system, Red Hat Linux is (Space web hosting) based on UNIX
system, Red Hat Linux is based on UNIX systems. UNIX was designed from the ground up to deal with many users and many tasks in a networked environment. Although it could still use a coat of paint, Red Hat Linux offers a strong foundation for networked applications. A huge development community is working on open source to meet the needs of the Linux community. In the past couple of years, some strong commercial offerings have been added. In the spirit of Linux and the GNU (which stands for GNU is Not UNIX ), most application programs are free or inexpensive. This means that you can try out most applications for little or no money. Getting started running Linux applications can be done at a small cost. For example, StarOffice is free to download (and only $39.95 for the boxed set), whereas if you just want Word, you need to pay hundreds of dollars for the entire Microsoft Office package. The bottom line is that it will take some effort for most people to discard their Windows operating systems completely. However, if you are committed to making Red Hat Linux your sole application platform, there are several ways to ease that transition. Emulation programs let you run many programs that were created for other operating systems. Conversion programs can help you convert graphics and word processing from other formats to those supported by Linux applications. Cross-Reference See Chapter 6 for information on importing and exporting word processing and graphics files. If you are running Linux on a PC, chances are that you already paid for a Windows 95, 98, ME, XP, NT, or 2000 operating system. You can either run the different operating systems on different PCs or have Windows and Linux on separate partitions of your hard disk. The latter requires that you reboot each time you want to switch operating systems. The following sections describe how to find and work with application programs that are created specifically for Linux. Obtaining Red Hat Linux Applications Unfortunately, you won t be able to walk into the average computer store and find a lot of Linux application programs. By far, the best way to get Linux applications is to download them from the Internet. They can also be ordered on CD-ROM from several Linux Web sites. Finding applications on the Internet Here are a few places to look for Linux applications on the Internet: Freshmeat (http://www.freshmeat.net/) This site maintains a massive index of Linux software. Type the name of a software package into the find box and you can find where it is available on the Web. This is one of the best sites to check first for Linux software. SourceForge (http://www.sourceforge.net/) This site hosts thousands of open source software projects. You can download software and documentation from those projects from the SourceForge site.
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