensure they are not inadvertently infecting THEM with viruses their computers are IMMUNE to.

5. LinuxMint, specifically, can do just about everything you can do with a Win/DOS machine, from playing music, (including MP3's,) watching movies (on DVD) surfing the net, chatting, making VOIP calls, burning and ripping discs, etc., and oh, by the way, looking DAMN GOOD doing it, too! Also, most of the software you'll ever need is available free. Learning how to use and administer a UNIX/Linux system also helps you on the road towards becoming computer-wise and self-sufficient, rather than having to be the guy/girl who calls someone else and says "my computer's screen is all blue, and it has white writing all over it all of a sudden, what do I DO?!?"

Many people have wondered, when shown how much better Linux is, "if it's SOO much better, why isn't everyone using IT?"

It's a good and fair question. The short-answer is: because Misro$oft used and abused a monopoly they developed from a time when home- and small business- computers were too weak and pathetically underpowered to run UNIX, (and Linux did not exist yet) by unfair competition, (FUD, etc.) to position themselves as a one-stop-shop for all the software you need, and kept people hooked by leveraging their ill-gotten gains to strong-arm computer manufacturers into offering ONLY computers with their wretched garbage software on them, or face not being able to sell ANYTHING with their software, and none of the major PC manufacturers had the balls to try to bring about a revolution, (NOT EVEN IBM, who had their own alternative they'd developed in-house, and also Linux wasn't quite ready yet then, and UNIX... well, that's another story.)

These days things have changed, so many people are putting together their own computers, and with the freedom of Linux, we don't NEED Misro$oft's trashware anymore. It's a glorious thing.

But as they say at car dealerships, "the feel of the wheel is half the deal!" You really need to test-drive it, and with Linux, you can!

Go to the website, download an ISO, (which matches your hardware's basic config., if you're using a modern PC, you can probably use the LinuxMint 11 (Katya) 32-bit DVD ISO, (which is most compatible... if you know your hardware is 64-bit capable, you can try that, but 32-bit should work with anything from an Intel 486-DX on up, so...) burn the image to a blank DVD, and reboot. When you reboot, you'll have to hit whatever keystrokes are required to access your computer's BIOS menu/boot menu, and tell it to boot from the CD/DVD drive.

If everything went right, your computer will boot into LinuxMint, from the DVD, WITHOUT having to install ANYTHING. (You may need to install a DVD image burner such as Active@ISO or InfraRecorder if you don't have software with which to burn the image, assuming you are currently running some type of Misro$oft "Operating System", as they call them, or you're using an Apple.

NOTE: if you're new to computing, try to find someone you know who knows computers to help you, especially helpful if you can find one who knows Linux, UNIX, or *Nix or UN*X, as it is variously called. Burning an image to a disc requires software that can extract an image, and write its contents to the disc. DO NOT try copy the ISO file to the disc by dragging and dropping it in WinDOS Exploiter, it won't work.

That would be like taking a box of cake mix, placing it (the entire UNOPENED box) a 1/2 cup of oil and an unopened hens egg into a pan, and putting the pan in an oven at 325 degrees Fahrenheit, baking it for 25 minutes, and expecting to have cake when you open the oven. You'll be unpleasantly surprised.

You need to have a program actually take the information IN the image, and burn THAT to the disc, not the ISO itself. (Important distinction, I wish someone told me before I wasted 5 bucks in blank DVD's the first time I tried to do this, wondering why they wouldn't boot.)

Anyway, hopefully you'll try it out, and love it as much as we do. It's to your advantage, because Misro$oft, like Soviet Communism, is an idea whose time has come and LONG GONE, and with the increasing market-share going to Linux, and away from Win/DOS, hopefully Misro$oft will dry up and blow away like the massive corporate turd they are.

(Yes, I hate them. For any good they've ever done, they've done incalculable and irreparable harm to an entire industrial sector of our economy, and made immense, obscene fortunes for people by lying, cheating and stealing, all the while thumbing their noses at the laws designed to stop them, and are still dictating much of what goes on in PC-land, as if they own it. We who use Linux, or any Unix variant, are by so-doing, serving them their eviction notice. Won't you join us, be free, and when you become conversant on Linux systems, you'll be in position to help others, while benefiting yourself!)

It should be noted that the student/hacker, (meaning hacker in the good-sense of someone good at programing,) Linus Torvalds, (from whom Linux got its name) has stated, I believe, that hatred of Misro$oft is passe, pointless, etc. I have to differ here, with our benefactor, while respecting his opinion. Many of the people leading the way in the Linux realm eschew hatred of Misro$oft, crApple, and all the other sources of evil in this world, because fighting against them is NOT the point. Making them irrelevant IS. Linux coders and users aren't just using it to hurt M$, or aren't using it to hurt them AT ALL. It's not about revenge for them, as I've heard it told, but instead about working toward a world with the best possible software for people to use and enjoy. For the betterment of all humankind, they work, not revenge.

But I can't help but feel smug, as many hours and days and weeks as I have spent trying to get balky, kludgey, slow, crappy M$-based computers to do what they're supposed to do in the first place, that seem to fail almost as if on a schedule. Another case in point: due to problems in how they handle memory, Win/DOS systems are notorious for becoming slower and less stable as time goes on, requiring them to be shut-off and rebooted at least once every day, or every few days at most. Linux and UNIX users often have up-times of months to years, powering down only to change-out hardware. This is important when your computer is actually doing something IMPORTANT.

One other argument Win/DOS users make in favor of Win/DOS is that you can play all these GAMES. Great, well, there are loads of games you can play using Linux too, including running many of the same under Wine, an emulator for Windows, or running a full Windows install under VirtualBox, or some other Virtual Machine system. Even if "playing games" were a valid reason for choosing such an inferior OS to use, and have to pay money for, well, that shows what it is truly good for: goofing off and doing nothing. Besides, there are game consoles now that blow PC's away in many respects, and so many people have these that being able to play whatever games you have is really pretty minor.

But of course it's up to you, but I'd recommend you try it, and heartily endorse (despite the short time I've been using it) LinuxMint 11 (with Gnome) as one to take for a spin. BTW: another important virtue of Linux is that you're totally free to customize your experience. For example: don't like how they changed Windows between XP and Vista, or between Vista and "7"? TOO BAD. You're stuck with them. Yes, there's some customize-ability, but not much. With Linux, if you don't like Gnome, switch to KDE, or LXDE, or XFCE, or Enlightenment, or Unity, or AfterStep or NextStep, or WindowMaker, or FVWM, or TWM, or any one of a hundred or more different graphical-user-interfaces or even just fall-back on the old command line. (GUI's, pronounced "goo-ease" are the pretty window-things you see on most modern computers' screens) similar to desktop managers, etc. There are various names. (Some of the ones I've mentioned may be obsolete... it's been a while.)

But I digress, I do go on.

I hope this novella has been helpful, and not offensive or off-putting at all. I'll admit to a slight bias, but only because I've spent so much time trying to use their (Misro$oft's) software, and fighting with it when I shouldn't have had to.

[Roxoff]

...
But I digress, I do go on.
...

You do? Can't say I'd noticed...

[HalluxSinister]

TAylor34, after posting a novella of a reply to your post, and several others, I reread what you wrote and realized I missed answering one of the questions you posed, and I don't think anyone else answered it either. I endorsed LinuxMint, (see my other post this thread) but didn't talk about Red Hat. In brief: Red Hat has been referred to as the "Microsoft of Linux" in that if there was a 900-pound gorilla in the room of the Linux world, it would probably be Red Hat. Or at least, it would have once been. It's like this: a computer programmer named Linus wrote a program that did what the heart of UNIX (a late 1960's - early 1970's operating system that is still very much alive and kicking, despite a lot of name changes and ownership changes, etc.) and offered it to the world for free, free to use, and free to redistribute to others without requireing further permission, on a few basic conditions, under something called the GPL. These conditions, broadly, are easier to describe if we say a developer, (D) wants to distribute the code to users (U). Linus, (L) allows D to give away what he wrote, as-is or modified to U, as long as D does not burden U with any restrictions beyond those L placed on D as a condition for redistributing *HIS* program. Also, L lets D modify the software, and give U the revised version, as long as D doesn't try to prevent U from doing the same thing with D's software that D did with L's, and also D must provide U the source-code, (the original instructions used to build the software) so that U can build it too. U then could do the same thing for O (other users), again under the same conditions. The idea is share, and share alike. This concept was originally pushed by a man known in software circles as RMS, (Richard Stallman) whose GNU projects tools were used by Linus Torvalds, (as I understand it) in the creation of the Linux operating system. Without these tools, it would have taken years or decades longer for Linus to have reinvented the wheel 20 or 30 times over, to rebuild what engineers working at AT&T's Bell Labs and many others developing it for years or decades with the support of giant corporations.

(Linux was not made for profit, and was I believe originally something of a hobby/side-project for the vast majority of those involved in bringing it to life.)

So, you might ask, exasperated, what about Red Hat? Well, since you can't SELL Linux, (excluding a modest reasonable fee for distribution media costs) Red Hat has for a long while now, made it's living GIVING AWAY LINUX FOR FREE, and SELLING TECH SUPPORT packages. As I understand it. I don't know that you can even get Red Hat Linux free anymore, or if they are now satisfying the requirement that they give away what they received under the same terms by supporting a derivative project called Fedora. See (redhat.com | The World's Open Source Leader and their child-project Fedora Project Homepage) for details. Red Hat might still be giving it away free, but I don't bother to check, since I discovered Fedora, as I really liked that. HOWEVER, I have found LinuxMint solves problems I had had with Fedora. (Just looked at Red Hat's site, can't see where there's a link anywhere to download for free... I think that's the whole point of Fedora, is to be the free-arm of the company. They sell support, training, and other software aimed at companies, "middleware" and other such things. If you want Red Hat free, (what used to be called just "Red Hat Linux" I think you now have to go to Fedora, which is funded and supported by, and whose software is derivative of Red Hat's) you go to Fedora. RHEL, (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) can also be had free, it seems, but only for a period of time as an "evaluation".

All up-to-date GNU/Linux systems are, in theory, compatible with each other, and what runs on one will, in theory run on all, because all are using the same heart of the OS, known as the Linux Kernel. Most of the supporting tools are the same, coming from the GNU people. The difference between one distribution and another, (or distro as they're called) lies in choices of what other software to bundle with it, such as what "desktop environment" it should have, how it should behave, how it installs, etc. This is different from UNIX, on which Linux was originally based, and which the much younger Linux has in many respects eclipsed. In brief, UNIX was developed by AT&T, and given away to different organizations to do with as they pleased. Before too long, though, things that were written to run on the version of UNIX being produced by one organization would not work on UNIX produced by someone else, and this caused a lot of headaches, so eventually AT&T sued EVERYONE ON EARTH, (or almost... I exaggerate slightly) to stop them from calling what they were selling UNIX. This has been called the Unix Fragmentation, and also the Unix Wars. Or something like that.

By maintaining control of development of the kernel, Linus has managed to keep this from happening. Even if you have a program, for instance, that requires KDE running on top of X, running on top of a *NIX (Unix or Linux or whatever) system to run...

(Bear with me... X is the program that handles the screen, keyboard, mouse, etc., and that acts as a virtual terminal for programs so they don't have to worry about what kind of display hardware you have; the K Desktop Environment was originally a reimplementation of the C Desktop Environment for UNIX, and GNOME is the GNU Network Object Model Environment...)

... and you don't have KDE, you have GNOME, you should STILL be able to run the program, even if it means your computer may automatically install parts (or all) of KDE to run.

How it happens is like this - Someone comes up with a good idea, (or at least one that seemed good at the time,) and reimplements it. Thompson and Ritchie, (and others) liked some of the facets of MULTICS, (a project that went belly-up) and invented what became UNIX, in a loose sense a reimplementation of the MULTICS environment. Linus Torvalds reimplements UNIX due to problems he (and others) perceived in UNIX, among them the cost of buying a copy. Just as UNIX was a paradigm shift (away from one massive, increasingly bloated piece of software to tiny, modular bits of code that did their job, did only that, did it well, fast, and had standard inputs and outputs that could be piped together in all kinds of new ways,) so Linux was a paradigm shift in how code was written and maintained. Just as UNIX was born in the semi-proprietary realm of the IP owner controlling what others could do with their software, Linux was born of the idea that people would share freely, as long as they knew their code would not be incorporated into some corporate project without compensating them, they would be willing to share freely so that ALL might benefit from better and cheaper software. Then again, there's X. What I think started out as an experiment by the CS department at MIT, to do away with the requirement to have each program have to detect and provide for the ever-increasing number of different kinds of screens, keyboards, etc., that remote terminals might have, they'd just let them all talk to one program, called X, and it would worry about the screen, keyboard, etc. I think this was redone as Xfree86 (a "X" reimplementation. Then eventually X was open sourced. I'm not sure what GNOME is a reimplementation of. (In the case of GNOME 3/GNOME-SHELL, I think it's a reimplementation of a paper weight!)

Firefox is in a sense a reimp. of Netscape, (NCSA Mosaic) actually deriving some code from there though, unlike most reimplementations... , and LibreOffice is a reimp. of M$ Office and/or other office suites, (descending from OpenOffice.org, itself a descendant of Sun Microsystem's Star Office... now in the control of Oracle...) possibly soon to be under the control of Apache Foundation... and on and on.

So as to the question, HOW DO I USE RED HAT? I think you have to buy it, or get it free in the form of Fedora, but the point I've been trying to make is that the advantages you might be after from using RedHat (unless you run a business) you can get as easily, or MORE EASILY from using LinuxMint, or Fedora, (if you must).

HOW DO YOU USE IT? Download it, burn it to disc, test-drive it. If you like it, BACK UP ANY DATA YOU MAY HAVE AND EVER WANT TO ACCESS AGAIN, ensure it's backed up right, and install Linux to disc. (RedHat is just a distribution of Linux, that is, it's Linux, and some utilities they think people will like. There are many, MANY others.) If you go with Mint, you will be presented with a few installation options, most of which you can just go with what it recommends, and it will work pretty well. IT WILL OVERWRITE YOUR DISC, (there may be options for having it use only part of a disc, but... you're better off backing up your data, and going all-in). Once it installs, log-in, and commence playing around with it. LinuxMint installs by default with a bunch of software like LibreOffice, which is (I think) a pretty-much full-featured, ready-to-go replacement/alternative to M$ Office, as well as Firefox (the web browser) and a whole host of other software packages, plus access to literally thousands of others, by and large FREE. There's the GIMP, (Graphic Image Manipulation Program) which has so many features, tools, and capabilities it's not even funny... want to run your own website? Get Apache, (free too, unless I'm much mistaken!) there's video players, music players, etc., etc., etc. Games? Lots. Install some, and find out. (Okay, some of the older ones are still available and they can be a little dodgy, hit-or-miss, but hey, if you don't like it, just uninstall it. Too easy.)

Linux is easiest to use with X, and a good GUI, (a Window Manager or Desktop Environment, these terms are partially overlapping) but A LOT, and I mean a LOT can be done from the command-line, using a terminal window or a virtual teletype (VTTY), you'd be surprised. MANY of the programs that run on Linux do not need the graphical interface to work, and that interface is what is known as a "front-end", which is a pretty, fancy, point-and-click window interface for what can also be invoked with a simple line of text. You could start the RedHat Package Manger, (on Fedora) type in a text-box "Audacity", and click "Search" and when it comes up, click "Install", or you could pop open a terminal, and type "rpm -Xvf Audacity" (or something like that) and get the same exact results: having Audacity installed. Audacity, by the way, is kind of the GIMP of audio, a sound editor which which you can mix and edit multiple tracks of sound, and perform a large number of different audio effects, an amazing tool, and oh, yeah... free.

There are e-mail clients, chat clients, there's a program that allows you to zoom around a 3D map of the universe (Celestia), which is fun, if you're in-to astronomy, there are compilers and IDE's (I'm pretty sure) for just about every programming language there has ever been... if you want to learn about computers, by the way, with an eye towards being a network-guy or programmer, THIS IS THE WAY TO GO.

Last but not least, (and not wanting to scare you or anyone else away...) there's the community. A million helpful people like me who will burn the candle at every end answering questions online that could be just as easily answered by just going to the websites I have been talking about, like linuxmint.com, fedoraproject.org, suselinux.co.de, ubuntu.net, (or whatever, just Yahoo them or Google them...)

If you're really up for a challenge, you could try one or more of the actual descendants (not the reimplimentation that is Linux) but the real children of UNIX, such as OpenSolaris, (I think you have to sign up for a membership... Solaris was Sun Microsystems' version of UNIX, I think) or FreeBSD, (or NetBSD, or OpenBSD, all BSDi variants, descendants of the University of California, Berkeley Campus' College of Computer Science's version of UNIX, with AT&T's proprietary code replaced with their own...) but in my experience they aren't as polished, as DESKTOP OS's. They are however, massively powerful and robust and stable and scalable, and between them and Linux servers, run most of the internet.

Funny side-note. I read somewhere that when Misro$oft purchased HotMail, they tried to move the service for all their users to WindowsNT Server. Their flagship "Industrial Strength" Operating System... COULDN'T... HANDLE... THE... LOAD. They had to put it back on the systems it had been on, which IIRC, was FreeBSD. Ah-hahahahahahahahh!

So try it out. Enjoy, ask questions, learn. Don't be a M$ Slave, or an Apple iMinion. Linux is about freedom, not raking in money from half-wits.

[HalluxSinister]

Yeah, the more sleep-deprived I get, the harder I find stopping typing. That reminds me, there was this one time, ...