Linux/Introduction
There was a time when people were suffering to make a application run on every Computer. Every individual hardware manufacturer used to have a separate Operating System.
In 1973 a new Operating System named Unix was introduced publicly. It was written in Assembly Language by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson .
Later it was re-written in C Programming Language, which is a High-level programming language, which pushed away the problem of Software portability.
Unix was an Open-Source Software, which was later taken over by AT&T Company. Due to some legal Implications later there was a free version of Unix named as FreeBSD but by then most Open-Source developers scattered away from Unix.
Open-Source means that program code of that particular software which is Open Sourced is available for everyone to read it.
Some Licenses were made so that no one could copy these Open-Sourced projects and claim them as their own.
In 1991, Linus Torvalds, created the Linux kernel, just for his personal use and fun. After getting some appreciation and others' help, he was excited about its growing acceptance and decided to take his creation as far as he could. In a rare Ted Hour interview, he admitted that he did not initially realize how much the collaborative efforts (eventually) of thousands of people across the Globe would be in developing the LINUX concept.
The Linux Kernel was licensed under a GPL.
The GPL License was made by Richard Stallman, founder of GNU (Free Software Foundation), also called as Free Open-Source Software (FOSS).
A foundation named as GNU (Often stated as, GNU is Not Unix), has all Open-Sourced libraries and programs, but doesn't have a kernel to run them. Then, with the combination of these, (both GNU and Linux), now a complete Operating System can be made.
There are many Operating System's which are based on the Linux Kernel with several GNU Programs included, these Operating Systems are called as Distributions.
Some of the better-known distributions are Debian, Ubuntu, Arch-Linux, Fedora, Android, Chrome-OS.... There are also several Desktop Environments (i.e., the way your Desktop Looks [Appearance]) as well, these include KDE, Gnome, XFCE, LXDE, Awesome...
The greatness of Linux comes with it being Open-Sourced and the freedom for many developers all around the world who contribute to the Linux kernel to modify it and several other Linux based Operating Systems.
Linux has many advanced features a user needs, but it does not have the market saturation of Microsoft Windows or Macintosh. Most Desktop Computers or Laptops come pre-installed with one of these. Some people consider it hard to use because it required some coding skills, but now Linux compatible Desktop Environments are good enough that the user doesn't need any Programming skills to use a Linux-based Operating System.
Most people consider Linux as an Operating System, but Linux means Kernel.
The kernel is the main component of an Operating System and is necessary to run it. The kernel takes care of memory allocation and several other things related to hardware. You can consider it as a communicator, which communicates with hardware. It is responsible for almost all of the advanced tasks which are related to the computer or a device.
Linux is also famous for its security; where you would normally get your security updates within hours or so, if any problems were found.
Updates are not normally pushed to people without prior notification; updates are only downloaded and installed only with user's permission.
It is well known for its multi-user support amongst other features.
There were several popular devices which were based on the Linux Kernel, some of them are:
- Android
- Routers
- Tesla Cars
- sSmart Televisions
- Satellites (Some Part of them)
- 97% of Servers
- Top 10 Super Computers and many more
Do you find any reason not to learn about Linux?
The world runs on Linux and it will do so in the future.