- A clone of Unix
- Developed in 1991 by Linus Torvalds, a Finnish graduate student
- Inspired by and replacement of Minix
- Linus' Minix became Linux
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Consist of
- Linux Kernel
- GNU (GNU is Not Unix) Software
- Software Package management
- Others
- Originally developed for 32-bit x86-based PC
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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.)
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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
- Is it going to be around in 5 yrs?
- Is it giong to stay on top of the latest security patches?
- Is it going to release updated software promptly?
- If I have problems, will the vendor talk to me?