give it all away. The answers are as varied as the people who contribute.
Many believe in sharing information and having the freedom to cooperate with one another, and they feel that free software encourages this. A long tradition that upholds these values, sometimes called the Hacker1.2 Ethic, started in the 1950s. The Debian GNU/Linux Project was founded based on these Free Software ethics of freedom, sharing, and cooperation.
Others want to learn more about computers. More and more people are looking for ways to avoid the inflated price of proprietary software. A growing community contributes in appreciation for all the great free software they've received from others.
Many in academia create free software to help get the results of their research into wider use. Businesses help maintain free software so they can have a say in how it develops - there's no quicker way to get a new feature than to implement it yourself or hire a consultant to do so! Business is also interested in greater reliability and the ability to choose between support vendors.
Still others see free software as a social good, democratizing access to information and preventing excessive centralization of the world's information infrastructure. Of course, a lot of us just find it great fun.
Debian is so committed to free software that we thought it would be useful if it was formalized in a document of some sort. Our Social Contract promises that Debian will always be 100% free software. When you install a package from the Debian main distribution, you can be sure it meets our Free Software Guidelines.
Although Debian believes in free software, there are cases where people want to put proprietary software on their machine. Whenever possible Debian will support this; though proprietary software is not included in the main distribution, it is sometimes available on the FTP site in the non-free directory, and there is a growing number of packages whose sole job is to install proprietary software we are not allowed to distribute ourselves.
It is important to distinguish commercial software from proprietary software. Proprietary software is non-free software; commercial software is software sold for money. Debian permits commercial software, but not proprietary software, to be a part of the main distribution. Remember that the phrase ``free software'' does not refer to price; it is quite possible to sell free software. For more clarification of the terminology, see http://www.opensource.org/or http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/categories.html.
About This Book
This book is aimed at readers who are new to Debian GNU/Linux. It assumes no prior knowledge of GNU/Linux or other Unix-like systems, but it does assume very basic general knowledge about computers and hardware; you should know what the basic parts of a computer are, and what one might use a computer to do.
In general, this tutorial tries to help you understand what happens inside a Debian system. The idea is to empower you to solve new problems and get the most out of your computer. Thus there's plenty of theory and fun facts thrown in with the ``How To'' aspects of the manual.
We'd love to hear your comments about this book! You can reach the authors at
[email protected]. We're especially interested in whether it was helpful to you and how we could make it better. Whether you have a comment or think this book is the greatest thing since sliced bread, please send us e-mail.
Please do not send the authors technical questions about Debian, because there are other forums for that; see Appendix A on page [*] for more information on the documentation and getting help. Only send mail regarding the book itself to the above address.
How to Read This Book
The best way to learn about almost any computer program is by using it. Most people find that reading a book without using the program isn't beneficial. The best way to learn about Unix and GNU/Linux is by using them. Use GNU/Linux for everything you can. Feel free to experiment!
Debian isn't as intuitively obvious as some other operating systems. You will probably end up reading at least the first few chapters of this book. GNU/Linux's power and complexity make it difficult to approach at first, but far more rewarding in the long run.
The suggested way to learn is to read a little, and then play a little. Keep playing until you're comfortable with the concepts, and then start skipping around in the book. You'll find a variety of topics are covered, some of which you might find interesting. After a while, you should feel confident enough to start using commands without knowing exactly what they do. This is a good thing.
Tip: If you ever mistakenly type a command or don't know how to exit a program, press CTRL-c (the Ctrl key and the lowercase letter c pressed simultaneously). This will often stop the program.
Conventions
Before going on, it's important to be familiar with
Continue reading on your phone by scaning this QR Code
