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MODULE

4 FREE OPERATING SYSTEM

INTRODUCTION

This module provides information regarding Free operating system as well as Open-source
system. The module will introduce some operating systems that will be as basis for
understanding the two concept.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this module you should be able to:

1. Elaborate different operations between an Free- OS and Open source

2. Differentiate between a free OS from an Open-source OS
3. Enhance understanding on the foundation of Operating system .
PRE-TEST

You may want the students to test their knowledge/understanding of the unit’s topics before they
start (this helps students to know where they should focus their efforts). Can be self-check or
direct the student to an online quiz/survey/exercise.

1.3.5] FREE OPERATING SYSTEM

In the early days of modern computing (that is, the 1950s), software generally came with source
code. The original hackers (computer enthusiasts) at MIT’s Tech Model Railroad Club left their
programs in drawers for others to work on. “Homebrew” user groups exchanged code during
their meetings. Company specific user groups, such as Digital Equipment Corporation’s
DECUS, accepted contributions of source-code programs, collected them onto tapes, and
distributed the tapes to interested members. In 1970, Digital’s operating systems were
distributed as source code with no restrictions or copyright notice.

Computer and software companies eventually sought to limit the use of their software to
authorized computers and paying customers. Releasing only the binary files compiled from the
source code, rather than the source code itself, helped them to achieve this goal, as well as
protecting their code and their ideas from their competitors. Although the Homebrew user
groups of the 1970s exchanged code during their meetings, the operating systems for hobbyist
machines (such as CPM) were proprietary. By 1980, proprietary software was the usual case.

To counter the move to limit software use and redistribution, Richard Stallman in 1984 started
developing a free, UNIX-compatible operating system called GNU(which is a recursive acronym
for “GNU’s Not Unix!”). To Stallman, “free” refers to freedom of use, not price. The free-software
movement does not object to trading a copy for an amount of money but holds that users are
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entitled to four certain freedoms: (1) to freely run the program, (2) to study and change the
source code, and to give or sell copies either (3) with or (4) without changes.

In 1985, Stallman published the GNU Manifesto, which argues that all software should be free.
He also formed the Free Software Foundation (FSF) with the goal of encouraging the use and
development of free software. The FSF uses the copyrights on its programs to implement
“copyleft,” a form of licensing invented by Stallman. Copylefting a work gives anyone that
possesses a copy of the work the four essential freedoms that make the work free, with the
condition that redistribution must preserve these freedoms. The GNU General Public License
(GPL) is a common license under which free software is released. Fundamentally, the GPL
requires that the source code be distributed with any binaries and that all copies (including
modified versions) be released under the same GPL license.

The Creative Commons “Attribution Sharealike” license is also a copyleft license; “sharealike” is
another way of stating the idea of copyleft.

1.3.6] GNU LINUX

As an example of a free and open-source operating system, consider GNU/Linux. By 1991, the
GNU operating system was nearly complete. The GNU Project had developed compilers,
editors, utilities, libraries, and games — whatever parts it could not find elsewhere. However,
the GNU kernel never became ready for prime time. In 1991, a student in Finland, Linus
Torvalds, released a rudimentary UNIX-like kernel using the GNU compilers and tools and
invited contributions worldwide. The advent of the Internet meant that anyone interested could
download the source code, modify it, and submit changes to Torvalds. Releasing updates once
a week allowed this so-called “Linux” operating system to grow rapidly, enhanced by several
thousand programmers. In 1991, Linux was not free software, as its license permitted only
noncommercial redistribution. In 1992, however, Torvalds rereleased Linux under the GPL,
making it free software (and also, to use a term coined later, “open source”).

The resulting GNU/Linux operating system (with the kernel properly called Linux but the full
operating system including GNU tools called GNU/Linux) has spawned hundreds of unique
distributions, or custom builds, of the system. Major distributions include Red Hat, SUSE,
Fedora, Debian, Slackware, and Ubuntu. Distributions vary in function, utility, installed
applications, hardware support, user interface, and purpose.

For example, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is geared to large commercial use. PC Linux OS is a live
CD—an operating system that can be booted and run from a CD-ROM without being installed
on a system’s boot disk. A variant of PC Linux OS—called PC Linux OS Super gamer DVD—is
a live DVD that includes graphics drivers and games. A gamer can run it on any compatible
system simply by booting from the DVD. When the gamer is finished, a reboot of the system
resets it to its installed operating system. You can run Linux on a Windows (or other) system
using the following simple, free approach:
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1. Download the free Virtualbox VMM tool from https://www.virtualbox.org/ and install it on your
system.

2. Choose to install an operating system from scratch, based on an installation image like a CD,
or choose pre-built operating-system images that can be installed and run more quickly from a
site like http://virtualboxes.org/images/

These images are preinstalled with operating systems and applications and include many
flavors of GNU/Linux.

3. Boot the virtual machine within Virtualbox. An alternative to using Virtualbox is to use the free
program Qemu (http://wiki.qemu.org/Download/), which includes the qemu-img command for
converting Virtualbox images to Qemu images to easily import them.

With this text, we provide a virtual machine image of GNU/Linux running the Ubuntu release.
This image contains the GNU/Linux source code as well as tools for software development.

1.3.7] BSD UNIX

BSD UNIX has a longer and more complicated history than Linux. It started in 1978 as a
derivative of AT&T’s UNIX. Releases from the University of California at Berkeley (UCB) came
in source and binary form, but they were not open source because a license from AT&T was
required. BSD UNIX’s development was slowed by a lawsuit by AT&T, but eventually a fully
functional, open-source version, 4.4BSD-lite, was released in 1994.

Just as with Linux, there are many distributions of BSD UNIX, including FreeBSD, NetBSD,
OpenBSD, and DragonflyBSD. To explore the source code of FreeBSD, simply download the
virtual machine image of the version of interest and boot it within Virtualbox, as described above
for Linux. The source code comes with the distribution and is stored in /usr/src/. The kernel
source code is in /usr/src/sys. For example, to examine the virtual memory implementation code
in the FreeBSD kernel, see the files in /usr/src/sys/vm. Alternatively, you can simply view the
source code online at https://svnweb.freebsd.org.

As with many open-source projects, this source code is contained in and controlled by a version
control system—in this case, “subversion” (https://subversion.apache.org/source-code). Version
control systems allow a user to “pull” an entire source code tree to his computer and “push” any
changes back into the repository for others to then pull. These systems also provide other
features, including an entire history of each file and a conflict resolution feature in case the
same file is changed concurrently.

Another version control system is git, which is used for GNU/Linux, as well as other programs
(http://www.git-scm.com). Darwin, the core kernel component of macOS, is based on BSD UNIX
and is open-sourced as well. That source code is available from
http://www.opensource.apple.com/. Every macOS release has its open-source components
posted at that site. The name of the package that contains the kernel begins with “xnu.” Apple
also provides extensive developer tools, documentation, and support at
http://developer.apple.com.
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There has never been a more interesting time to study operating systems, and it has never
been easier. The open-source movement has overtaken operating systems, causing many of
them to be made available in both source and binary (executable) format. The list of operating
systems available in both formats includes Linux, BSD UNIX, Solaris, and part of macOS. The
availability of source code allows us to study operating systems from the inside out.

Questions that we could once answer only by looking at documentation or the behavior of an
operating system we can now answer by examining the code itself. Operating systems that are
no longer commercially viable have been open-sourced as well, enabling us to study how
systems operated in a time of fewer CPU, memory, and storage resources. An extensive but
incomplete list of open-source operating-system projects is available from
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Operating Systems/Open Source/. In addition, the rise of
virtualization as a mainstream (and frequently free) computer function makes it possible to run
many operating systems on top of one core system. For example, VMware
(http://www.vmware.com) provides a free “player” for Windows on which hundreds of free
“virtual appliances” can run. Virtualbox (http://www.virtualbox.com) provides a free, open-source
virtual machine manager on many operating systems.

Using such tools, students can try out hundreds of operating systems without dedicated
hardware. In some cases, simulators of specific hardware are also available, allowing the
operating system to run on “native” hardware, all within the confines of a modern computer and
modern operating system. For example, a DECSYSTEM-20 simulator running on macOS can
boot TOPS-20, load the source tapes, and modify and compile a new TOPS-20 kernel. An
interested student can search the Internet to find the original papers that describe the operating
system, as well as the original manuals.

The advent of open-source operating systems has also made it easier to make the move from
student to operating-system developer. With some knowledge, some effort, and an Internet
connection, a student can even create a new operating-system distribution. Not so many years
ago, it was difficult or impossible to get access to source code. Now, such access is limited only
by how much interest, time, and disk space a student has.

Solaris is the commercial UNIX-based operating system of Sun Microsystems. Originally, Sun’s
SunOS operating system was based on BSD UNIX. Sun moved to AT&T’s System V UNIX as
its base in 1991. In 2005, Sun open-sourced most of the Solaris code as the OpenSolaris
project. The purchase of Sun by Oracle in 2009, however, left the state of this project unclear.
Several groups interested in using OpenSolaris have expanded its features, and their working
set is Project Illumos, which has expanded from the OpenSolaris base to include more features
and to be the basis for several products. Illumos is available at http://wiki.illumos.org.

1.3.8] SOLARIS

Solaris is the commercial UNIX-based operating system of Sun Microsystems. Originally, Sun’s
SunOS operating system was based on BSD UNIX. Sun moved to AT&T’s System V UNIX as
its base in 1991. In 2005, Sun open-sourced most of the Solaris code as the OpenSolaris
project. The purchase of Sun by Oracle in 2009, however, left the state of this project unclear.
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Several groups interested in using OpenSolaris have expanded its features, and their working
set is Project Illumos, which has expanded from the OpenSolaris base to include more features
and to be the basis for several products. Illumos is available at http://wiki.illumos.org.

1.3.9] OPEN SOURCE SYSTEM AS LEARNING TOOL

Open-Source Systems as Learning Tools The free-software movement is driving legions of

programmers to create thousands of open-source projects, including operating systems. Sites
like http://freshmeat.net/ and http://distrowatch.com/ provide portals to many of these projects.
As we stated earlier, open-source projects enable students to use source code as a learning
tool. They can modify programs and test them, help find and fix bugs, and otherwise explore
mature, full-featured operating systems, compilers, tools, user interfaces, and other types of
programs.

The availability of source code for historic projects, such as Multics, can help students to
understand those projects and to build knowledge that will help in the implementation of new
projects. Another advantage of working with open-source operating systems is their diversity.
GNU/Linux and BSD UNIX are both open-source operating systems, for instance, but each has
its own goals, utility, licensing, and purpose. Sometimes, licenses are not mutually exclusive
and cross-pollination occurs, allowing rapid improvements in operating-system projects. For
example, several major components of Open Solaris have been ported to BSD UNIX. The
advantages of free software and open sourcing are likely to increase the number and quality of
open-source projects, leading to an increase in the number of individuals and companies that
use these projects.
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Name Score

Section Instructor Date

POST-TEST – MODULE 4

I. True or False: Evaluate each statement and write true if it is factual, else identify the word that
makes the statement false and supply the correct word to make it factual. (20 pts)

1. Computer and software companies eventually sought to limit the use of their software to
authorized computers and paying customers.
2. To counter the move to limit software use and redistribution, Richard Stakeman in 1984 started
developing a free, UNIX-compatible operating system called GNU.
3. Copylefting , a work gives anyone that possesses a copy of the work the four essential freedoms
that make the work free, with the condition that redistribution must preserve these freedoms.
4. The GNU General Public License (GPL) is a uncommon license under which free software is
released.
5. In 1991, Linux was a free software.
6. You cannot run Linux on a Windows (or other) system.
7. A live CD is an operating system that can be booted and run from a CD-ROM should be installed
on a system’s boot disk.
8. The availability of executable file allows us to study operating systems from the inside out.
9. The advent of open-source operating systems has also made it easier to make the move from
student to operating-system developer.
10. Open-source projects enable students to use source code as a learning tool.
ANSWER
1.__________________________ 6.________________________
2.__________________________ 7.________________________
3.__________________________ 8.________________________
4.__________________________ 9.________________________
5.__________________________ 10.________________________

II. Question and Answer: Answer the following questions accurately. The grading rubrics are as
follows:

POINTS
Category / Description Full No
Partial
answer answer
Completeness
3 1 0
-Does your response directly answer each part of the question(s)?
Knowledge
-Does your answer clearly show you have read and understand the lesson
5 2 0
content by correctly defining key terms, key persons and summarizing
concepts?
Writing Skills
-Do you write clearly, in complete sentences, with minimal errors in 2 1 0
grammar and spelling?

1. Identify several advantages and several disadvantages of open-source operating

systems. Identify the types of people who would find each aspect to be an
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advantage or a disadvantage.

ANSWER KEY MODULE 4 POST-TEST

True or False:

1. True
2. Stakeman – Stallman
3. True
4. Uncommon – common
5. Free – not free
6. Cannot – can
7. Should be installed - without being installed
8. Executable file - source code
9. True
10. True

SAMPLE ANSWER FOR II

Adv.
The user enjoys open source software free of charge along with an active community of
volunteer’s developers who help maintain it. Open source is considered safer because of the
availability of the source code from anyone to analyze and debug
By making their software open source companies can benefit from increased usage and
feedback as well as an improved public image.

Dis-adv.
Companies are likely to lose money from the lack of sales of software licenses. Some opern
source communities are underserved leaving the software dilapidated.
(in a state of disrepair or ruin as a result of age or neglect.)