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1 What Is Linux

Linux is a kernel that serves as the core of an operating system, enabling user applications to communicate with hardware. It originated from Linus Torvalds' modifications to Minix in 1991 and is often used in conjunction with the GNU project to form GNU/Linux, which is open source and licensed under the GPL. Compared to Windows, Linux is free, highly secure, supports multiple user interfaces, and allows for multiuser multitasking without system halts, making it a preferred choice for engineers and network servers.

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8 views4 pages

1 What Is Linux

Linux is a kernel that serves as the core of an operating system, enabling user applications to communicate with hardware. It originated from Linus Torvalds' modifications to Minix in 1991 and is often used in conjunction with the GNU project to form GNU/Linux, which is open source and licensed under the GPL. Compared to Windows, Linux is free, highly secure, supports multiple user interfaces, and allows for multiuser multitasking without system halts, making it a preferred choice for engineers and network servers.

Uploaded by

mhmdfoad66
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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What is Linux?

Most people think that Linux is an OS, but it is actually not. Linux itself doesn’t form an OS. Linux
is nothing but a Kernel.

Kernel is a large code of millions of lines, which forms the core of any operating system. It can be
considered as a resource manager of an operating system. User applications can communicate
with the hardware only through the kernel. It is the kernel which keeps the OS up and running.

Linux kernel based operating systems are called Linux OS, like redhat, Linux mint, Ubuntu,
centos etc.

History of Linux
UNIX is considered as the very first operating system of all its characteristics. Before UNIX there
was no operating system concept. UNIX was developed by the employees of AT&T Bell
Laboratories) in 1969

UNIX was not a free OS; also the OS was not available for common users. Actually at that time
there was no personal computer concept. So the operating system was mainly used in mainframe
computers and for research purposes.

There was a research student’s version of UNIX called Minix released in the year 1987. The
source code of the Minix was available, but modifications were not allowed.

Linus Torvalds from the University of Helsinki was doing a personal project in which he tried to
modify the kernel of Minix and develop a new one of his own. He was using Minix since his
school days. He posted on the internet that he is trying to develop the kernel for a new operating
system. So many brains around globe respond to this and contribute their code. Linus Torvalds
coordinate all these and formed Linux kernel in the year 1991.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) started by Richard Stallman in the year 1983, was running a
project called GNU (Gnu Not Unix). They had the entire user interface ready, but their kernel was
a complete failure. They used the Linux kernel developed by Linus Torvalds for their GNU project
and formed GNU/Linux.

FSF licensed the operating system GNU/Linux under GPL (General Public License) in the year
1992. The OS is available for free. It was open source, which means the source code is available.
Anyone can modify the source code and develop their version of OS. But GPL doesn’t allow
common people to distribute their modified Linux OS; all the modified versions should be
submitted back to the FSF.

History of Linux

Windows versus Linux


Linux Windows
Free Operating System Windows is not available for free
Linux is open source Windows is not open source
Linux is highly secure Windows have so many security issues
Multiple user interface Single user interface
Multiuser multitasking Single user multitasking
Little chance for a system halt Windows suffer from system halt occasionally
We can configure hardware through files We can only install drivers for hardware

Why Linux for engineers?


1) Free OS
Linux is a free operating system. You can just search the internet and download the OS version
you like.
2) Open source
Open source means the source code is available for reference and modification. Nothing is
hidden in the Linux.
3) Security
Linux is a highly secure OS. Ever wonder why people say that virus won’t affect Linux? The main
reason behind this is nothing but most of the hackers support the open source Linux. Also,
- No registry concept like windows
In windows there is a file called registry file, in which all the configurations are maintained. Normal
people can’t read the registry file, because the data are stored in hex values. Those who know
how to modify this registry file can create a virus in windows.
- Unlike windows not even a single program run without the permission of the administrator.
- Windows can have many users having administrating power. So there is a potential threat
of unauthorized access by an administrator into another administrator’s documents or
applications.
- Most of the virus comes in .exe format. Linux is safe from that kind of virus files, because it
does not support .exe files.
Virus attack does affect Linux also, but their intensity is limited to like, hacking administrator
password and similar things.
4) Multiple user interfaces
Windows has only one user interface, GUI. Command prompt is simply an application runs in
GUI. But Linux has two kinds of user interfaces
- One GUI ( Graphical User Interface )
- Six TUIs ( Text User Interface )
5) Multiuser Multitasking
Windows allows only a single user to login at a time and do the work. But in Linux more than one
user can login at any given time and each user can perform multiple tasks simultaneously.
6) Linux seldom crash
There is little chance for a system halt in Linux. Even if some applications crash, we can just kill
those particular applications only. The whole system won’t go down due to such kind of issues.
But in windows if a single program is not responding, we can use task manager and most of the
cases it won’t work out and finally we have to restart the system. That is why Linux is preferred
for network servers which require running 24*7 without any interruption.
7) Linux treat everything as files
Unlike windows, Linux treats everything as files including hardware devices. So we can configure
the hardware devices through these files. In windows our access to the hardware is very much
limited; we can do nothing but install the specific drivers.
Linux allows to write drivers for the hardware, and thus engineers prefer Linux for device driver
coding.

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