GNU and Linux: Different or the same? Post: 37444

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Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers GNU and Linux: Different or the same? Post 37444 by norsk hedensk on Wednesday 18th of June 2003 10:18:50 PM

06-18-2003

Registered User

GNU is a recursive acronym for Gnu's NOT Unix. this was common hacker naming proceedure in the AI labs back in the 70s. if you really want to get technical on the explanation, you could subscribe to Stallman's naming conventions for this whole GNU (/) Linux thing..... (gasps for air...) GNU is actually the operating system that uses the Linux kernel. the kernel is the last ( well close ) layer between the software and the hardware in a computer system. an operating system is basically a set of programs ( tools, if you will ) that make up the whole system. you have ls, cd, mkdir, cp, and many many others for filesystem manipulation, you have gcc for c code compilation, you have various tools for configuring devices, ie ifconfig , modprobe, insmod, etc etc etc. these are all what make up the operating system. we have a unix-like system today, ( which is effectivley unix, for all practical USAGE purposes, its UNIX ) IP issues and copyright aside, GNU/Linux IS unix. anyway what the GNU people would like you to call the operating system you are using, is GNU/Linux. GNU is the system, Linux is the kernel. originally the GNU system was going to use the HURD kernel, but it wasnt ready when Linux was ready for testing on the net, and so GNU uses linux as its kernel. and of course, the aim of all this was/is to create a 'free' unix like os, a non commercial OS that can be used, distributed however one likes, ( within the limitations of the GPL ), theres lots more explanation that could be given but i will stop there. for more info, see the gnu.org website, as well as one of my favorite sites for reading about cool stuff, the jargon file, hold on lemme find that link....here it is : http://catb.org/esr/jargon/html/

have alot of fun

norsk hedensk

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ctrlaltdel

CTRLALTDEL(8)						     Linux Programmer's Manual						     CTRLALTDEL(8)

NAME

       ctrlaltdel - set the function of the Ctrl-Alt-Del combination

SYNOPSIS

       ctrlaltdel hard|soft

DESCRIPTION

       Based  on examination of the linux/kernel/sys.c code, it is clear that there are two supported functions that the Ctrl-Alt-Del sequence can
       perform: a hard reset, which immediately reboots the computer without calling sync(2) and without any other preparation; and a soft  reset,
       which sends the SIGINT (interrupt) signal to the init process (this is always the process with PID 1).  If this option is used, the init(8)
       program must support this feature.  Since there are now several init(8) programs in the Linux community, please consult	the  documentation
       for the version that you are currently using.

       ctrlaltdel is usually used in the /etc/rc.local file.

FILES

       /etc/rc.local

SEE ALSO

       simpleinit(8), init(8)

AUTHOR

       Peter Orbaek (poe@daimi.aau.dk)

AVAILABILITY

       The ctrlaltdel command is part of the util-linux-ng package and is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux-ng/.

Linux 1.2							  25 October 1993						     CTRLALTDEL(8)