What is Linux?

Tux, the Mascot of Linux

What Is Linux?







What is it?
Linux is a free, open-source operating system modeled after Unix.  It is fast, powerful, highly customizable, and very secure.


What is an Operating System?
If we pretend your computer is a city, then the operating system is like the government.  It keeps the roads open, polices bad behavior, provides basic services like water and sewer, and handles allocation of resources.  The operating system is the software that sits between your computer and all of the programs you run.

The operating system that most people use is Windows.   Linux is like Windows in many ways.  It's easy to use, pretty, and has a nice graphical user interface.  Unlike Windows, it's free.

It's free in two ways.  First, you don't have to buy a copy of Linux, just download it from the Internet.  Second, unlike Windows, you can dig as deeply into the operating system as you want.  All details and even the programming source code is freely available.  If you are so inclined, you can go in and make changes to it to suite you.

If It's Free, It Can't Be Good
The phrase "you get what you pay for" doesn't apply to Linux.  It is estimated that it would over a billion U.S.dollars to remake Linux.  Thousands of professional programmers work on software for Linux.  Why do they do this?

Some companies use Open Source software, and pay their programmers to make it better. Some people do it to create a reputation to further their career (being a project manager for a large Open Source project looks really good on a resume.)  Some do it for philosophical grounds.  Some do it to meet a need they have, personally, and some do it because they think it's fun.

Regardless of why they do it, they do it.  And all of their work is open to anyone to look at.  Since hundreds of pairs of eyes are looking at the submitted computer code, bugs tend to get squashed rather quickly.  When a flaw is detected, programmers jump on it like a starving dog on a turkey leg.  It gets fixed and fixed fast.
 
Trust me when I say that Linux is at least as good as any commercial operating system.

Where Did it Come From?
The story of Linux is a long one.  It is modeled after Unix, an operating system designed by Bell Labs in the sixties.  Unix was made for mainframe computers, and was designed with speed, security and stability in mind.

In 1983, Richard Stallman started the GNU project.  His goal was to create a free Unix-like operating system.

In 1991, a college student in Helsinki Finland named Linus Torvalds created the Linux kernel as a hobby.  He wanted to make a version of Unix that he could run on his home computer.


Wikipedia explains how the two projects were merged.

The Linux kernel, started independently by Linus Torvalds in 1991, filled the last gap, and Linux version 0.12 was released under the GPLin 1992. Together, Linux and GNU formed the first completely free-software operating system. Though the Linux kernel is not part of the GNU project, it was developed using GCC and other GNU programming tools. Wikipedia

Some interesting facts about Linux

• 91.4% of super computers run Linux (none for Windows)
• Nearly 60% of all servers run Linux (Windows is only 30%)
• Only 40 known virus exist for Linux (Windows has over 60,000)
• When you install most distributions of Linux, you get not only the operating system, but office suites, graphic programs, games, media players, programming languages, and tons of other software all for free.  With Windows, you have to buy almost all the software you use.

* Creative Commons Image by Larry Ewing, Simon Budig, Anja Gerwinski