Technology Section

Introduction

Technology is now a part of our everyday life. Even if we don't like it we can't avoid it. So it is better to have some knowledge of the things that surround us than to have no clue of what surrounds us. As a hardcode Techie, I love learning about new technologies and advances happening in the world. As I learn about the new things in the world, I write about my findings as a way to ensure I understood the implications of the technogies and as a way to teach others about my findings. This section covers my findings and learnings in the technological & scientific world.

Please reach out to me if you have any questions about any of the topics I cover here.

Linux Related

Introduction

Linux is an Opensource operating system that is based on the Linux Kernel developed by Linux Torvalds. Certain pedantic folks (or well actually guys as they are known in some circles) insist that the correct nomenclature for this OS is "GNU/Linux" because Linux is just the kernel and the GNU utilities are what make it a full-fledged OS but I just ignore those folks.

The Linux Kernel was originally developed by Linus Torvalds and first released on September 17, 1991. The OS is based on the UNIX operating system but unlike UNIX it is free and open source. Over the years it has evolved to run on pretty much any hardware from servers to phones to super-computers. As of March 2025, Android, which uses the Linux kernel has 72% of the global market share and on the server side Linux leads the pack with a 62.7% marketshare. In fact, 100% of the worlds fastest supercomputers run Linux.

Linux is typically packaged as a Linux Distribution which is a collection of system utilities, Linux Kernel and software. There are thousands of Linux Distributions available and new ones are created on a regular basis. The most popular ones are the Ubuntu and Debian distributions but you can check out the DistroWatch website which has a list of most of the Distro's and their ratings. Users have created Distros to address specific usecases and requirements. For example, there are distros specifically created for embedded systems, or for IoT. Others are for parallel computing or single chip computers or tablets and smartphones. There is even a Linux Distribution which runs directly within a PDF file.

What Linux Distro to use is a complicated question and depends on your usecase. Ubuntu is an easy to use distro for new users but I personally prefer Debian because I have been doing this for a while and am comfortable with it. The best way to figure out what distro to use is to try a bunch of them till you find one that you like. Earlier this meant that you had to download and burn CD's for each distro but now it is much easier using a USB stick. I use Ventoy as it allows you to put multiple Linux Distros on a single USB drive by just copying the ISO file to the drive and booting into it.

More Information on Linux is available at Geeks for Geeks: What is Linux Operating System.

My History with Linux

My first Operating system when I started using a computer back in 1995 was MS-DOS. I loved DOS and the degree of control it allowed me to have over my computer. In fact it was exploring the various functionalities of DOS that really got me hooked onto computers. I then moved to Win 3.1 -> Windows 95 -> Windows 98. When I switched to Windows 95 (Kicking and screaming about it as my sister loves to remind me) I lost a lot of that control. I could no longer control the interrupts to let one of my programs take over when I pressed a particular keystroke and it got even worse with Win 98.

While I was in college I was talking to Matt about issues I was seeing with my windows machine and he suggested I try out Linux. I had some free time during my winter in Dec 2001 so I downloaded and installed Red Hat Linux 7.1 on my computer on an extra 6 GB HDD 'donated' by a friend for this purpose. It installed perfectly and then I found what I had been missing since I switched to Windows from DOS: "An OS which let me have absolute and total control of my computer" and I loved it.

I won't say that the learning process was easy but it sure was a lot of fun. I have learnt more about computers since installing Linux than I had with any other OS. I needed a lot of help and a lot of people were more than happy to help me with it. I would like to take this opportunity to credit the good folks at Just Linux Forums for sharing their expertise with the rest of us. I also like to thank and credit the following people from NJIT who have helped me a lot with figuring out Linux and getting my stuff to work on Linux. Their help is one of the major factors which enabled me to switch completely to linux as my primary operating system. They are: Kevin Walsh, Mark Miller and Matt Hoskins.

Before I started using Linux full-time in 2001, I experimented with it in late 1998 when I tried installing Redhat 5 on my Pentium 100. Unfortunately that experiment failed due to a lack of knowledge and time on my part. After that failure I didn't touch Linux till 2001 when I installed Redhat 7.1 on my system. Soon after that I upgraded to 7.2 and then 7.3 as soon as the new versions were launched.

When Redhat released 8.0 I upgraded to it but immediately rolled back to 7.3 as I didn't like the interface changes and the way they had moved the menu items around. Basically they tried to make it more accessible to novice users and in that process removed a lot of functionality which I used so I went back to 7.3.

I stayed with 7.3 till Redhat kept supporting it. Once Redhat ended its support for 7.3, I started searching for a new distribution. During this search I tried Slackware, Gentoo, Debian and Linux From Scratch and a couple of lesser known distributions. Finally I settled on Debian 3.1 as my primary OS.

Installing Debian for the first time took me ages and I had to do a lot of research to get all my devices working. But once I got everything working, it worked like a charm without any major issues for a couple of years. Once Debian 4 came out I upgraded to it and kept using it till early 2007 on my personal system. On a professional level I got to work with Slackware and Redhat Enterprise on various servers.

In 2007, I switched companies and I was mainly working on MicroSoft technologies so I had to switch my laptop to Windows XP so that I could run the required MS programs. However my desktop was still running Debian. At this point I was using the Kanotix Live CD to do a quick install of Debian instead of manually installing Debian on any machine just to save time.

In 2008, I switched companies again and was again working with open source technologies. So my laptop again got Debian Testing installed on it from the Kanotix Live CD followed by pointing the system to Debian repositories and an upgrade. This is how everything stayed till I upgraded by desktop hardware and had to switch hardrives (from IDE to SATA). At that time I saw some performance issues that I assumed were due to Debian so I switched to Ubuntu 9.04. I used it for a couple of months till Ubuntu 9.10 came out and then I upgraded to 9.10. However once I upgraded I saw a lot of issues with the system which people on various forums said was due to the upgrade process. I then did a clean install of 9.10 but that didn't fix all the issues so I decided to try Debian 5.0 Testing. I tried it, liked it and I have been running Debian on all my systems since then.

Debian Stable is a very stable OS but doesn't have the latest version of software so I now run Debian Unstable on my systems (Except my laptop which runs Kali Linux for Security related work).

Sub-Sections

This section is further broken down into sub-sections so that it is easier for me to manage and update. The subsections and a brief description of each are listed below (and on the right side)

Do reach out if you have any questions about any of this.

- Suramya

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