You can download a copy of Fedora from http://fedora.redhat.com.
Because of this, most of the screenshots you will see in this book will be from
OpenSUSE. Anywhere that there??™s a significant difference between OpenSUSE
and other distributions, I??™ll make a note of it in the text.
Let??™s now discuss the varied roles a Linux system can fill in your computer
network.
Common Linux Roles
Because Linux is distributed under the GPL, software vendors have been able to
tweak and customize the operating system to operate in a variety of roles. While
the number of these roles is virtually limitless, for your Linux+ exam you need to be
familiar with the following roles:
Describe the Background and History of Linux 11
?– Linux on the desktop
?– Linux as a server
?– Linux as a firewall
Let??™s begin by discussing Linux on the desktop.
Linux on the Desktop
Linux can be optimized to function extremely well on the desktop. However, Linux
has been somewhat slow to make inroads into this market. There are two important
reasons for this.
First, there has been a historical lack of desktop productivity applications
available for Linux. Users need word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation
software on their desktops to do their day-to-day work.
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