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Many faces of Linux:

from mobile devices to supercomputers

Arto Ters Finnish Linux User Group FLUG ry

Haaga-Helia Linux Club seminar Helsinki, Nov 30, 2007

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Contents

(Very) brief history of Linux

Linux in servers and supercomputers

Linux in embedded world Linux at home

Cool things with Linux

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Linux in 1991

Hardware requirements fromkernel 0.01 release notes:

386 AT

VGA/EGA screen

AT-type harddisk controller (IDE is fine)

Finnish keyboard (oh, you can use a US keyboard, butnot without some practise :-)

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Linux in 2007

85% of the world's top 500supercomputers run Linux

One Laptop Per Childcomputers run Linux

Tens of thousands servers

at Google run Linux

A rapidly growingnumber of homeelectronics devicesrun Linux

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Linux portability

Originally, Linux was for i386 processors only

A major rewrite for portability in 1994-1995,Alpha, Sparc and MIPS support added

Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) supportadded 1996, refined later

Today, Linux runs on almost any 32bit (orhigher) CPU

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Key to success: large community

Linux kernel is licensed under theGNU General Public License (GPL)

Anyone can use and make modifications

Commercial use is perfectly welcome

If distributed, modifications must be released with thesame license

Originally a group of volunteers, nowadays most

Linux kernel developers are paid employees Similar culture around software on GNU/Linux

systems most of it is Free

Large development community

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Linux in servers and supercomputers

Reliability

Scalability

Price Convenience of system administration

Cluster distributions, advanced package management

GNU userland (works also in other Unix systems, but

default in GNU/Linux systems) Almost all my students use Linux - it's easier to find

admins! (a Helsinki University professor, comparingLinux to traditional Unix systems)

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Embedded Linux, advantages

Portability

Already runs on almost any modern CPU

Good driver support

The development desktop PC can run the same OS

Modern Unix programming model includingproper multiprocessing support

Good networking support Free software (both as in freedom and in price)

Not only the kernel, but also many applicationsavailable

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Embedded Linux, a few examples

ADSL/WLAN routers (e.g. Linksys)

Digital video recorders (e.g. Maximum)

PDAs (e.g. Nokia Internet tablet) Mobile phones (e.g. OpenMoko)

Car navigation systems (e.g. TomTom)

Digital still and video cameras (e.g. Sony)

Robotics (e.g. Wakamaru robot)

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Linux at home

Linux started as a project for home PCs...

...but perhaps surprisingly, that's one of the lastareas where its market share is still low

Why?

Most games are for Windows

Very few computers have Linux preinstalled

Reputation of being difficult to use, advanced featureshave been attractive mostly to programmers and techies

User-friendly distributions, Ubuntu in particular,are finally making their way to home users

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Cool things with Linux: LTSP

LTSP = Linux Terminal Server Project

One server,many clients

Reuse old PCsor buy silentterminals

Practical at

schools

http://www.ltsp.org

http://www.ltsp.org/http://www.ltsp.org/

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Cool things with Linux: OpenWrt

OpenWrt is a collection of Free softwarefor Linux-based routers

Runs on a wide range of hardware

If you have an ADSL modem or WLANaccess point, there's good chancethat it can run OpenWrt!

More features than the original

firmware in the same routers Derivative projects: X-Wrt, ...

http://www.openwrt.org

http://www.openwrt.org/http://www.openwrt.org/

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OpenWrt example Secure home network All files available on demand Only ~10W when files not

needed!

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Cool things with Linux: Community

Who wrote component Z on Windows?Outside Microsoft, nobody knows...

With Linux and Free software, you can

more easily meet the developers And if you become interested, you can join too!

National and local communities

Finnish Linux User Group FLUG ry, Linux-Aktivaattori, UbuntuSuomi, Lokalisointi.org, Haaga-Helia Linux Club, ...

International conferences

FOSDEM (Brussels), LinuxTag (Germany), ...

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More information

World's fastest supercomputers:http://www.top500.org

Linux devices: http://www.linuxdevices.com

Linux and Free software news: http://lwn.net

Linux Terminal Server Project: http://www.ltsp.org

OpenWrt: http://www.openwrt.org

Finnish Linux User Group: http://www.flug.fi

FOSDEM: http://www.fosdem.org

Thank you! Questions?

http://www.top500.org/http://www.linuxdevices.com/http://lwn.net/http://www.ltsp.org/http://www.openwrt.org/http://www.flug.fi/http://www.fosdem.org/http://www.fosdem.org/http://www.flug.fi/http://www.openwrt.org/http://www.ltsp.org/http://lwn.net/http://www.linuxdevices.com/http://www.top500.org/

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Credits and licensing

Image credits:

Google, Debian, Ubuntu and OpenSUSE logos downloaded from the respective websites, usedaccording to trademark policies

Sony DSC-H3 digital camera: From sony.com, press photo.

OLPC laptop: From Wikimedia Commons, copyright Mike McGregor, Creative Commons Attribution2.5 license

OpenMoko phone: From Wikipedia, Copyright FIC/OpenMoko, GNU Free Documentation License 1.2

Nokia N810 Internet tablet: From Wikipedia, copyright Nokia, GNU Free Documentation License 1.2

Wakamaru robot: From Wikipedia, copyright Brad Beattie, GNU Free Documentation License 1.2

FLUG logo: Larry Ewing and Jeremias Ylirotu

FLUG text with binary numbers: Heini Sirvi

Other photos, drawings and text:

Copyright Arto Ters < ajt@iki.fi >, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License andGNU Free Documentation License , version 1.2 or any later version

mailto:ajt@iki.fihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/fdl.htmlhttp://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/fdl.htmlhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/mailto:ajt@iki.fi