If you want to know a few things about the history of Linux, you can use this article here and get more information, or check out a specialized web site that handles the topic and check it out instead. In the meanwhile, you can keep reading and hence get advantage.
We could say that the history of Linux originates in 1991 and has started with the work of Linus Torvalds, a Finish student who managed to create a free operating system kernel. Ever since, Linux has went through a series of changes, and it has managed to grow form a small number of C files that were featuring a license that did not allow commercial distribution to the 2009 release of the 370 megabytes of source, wearing a GNU General Public License.
The Unix System was created by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie in 1969 and it was released in 1970. It soon became highly popular thanks to the fact that it features a high degree if portability. It therefore started being used, copied and modified by businesses and it started being copied by the creators of other systems. In 1983, Richard Stallman gave birth to the GNU project, wanting to create a free operating system that resembled UNIX. He therefore created the GNU General Public License. And the end of the 90s allowed the creation of a full operating system. Despite of the hard efforts of its creators, the GNU kernel which was called Hurd was not able to attract sufficient attention, hence it remained incomplete.
So in 1991, Linus Torvalds managed to combine everything that he had learnt from the previous landmark systems into a kernel that has managed to impress the entire world. Some stories claim that while playing in MINIX, Linus piped data to his hard drive instead of his modem. He then erased the MINIX partitions that he had created and he was upset because pg the limitations of his operating system. This is when he decided to create a brand new operating system.
Other stories say that Linus wrote the kernel in order to improve the performance and functionality of his computer. Some Linux historians also say that the Finnish student wanted to improve the MINIX and decide to create his own system. So just like one would read several electronic cigarette reviews or some skin moisturizer reviews and discover different features in all of them, the different histories of the creation of the Linux OS display different versions to interested readers.
No matter what the real story might be, Linus managed to give birth to a free terminal emulator that relied on MINIX and based on Unix. On 25 August, he posted his famous message on the MINIX Newsgroup. Throughout the years, Linux has gone through a great deal of changes and it was continuously improved, culminating with the release of a Linux-based OS, Android.
The Basics of Linux
With the increasing popularity of smart phones, tablets, Netbooks, laptops, and other similar devices, you may have probably heard of the term Android. Android is the operating system running behind the mobile devices. But do you know that Android is built on the core of another operating system? Android is built on the Linux kernel. We now take a brief look on understanding the basics of the very popular operating system called Linux.
According to Wikipedia, “Linux is a Unix-like and POSIX-compliant computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution.” Unix is a multitasking and multi-user operating system which was originally developed at AT&T’s Bell Labs in the late 1960’s and had many variants like BSD and MINIX.
In 1991, Finnish-born Linus Torvalds created Linux while attending University of Helsinki. Frustrated by the licensing issues of MINIX, Torvalds decided to write his own operating system that later became the Linux kernel. A kernel is a key component in an operating system and handles the input and output requests from any software and then translates the requests into data processing instructions.
Available for free download and use, Linux is installed in servers and desktop of key corporations and residences. This is the essence of the free and open source software (FOSS) development and distribution model. Anybody is freely given the license to use, duplicate, learn and to modify the operating system in any way possible. However, the source code must be openly shared to everyone so that everybody is encouraged and given the opportunity to enhance the software.
Using the Linux kernel, developers have created different “flavors” or variations of Linux called Linux distribution. Some popular distributions for servers and desktops include Debian (Ubuntu and Linux Mint derivatives) and Fedora (Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS derivatives).
Powerful servers are used for hosting web sites. Some web sites venture into E-commerce. They need to have a very stable operating system to support the demands of online purchasing. One such E-commerce site is nomorerack.com, an online shopping destination that offers a wide range of products from clothing to electronic gadgets. To avoid any nomorerack scam, the server must be regularly monitored for performance issues.
Another Linux distribution is installed in embedded systems or devices such as routers, televisions, tablets, video game consoles, and mobile phones. A very popular Linux distribution used in mobile devices is the Android operating system.
Linux is designed in a modular manner wherein developers can develop or modify particular modules to do specific tasks. When one module malfunctions, the whole operating system is not necessarily disabled. Rather than that, developers just isolate and fix the problematic module without affecting so much the rest of the operating system.
Current development of Linux is very much active. Many developers are creating new modules to further enhance the performance of the Linux operating system and its subsequent distributions. Improvements have reached so far such that some Linux distributions have mimicked functionality from a Windows operating system.