Overview

Question 1

Source code availability of Linux vs Windows

Answer 1

Linux is Open Source Software, Windows is proprietary closed source

Question 2

Cost of Linux vs Windows

Answer 2

Linux is free (RHEL support is not free but OS is), Windows is licensed per installation

Question 3

User interface of Linux vs Windows

Answer 3

Linux is customisable (GNOME/KDE/XFCE), Windows has a standard GUI that ships with the OS

Question 4

Software management on Linux vs Windows

Answer 4

Linux uses package managers (APT/YUM/Pacman) which handle dependencies, Windows users standalone executables (.exe/.msi) which often won’t install dependencies

Question 5

Security of Linux vs Windows

Answer 5

Linux OSS model makes it generally more secure than Windows. Windows has strong tools e.g. Windows Defender but has many known and undiscovered vulnerabilities

Question 6

File systems of Linux vs Windows

Answer 6

Linux uses EXT2/3/4, Btrfs/XFS/ZFS (hierarchical, everything is a file), Windows uses NTFS/exFAT/FAT32 (uses drive letters for file system separation)

Question 7

What is Ubuntu?

Answer 7

User friendly distro for everyday computing and servers, based on Debian and owned by Canonical

Question 8

What is Fedora?

Answer 8

Distro know for cutting edge features, Workstation for desktops and Server for servers, owned by Red Hat

Question 9

What is Debian?

Answer 9

Known for it’s stability it is the foundation for many other distros

Question 10

What is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?

Answer 10

Corporate level Linux distro provided by Red Hat, provides enterprise features, paid support, and strong stability

Question 11

What is CentOS?

Answer 11

Free and open source clone of RHEL, owned by Red Hat

Question 12

What is Arch?

Answer 12

Highly customisable distro focused on allowing the user to build and configure the system from the bare Linux essentials

Question 13

What is Manjaro?

Answer 13

A wrapper distro for Arch to make it easier to manage configuration

Question 14

What is OpenSUSE?

Answer 14

Distro that provides Linux build and test tools, used by sysadmins, devs, and desktop users. 2 versions are Tumbleweed (rolling release) and Leap (stable release)

Question 15

What is Mint?

Answer 15

User friendly desktop distro with a strong focus of media drivers for video/audio/gaming experiences

Question 16

What is Gentoo?

Answer 16

Source-based distro where users compile their software from source code. Optimised specifically for the hardware it’s running on

Question 17

What is Slakware?

Answer 17

One of the oldest distros known for it’s simplicity and minimalism

Question 18

What is Alpine?

Answer 18

Very secure and lightweight distro known for it’s resource efficiency and optimisations making it ideal for containerised applications

Question 19

What is Kali?

Answer 19

Distro designed for digital forensics and penetration testing. Loaded with security tools and based on Debian

Question 20

What was the clone model for RHEL/CentOS pre Feb 2021?

Answer 20

Fedora -> RHEL -> CentOS

Question 21

What was the clone model for RHEL/CentOS post Feb 2021?

Answer 21

Fedora -> CentOS Stream -> RHEL

Question 22

Why is CentOS know as as an upstream OS?

Answer 22

Features are pulled from CentOS Stream down to RHEL, currently on CentOS 9 but started with CentOS 8

Question 23

What is the name of the Linux super-user account?

Answer 23

Root

Question 24

Is the Linux file system case-sensitive?

Answer 24

Yes. File ‘abc’ is not the same as file ‘ABC’

Question 25

Are spaces appropriate in file and directory names?

Answer 25

No. Hyphens/dashes/underscores are preferred

Question 26

How to list file/directories in chronological order

Answer 26

ls -ltr (oldest to newest) ls -lt (newest to oldest)

Question 27

How can you install the ‘locate’ command?

Answer 27

Install package ‘mlocate’ and run ‘updatedb’ to update the file system index