Basic Linux Interview Questions

1. How does UNIX differ from LINUX?

UNIX is intended as a proprietary operating system while LINUX is a non-proprietary operating system. UNIX has spawned into multiple commercial versions whereas LINUX is open source and free and directed at masses.

2. What does BASH imply?

BASH or Bourne Again SHell is a default shell for almost all the systems which run on LINUX.

3. What does Linux Kernel mean?

Linux Kernel is a systems software of low-level which has been designated the role of managing hardware resources for the system user. It is also used for offering a user-level interaction interface.

4. How can open source be advantageous?

Distribution of the software along with source codes is made possible through open source. Through this, a user can add features and any kind of error in the source code can be debugged and rectified. This way, it makes the source code run better and allows the redistribution of the improved source code as well. In a way, this benefits the community in a great way.

5. Can you name Linux’s basic components?

This is a one of the most important linux interview questions. GUIs and Shells, Kernel, an application program, and system utilities are the basic components of Linux.

6. Can you explain what Swap Space is?

The space used by Linux to hold the concurrently running programs temporarily is referred to as swap space. This space is used when the RAM does not have sufficient memory to hold the programs which are being executed.

7. Why is GNU project important?

This software movement has several advantages. One of them is that it gives the freedom to run a program for any individual purpose. It also allows program modification as per need. You would get the freedom to enhance software and release it for public use. Through this, you can also redistribute the software copies to anybody else.

8. Describe what root account is?

A root account is similar to the administrator account of a system through which you would gain full system control. Here, you can create a new user account or maintain an existing user account and also specify the actions which each account is permitted. Basically, a root account is the default account present whenever Linux is installed.

9. Can you find out how much system memory is being used by Linux? If yes, how?

Use the command “concatenate” from a command shell as given below.

cat/proc/meminfo

You can get the memory usage information from here.

The result would be a line starting with something similar to Mem: 64653545, etc.

This result would be the amount of memory Linux has for use.

The following linux commands can be used for finding out the current memory usage.

free - m

vmstat

top

htop

10. Can you describe what hard links are?

Rather than specifying the pathname of a file, a hard link would point directly to the disk’s physical file. This means that, even if you move or rename the original file, this link would not break as the link is for this file and not for the path where the file is stored or located.

For More Info :- rsync examples