Before I take you on the ride of installing Linux, I would like to tell you some basics of Linux about installing an Unix like operating system. There are few thing I want to pass on to user as they can better understand what exactly happens when you boot-up your computer, I will try to keep it as simple as possible, don't expect much of geeky stuff here as the goal is introduce use to some basic and not blow their minds with loads of technical stuff, when I mean getting started I mostly consider it would be those who may not know much of underlying things like what hardware it's way of functioning etc. So what happens in general scenario when you press that power button to start your computer, It simply start an power circuit and starts an hard carved application on core of your computer's chip which is generally referred to as BIOS (Basic Input Output System) This is like blueprints to basic components on your computer. This program also starts the operating system booting program referred as boot loader. This could had been more detailed explanation from technical point of view but that is not immediate goal here. I am just trying to give some rough idea to those who are not aware about all these things, any ways back to boot loading, In simple word when you install an operating system information related to operating system is stored on Hard Disc, when you power on computer it refers BIOS to find appropriate device from where it can load operating system, to make itself useful and functional for the user. I guess many user here might be from either windows user of may be mac, mac users might have little bit idea about all this but, many may still not know these things. next thing that comes up is initial-ram-disc which is minified version of basic components of operating systems like device drivers etc, which helps in booting kernel with required drivers. after this operating system does mounting of file-system and starts loading services/applications, after which you can find your desktop in usable state.
Basic architecture of Unix like operating systems, now that you know some what about booting process, lets talk about architecture of the system of your system, Well if you think it's going to be some rocket science calm down, that is not what we are referring to but it's just the information which is going to help you in solving you most of the problems in future, If you are already an windows use you will find this all new, We are going to talk about file-system hierarchy. If you have questions like what the hell is that now? It's nothing great, just the overview of how files are stored/kept on Linux system, unlike windows files are kept in distributed manner in Linux based on their purpose, which all come under single directory denoted by "/" generally referred as "slash" or "root" beneath this directory you can find several directories like "/etc", "/bin", "/boot", "/home", "/lib", "/dev" etc. so what are these? Why so many directories?, well this is the architecture I was talking about, here things are spread out based on their role and isolated from others by putting them in separate directory beneath "/", so how does that help? It helps in keeping files organized and makes finding them easy, other advantages are it helps in securing things by defining strict roles of every zones (directories beneath "/" are referred as zones), like users are given privileges only in certain areas(directories) which they might need to access any where else they are not allowed to do much, This prevents things from getting in the way of each other, rather prevents from things interfering each others, so this keeps the things in their place which makes Linux secure operating system. I am going to present here a short list of some of important directories below "/" and give their purpose in short.
"/" :- Top most directory in hierarchy everything lies under this.
"/boot" :- Meant for keeping files which are used to bootup system.
"/etc" :- You will find most of the configurations files here, you can edit them to configures various services on your operating system almost all of them will be text files.
"/home" :- Used for keeping personal files of user, you should directory named after name of user beneath this, which will be personal directory of those respective users.
"/tmp" :- Used for creating temporarily files etc. may be by user or applications
"/dev" :- Contains files associated with various devices available on your system.
"/bin" :- This directory contains the binary files( executables) with reference to windows files inside this directory are like start.exe used to launch applications run commands.
"/lib" :- This contains library files in simple word supporting files used by application.
(I am stopping here, even though I can given details of many more including above, I just want to give you idea, I will leave rest upto you to explore and discover.)
What would a user do with above information? well this is basic difference between windows and Linux which I think a user must understand, as this is going to help them in many aspects and on their way ahead, All though many thing are un-explained in this post but this would be a good start towards understanding Linux, How would this help user? It makes it easy to classify these directories into different areas/zones by understanding their purpose, one can simply know where to find things and where to do certain things and where not to do certain things, this is very important for a beginner to keep himself/herself from breaking things, although I would suggest you to go in there and explore things if possible try to break them on purpose to understand your operating system in better way. But it's best to learn few basic thing before you star the roller-coaster ride. Well all of these directory can be mapped to separate partitions which you create on your hard disc, So windows users!! we no longer have concept of "c:" and "d:" here, so understanding this will help you to plan how to partition your computer when using Linux based on the purpose and usage. So simply during installation we can choose to keep operating systems data on different partition and personal data on separate partition. This can be used to secure operating system as well as make it flexible for recovering data in case. Not only installation but this will also help you in pointing out problems and solving them in future. In terms of completeness this is not a very good document, but this will help those who are not aware of these thing, also telling everything at a time takes away the fun part of exploring, since I've learned most by exploring them my self I don't want you to miss the fun either. So I am closing my conversion here, next time we will possibly see how to do an installation, If you want me to write and post about specific distro please comment your request, I will try to post as per your requests provided I get enough time to download and finish writing down a post about it.
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