Linux is a free operating system that has it's roots in the UNIX operating system. A Finnish student by the name of Linus Torvalds planted the seed of this Operating System by writing the “kernel” or the HEART of the operating system. This system was shared with his friends and other computer programmers on a collaborative level who worked on it and enhanced it. Nobody has looked back since then.
The phenomenal growth of this Operating System is primarily because of two reasons.
a) The availability of the source code for everyone made it everyone to work on it and contribute to the system. This is very distinct from the industry practice where the source code is the most closely guarded secret.
b) The growth of the Internet allowed developers from around the world to contribute to the enhancement and sophistication of the system.
The open source nature of development allows users to share their skills and knowledge with everyone who would care to.
Along with Linux, which is essentially a free software, a number of software applications, mostly in the free space, are available to work on the Linux platforms. Linux was the ideal choice between the popular but consumer level MSDOS and Windows operating system promoted by Microsoft Corporation and UNIX, an extremely stable, high performance, but high end system geared towards industry use.
History:
UNIX, a product of Bell Labs, AT&T found commercial success in the early 1980s. To create a level playing field amongst major computer hardware vendors that licensed the UNIX source code, AT&T came out with a standard specification list that hardware vendors could use to make their systems UNIX compliant. These were the POSIX standards and the UNIX System V Interface Definition (SVID) that also served as the road map for the creation of Linux. The UNIX source code distributed to universities evolved into versions such as BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution), FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD. Linux is also called a UNIX like operating system that is a combination of SVID, POSIX and BSD compliance.
Advantages of Linux:
a) Reliability: Linux is comparable to many commercial UNIX systems but much more reliable than most desktop oriented operating system.
b) Price: Freely and easily available, Linux has come into the mainstream as it can run on the desktop grade hardware targeted towards the SOHO users.
- Online help with an ever enthusiastic bunch of Linux users, developers and supporters means that you can find solutions to your problems in a much shorter turn around time than that available with Commercial software vendors.
- Other fundamental advantages of the UNIX system such as Multiuser, Multitasking environment and stability.
e) Linux runs of a wide range of Hardware such as PCs, Alphas, SPARC, Strong Arm Processors, and from Palm Pilots to Super computers.
f) Availability of free and open source software applications to help you achieve diverse goals from Word processing to programming to Image editing makes the Linux Operating system with a very low TCO or Total Cost of Ownership.
g) Interoperability with many other type of computer systems are a big advantage.
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