Specifications

University of Hertfordshire
11
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Buffer cache: a memory area reserved to buffer inputs and outputs from different processes,
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Demand paging memory management: a page is not loaded unless it is needed in memory,
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Dynamic and share libraries: dynamic libraries are only loaded when they are needed and
their code is shared if several applications are using them,
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File systems which can equally well manage Linux file partitions used by filesystems such
as Ext2 as partitions having other formats(MS-DOS, ISO9660 etc.),
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Linux support TCP/IP and other network protocols. (Card, Dumas & Mevel, 1997)
3.1.3 Linux Pros and Cons
Linux Pros
There are a lot of the advantages of Linux, most of advantages deeply rooted in UNIX, except for
the first advantage, of course:
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Linux is free:
Linux is a free Operating System, which can be downloaded in its entirety from the Internet
completely for free, so you can spend nothing, even the price of a CD. No registration fees, no costs
per user, free updates, and freely available source code, if you want to change the behavior of your
system.
The license commonly used is the GNU Public License (GPL). The license says that anybody who
may want to do so, has the right to change Linux and eventually to redistribute a changed version,
on the one condition that the code is still available after redistribution. (GNU GENERAL PUBLIC
LICENSE, 1991)
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Linux is portable to any hardware platform:
A vendor who wants to sell a new type of computer and who doesn't know what kind of OS his new
machine will run (say the CPU in your car or washing machine), can take a Linux kernel and make
it work on his hardware, because documentation related to this activity is freely available.
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Linux was made to keep on running:
As with UNIX, a Linux system expects to run without rebooting all the time. This property allows
for Linux to be applicable also in environments where people don't have the time or the possibility
to control their systems night and day.