• A clone of Unix
• Developed in 1991 by Linus Torvalds, a Finnish graduate student
• Inspired by and replacement of Minix
• Linus' Minix became Linux
• Consist of
  • Linux Kernel
  • GNU (GNU is Not Unix) Software
  • Software Package management
  • Others
• Originally developed for 32-bit x86-based PC
• Ported to other architectures, eg.
  • Alpha, VAX, PowerPC, IBM S/390, MIPS, IA-64
  • PS2, TiVo, cellphones, watches, Nokia N810, NDS, routers, NAS, GPS, …

Linux uses many tools developed as part of Berkeley’s BSD operating system, MIT’s X Window System, and the Free Software Foundation's GNU project. The main system libraries were started by the GNU project, with improvements provided by the Linux community. Linux networking-administration tools were derived from 4.3BSD code; recent BSD derivatives such as Free BSD have borrowed code from Linux in return. The Linux system is maintained by a loose network of developers collaborating over the Internet, with a small number of public ftp sites acting as de facto standard repositories

File System Hierarchy Standard document maintained by the Linux community to ensure compatibility across the various system components

• Specifies overall layout of a standard Linux file system, determines under which directory names configuration files, libraries, system binaries, and run-time data files should be stored

 

Which Linux Distribution is better?

• More the 300 Linux Distributions available worldwide
• Slackware (one of the oldest, simple and stable distro.)
• Redhat
  • RHEL (commercially support)
  • Fedora (free)
• CentOS (free RHEL, based in England)
• SuSe ( based in German)
• Gentoo (Source code based)
• Debian (one of the few called GNU/Linux)
• Ubuntu (based in South Africa)
• Knoppix (first LiveCD distro.)
• and more ...

Before selecting to youse any linux disto, Ask yourself these questions

1. Is it going to be around in 5 yrs?
2. Is it giong to stay on top of the latest security patches?
3. Is it going to release updated software promptly?
4. If I have problems, will the vendor talk to me?

 

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