You may have previous experience with MS-DOS or other
single user operating systems, such as OS/2 or the
Macintosh. In these operating systems, you didn't
have to identify yourself to the computer before using it; it was
assumed that you were the only user of the system and could access
everything. Well, Unix
is a multi-user operating system---not only
can more than one person use it at a time, different people are
treated differently.
To tell people apart, Unix
needs a user to identify him or
herself by a process called logging
in. You see, when you first turn on the computer,
several things happen. Since this guide is geared towards ,
I'll tell you what happens during the boot-up
sequence.boot-up
Please note that if you're using on some type of computer
besides an Intel PC, some things in this chapter won't
apply to you. Mostly, they'll be in Section and
Section
. (Some parts of Section
will
pertain.)