Question 1: Which of the following companies has never offered its own branded version of Linux?
Correct Answer: IBM
Even SCO briefly offered its own Linux product. Big Blue, despite being an enthusiastic Linux backer, has always partnered with other distributors instead of packaging its own version of the OS.
Question 2: What is one reason why you might want to install the GRUB boot loader instead of LILO?
Correct Answer: You want to boot from a network
LILO supports a wide variety of boot configurations, but you'll need the more modern GRUB if you want to boot from a network.
Question 3: Which of the following software packages will not help you to run Windows software on a Linux system?
Correct Answer: Samba
While Samba emulates Microsoft's SMB networking protocol, it only lets Linux systems connect to Windows servers. It won't actually help you run Windows software.
Question 4: What is a "shebang"?
Correct Answer: A unique sequence of characters that indicates the start of a shell script
Short for "shell bang," shebang is a hash or pound sign (#) followed by an exclamation mark (!), known in Unix parlance as a "bang."
Question 5: Which of the following Linux distributions is least like the others?
Correct Answer: Novell Suse Linux Enterprise
CentOS, Fedora, and Oracle all base their Linux distributions on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux source code base. Suse follows its own path.
Question 6: Which of the following versions of the Linux kernel is likely to be the most stable on supported hardware?
Correct Answer: 2.4
In the past, odd-numbered kernels were development releases and were therefore considered unstable; kernel Version 2.7 doesn't even exist yet. Version 2.4 is the only stable production release on the list.
Question 7: What distinguishes the Gentoo Linux installation procedure from that of most other distributions?
Correct Answer: It builds most of the system from source code.
A comprehensive Gentoo system can take a long time to install because it builds custom versions of the software from your own specifications.
Question 8: Which of the following companies has not released open source Linux drivers for its graphics hardware?
Correct Answer: Nvidia
Although most of the competition has released open source drivers for at least some of their graphics chips, Nvidia has remained a staunch holdout.
Question 9: What is SELinux?
Correct Answer: A set of kernel modifications developed by the National Security Agency
If you need a hardened OS, SELinux offers security that's good enough for the U.S. government.
Question 10: Which of the following source code version control systems will you need to use if you want to contribute code to the Linux kernel?
Correct Answer: Git
Linus Torvalds created git for Linux kernel development after key contributors objected to BitKeeper's license terms.
Question 11: The current Linux kernel source tree includes approximately how many lines of C++ code?
Correct Answer: Fewer than 500,000
Besides the fact that Linux was started before good free C++ compilers were available, Linus Torvalds is no fan of C++. Standard C and assembly language make up 99.71 percent of the kernel.
Question 12: Who among the following has never contributed any source code to the Linux kernel?
Correct Answer: Richard M. Stallman
Stallman thinks the name should be GNU/Linux, because the kernel doesn't function as an OS without supporting code developed by the Free Software Foundation. But Stallman has never actually written code for the kernel itself.
Question 13: If you needed to work primarily with very large multimedia files, which of the following file systems would offer the best performance?
Correct Answer: XFS
Originally developed by Silicon Graphics, XFS offers smooth data transfer and handles large files very efficiently, either of which would be a boon to multimedia production.
Question 14: Of the following, which is the most widely used GUI windowing system among major enterprise Linux distributions?
Correct Answer: X.org
Trick question! Of the software projects listed, only X.org is a windowing system. The others are desktop environments that run on top of X.org.
Question 15: What is the main benefit of the noatime mount option for Linux file systems?
Correct Answer: It improves performance by reducing the frequency of disk writes
Normally, Linux will update the time stamp on a file every time it is accessed. With the noatimeoption, the kernel will update files only when their contents are changed.
Question 16: Which of the following virtualization technologies allows Windows virtual machines to run on a Linux system?
Correct Answer: Xen
Most of the virtualization software listed can only launch other instances of Linux. Xen can support Windows virtual machines also, provided your processor supports Intel VT or AMD-V technology.
Question 17: In Linux parlance, what is a "binary blob"?
Correct Answer: A driver that is loaded into the kernel as a binary object, for which no source code is available
The Linux community is divided over the practice of running closed source code as part of the Linux kernel, but when hardware vendors refuse to release their specifications, it's often the only option.
Question 18: Of the following Linux distributions, which does not use RPM as its primary software distribution package format?
Correct Answer: Ubuntu
Ubuntu has its roots in Debian, which has its own package format. The rest all use the format invented by Red Hat.
Question 19: Which of the following companies is among the top 10 corporate contributors to the Linux kernel, according to the Linux Foundation?
Correct Answer: Intel
All of the companies named have contributed a significant amount of code to the kernel. But of the four, Intel tops the list, having been responsible for about 4 percent of recent code changes.
Question 20: Who is Larry Ewing?
Correct Answer: The creator of "Tux the penguin," the official Linux mascot
Ewing drew the affable avian with the first version of the GIMP, back in 1996.
