Hacking the Linux Operating System

This chapter moves away from Windows to discuss a different operating system known as Linux. Linux was originally designed and created by Linus Torvalds in 1991, and it takes many of its concepts and functions from the older operating system known as Unix. One of the elements of Linux that make it unique is it is open source, from the kernel to the core operating system files, and many applications are available to review the code and even propose changes. The one side effect of being open source is that Linux has fragmented over time into different variants sometimes known as flavors or distributions. The core functionality for the most part works across all the distributions; however, minor differences or additional applications can be found between the distributions. An example is installing or updating applications. In Fedora, you might use the command yum (which stands for Yellowdog Updater, Modified) for your package updates. In Ubuntu, you...