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In this article:
- What is Linux
- History and Development of Linux
- Uses of Linux
What is Linux
Linux or GNU/Linux is computer operating system which is similar to Unix. Linux is often treated as the best example of open source software development and has survived the competitive market which contained the popular Windows and Mac OS X distributions. What made Linux different from all its ‘competitors’ was that its source code was freely available to anyone who wanted it and it could be modified and redistributed.
History and Development of Linux
The GNU project started in 1983 and was founded by Richard Stallman and its goal was to develop an operating system which was similar to Unix but was completely free. Apart from the kernel of the operating system, all the other components had been developed. However, when the development of the Mach-based kernel began, it was very slow in light of the fact that it was complicated. At about the same time, in 1991, Linus Torvalds, a student at the University of Helsinki, was developing his own Unix-like operating system. This was originally called Freax. When it first became available for download to the general public, it was named Linux.
The original Linux (or Freax) did not have a boot loader and hence another Operating System was required so that it could boot. This changed when custom boot loaders were made for it, an early example being LILO. From this point onwards, Linux went on to become a fully-functional operating system with many features that surpassed the features of Unix. Today, there are various distributions of Linux available from various companies (there are called distros) which have additional application software made specifically for that distribution by that particular company.
The original Linux kernel could only work on the Intel 80386 microprocessors. Today, however, it supports many computer architectures including the x86 architecture from Intel. Since Linux is open source, it has been ported to a variety of architectures, making it the most widely ported operating system. The portability of Linux is demonstrated in the fact that it can run on systems as varied as a basic hand-held device and as advanced as a mainframe or supercomputer. Linux distributions are also available for a variety of other systems that are less popular.
Uses of Linux
For a large period of time, Linux has used as an operating system for servers and it is still popular as a server operating system. However, Linux can also be put to a variety of other uses owing to its qualities of being very low cost and flexible and the Unix base behind it.
Since it is available at a very low price and it is very customizable, Linux has been widely used in various embedded systems. These include handheld devices (eg., PDAs), Cell phones and Set-top boxes for Televisions. Linux has also been acting as a replacement for the Symbian OS on mobile phones. It is also an option for Windows CE and Palm OS users.
The most ‘alarming’ use of Linux is its use as an operating system for supercomputers. Two of the world’s top ten supercomputers run on Linux as their operating system. Also, 72% of the top 500 supercomputers of the world use Linux (various versions) as their operating system.
The newly announced and soon to be released Sony PlayStation 3 video game console in the PlayStation family has Linux installed as the default OS. Interestingly, certain games have also been developed specifically for the Linux OS including those from Atari and id Software.
More recently, The One Laptop Per Child project, which has an objective of providing basic computing devices to all the children in developing nations, will be using Linux as the operating system for the computing devices it distributes.
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