What is linux?
Linux is an open source operating system for computers. It was created in the early 90s by Linus Torvalds when he became dissatisfied with the way Minix was going (another operating system). He began his work in 1991 when he released version 0.02 and worked steadily until 1994 when version 1.0 of the Linux Kernel was released. The Linux kernel is the heart of all linux systems, its developed under GNU (General Public License) so it is freely available to everyone.
From the kernel alone, it has now developed more programs written for it to suit most occasions. In fact, because it is open source, most of the programs written for it are also, which makes them free :).
Linux is primarily used on servers currently however there has been a big swing in recent years towards desktop users using linux. Linux supports most hardware these days, and being open source means if it doesn’t, somebody will write the code to do so, or write a tutorial somewhere online telling you how to get it going.
Last-Modified: 2007-03-07 19:38:50