Linux® Bible 2009 Edition: Boot up Ubuntu®, Fedora®, KNOPPIX, Debian®, SUSE®, and 13 Other Distributions

Chapter 2. Linux Projects, Activities, and Careers

IN THIS CHAPTER

• What you can do with Linux

• What you can make with Linux

• How you can become involved with Linux

The primary objective of this book is to lead you through the most popular ways of using Linux as a desktop, server, or programmer's workstation. Once you become comfortable using Linux, however, you'll begin to see that these uses are just the tip of the iceberg.

Remember that you can modify, rebuild, and reuse free and open source software as you please. This means that you can piece together the projects you like to build the Linux system you want. You could even modify it to run on different types of hardware. To those ends, you can join together with others of like mind to produce software that might be too ambitious to build by yourself.

So, before we head full-speed into the how-to portions of the book, this chapter sets out to spark your imagination and open your eyes to:

• What you can make with Linux — With free software and a spare PC you can make stand-alone gadgets, such as a music jukebox, game console, telephone answering machine, or home network server. NASA straps Linux on its moon rovers to guide their movements. Some schools use the Linux Terminal Server Project to drive hundreds of old or cheap PCs from a single server. What sort of projects can you come up with?

• How you can get involved with Linux — For many Linux enthusiasts, Linux is more than just their computer system. It is what they believe in. It is what ...