• 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?