Download Running Linux, 4th Edition

Chapter 1. Introduction to Linux
very happy employing them for casual use, such as running a Windows-based word processor
within a Linux desktop. The most popular virtual machines are VMWare
(http://www.vmware.com/),
which
is
a
commercial
product,
and
Plex86
(http://www.plex86.org/), which is an open source project.
1.5.10 Other Applications
A host of miscellaneous applications are available for Linux, as one
operating system with such a diverse set of users. Linux's primary
personal Unix computing, but this is rapidly changing. Business and
expanding, and commercial software vendors have contributed
applications.
would expect from an
focus is currently for
scientific software are
a growing pool of
The scientific community has wholly embraced Linux as the platform of choice for
inexpensive numerical computing. A large number of scientific applications have been
developed for Linux, including the popular technical tools MATLAB and Mathematica. A
wide range of free packages are also available, including FELT (a finite-element analysis
tool), Spice (a circuit design and analysis tool), and Khoros (an image/digital signal
processing and visualization system). Many popular numerical computing libraries have been
ported to Linux, including the LAPACK linear algebra library. There is also a Linuxoptimized version of the BLAS code upon which LAPACK depends.
Linux is one of the most popular platforms for parallel computing using clusters, which are
collections of inexpensive machines usually connected with a fast (gigabit-per-second or
faster) network. The NASA Beowulf project first popularized the idea of tying a large number
of Linux-based PCs into a massive supercomputer for scientific and numerical computing.
Today, Linux-based clusters are the rule, rather than the exception, for many scientific
applications. In fact, Linux clusters are finding their way into increasingly diverse
applications — for example, the Google search engine uses a cluster of 4,000 Linux
machines!
As with any operating system, Linux has its share of games. A number of popular commercial
games have been released for Linux, including Quake, Quake II, Quake III Arena, Doom,
SimCity 3000, Descent, and more. Most of the popular games support play over the Internet
or a local network, and clones of other commercial games are popping up for Linux. There are
also classic text-based dungeon games such as Nethack and Moria; MUDs (multiuser
dungeons, which allow many users to interact in a text-based adventure) such as DikuMUD
and TinyMUD; and a slew of free graphical games, such as xtetris, netrek, and Xboard
(the X11 frontend to gnuchess).
For audiophiles, Linux has support for a wide range of sound hardware and related software,
such as CDplayer (a program that can control a CD-ROM drive as a conventional CD player,
surprisingly enough), MIDI sequencers and editors (allowing you to compose music for
playback through a synthesizer or other MIDI-controlled instrument), and sound editors for
digitized sounds.
Can't find the application you're looking for? A number of web sites provide comprehensive
directories of Linux applications. A few of the most popular Linux software directories are
Freshmeat (http://www.freshmeat.net), Icewalkers (http://www.icewalkers.com), and Linux
on Dave Central (http://linux.davecentral.com/). While these directories are far from
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