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THE RISE OF LINUX.
In 1991, a student of University of Helsinki studying in computer science was writing program specifically for the hardware he was using and independent of an operating system because he wanted to use the functions of his new PC with an 80386 processor.The development was done on MINIX using the GNU C Compiler.
Later this program known by “Linux kernal”.
Wait!! you must be thinking now what is kernal.
Kernal means a part of program which interacts with the hardware part and runs the operating system.In simple word a program which talks with hardware of computer is called as Kernal. Kernal is called as heart of operating system in computer science world.
let’s explore more about Linux.
HOW IS LINUX DEVELOPED?
The best thing about Linux is no one owns Linux. Unlike other operating systems like Microsoft’s Windows or Apple’s Mac and iOS. It doesn’t belong any big company. It is open source. Anyone can you Linux under GPU licence. It is the community that develops Linux that power Linux.
Linux has huge community of more than 10000 developers and 1000 companies , helping it to move towards the future.
HOW LINUX IS MAINTAIN ??
A new kernel comes out every 2-3 months. This sort of speed is achieved by employing a unique collaborative developing technique. This technique has made Linux as the biggest collaborative development product.
Here is a short video which helps you visualise this approach in depth. HOW LINUX IS MAINTAIN
DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS OPENSOURCE ?
wiki defination :
The copy-right holder provides right to study, change and distribute the software to anyone for any purpose.Opensource
softwares are developed in public, in collaborative manner.
I think it might get difficult to understand at first go.
Let me explain you what is open source.
Take a example of Linux operating sysytem. Many people says Linux is opensource so you might be wondering what is opensource.
Opensource means the code writtten for Linux operating system is easyly available for all. Here the source is (Linux code), It mean you can download that source code. Make a change into it, Add more functionalities according to your ideas and use the operating system the way you want.
The important thing is it’s free. no one will charge you for this. :)
Isn’t it cool??
I hope you understand the concept of open source
There are huge number of opensource softwares available on internet. Here I am lising few of them :
Now let’s see What’s the difference between open source software and other types of software?
Some software has source code that only the person, team, or organization who created it—and maintains exclusive control over it—can modify. People call this kind of software “proprietary” or “closed source” software.
Open source software is different. Its authors make its source code available to others who would like to view that code, copy it, learn from it, alter it, or share it.
There are different flavours / types of Linux operating systems. have a look at different kind of flavours of Linux.
Different Linux Distributions (Distos)
Ubuntu :
It came into existence in 2004 by Canonical and quickly became popular.
Canonical wants Ubuntu to be used as easy graphical Linux desktop without the use of command line.
It is the most well known Linux distribution. Ubuntu is a next version of Debian and easy to use for newbies.
It comes with a lots of pre-installed apps and easy to use repositories libraries.
Earlier, Ubuntu uses GNOME2 desktop environment but now it has developed its own unity desktop environment.
It releases every six months and currently working to expand to run on tablets and smartphones.
RedHat Enterprise / CentOS
Red hat is a commercial Linux distributor.
There products are red hat enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Fedora which are freely available.
RHEL is well tested before release and supported till seven years after the release, whereas, fedora provides faster update and without any support.
Red hat uses trademark law to prevent their software from being redistributed.
CentOS is a community project that uses red hat enterprise Linux code but removes all its trademark and make it freely available.
In other words, it is a free version of RHEL and provide a stable platform for a long time.
Fedora
It is a project that mainly focuses on free software and provides latest version of software.
It doesn't make its own desktop environment but used 'upstream' software. By default it has GNOME3 desktop environment.
It is less stable but provides the latest stuff.
Debian
Debian has its existence since 1993 and releases its versions much slowly then Ubuntu and mint.
This makes it one of the most stable Linux distributor.
Ubuntu is based on Debian and was founded to improve the core bits of Debian more quickly and make it more user friendly.
Every release name of Debian is based on the name of the movie Toy Story.
SUSE
SuSE Linux is a leading, professional-class OS that is popular both for enterprise and home computing use;
SuSE Linux Professional includes more than 1,000 leading open-source applications and is available in enterprise and desktop versions.
The purchase price varies with the version and the number of installations.
More list of linux flavours
- Slackware
- Knoppix
- Gentoo
- Arch
- Alpine
- Oracle
- Android
I hope you get the basic idea of Linux.