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An Introduction to Linux: Overview
Meet Tux, the Linux penguin
Tux, the Linux penguin
Source: Wikipedia

Linux is a very powerful operating system that includes a multitude of tools for programmers and system administrators. It is heavily used in the academic and scientific communities because it is so versatile, and includes over 40 years scientific tools development. It is a powerful, robust, stable, and flexible system that allows programmers to tailor the system to run on a variety of hardware from phones to supercomputers.

This tutorial is intended for the beginning Linux user, and should help you get acquainted with some basic principles of the Linux operating system. There is also a wealth of free information about Linux available online and in several books, so this will not be a comprehensive tutorial, but rather a starting point to help you begin using Linux comfortably. The types of features covered are intended to be useful to workflows within the scientific community that is utilizing XSEDE resources that run Linux. However, it may also be useful to other beginning Linux or Unix users in the academic or scientific communities and beyond.

Peter Vaillancourt, Rich Knepper, and Adam Brazier
Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing
Revisions: 11/2019, 10/2017, 9/2014