Book Image

Ubuntu 20.04 Essentials

By : Neil Smyth
Book Image

Ubuntu 20.04 Essentials

By: Neil Smyth

Overview of this book

Ubuntu is undeniably one of the most highly regarded and widely used Debian-based Linux distributions available today. Thanks to its ease of use and reliability, Ubuntu has a loyal following of Linux users and an active community of developers. Ubuntu 20.04 Essentials is designed to take you through the installation, use, and administration of the Ubuntu 20.04 distribution in detail. For beginners, the book covers topics such as operating system installation, the basics of the GNOME desktop environment, configuring email and web servers, and installing packages and system updates. Additional installation topics such as dual booting with Microsoft Windows are also covered along with crucial security topics such as configuring a firewall and user and group administration. For the experienced user, the book delves into topics such as remote desktop access, the Cockpit web interface, logical volume management (LVM), disk partitioning, and swap management. Further, it also explores KVM virtualization, Secure Shell (SSH), Linux containers, and file sharing using both Samba and NFS to provide a thorough overview of this enterprise-class operating system.
Table of Contents (38 chapters)
38
Index

2.2 UNIX Origins

To understand the history of Linux, we first have to go back to AT&T Bell Laboratories in the late 1960s. During this time AT&T had discontinued involvement in the development of a new operating system named Multics. Two AT&T engineers, Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, decided to take what they had learned from the Multics project and create a new operating system named UNIX which quickly gained popularity and wide adoption both with corporations and academic institutions.

A variety of proprietary UNIX implementations eventually came to market including those created by IBM (AIX), Hewlett-Packard (HP-UX) and Sun Microsystems (SunOS and Solaris). In addition, a UNIX-like operating system named MINIX was created by Andrew S. Tanenbaum designed for educational use with source code access provided to universities.