What is Linux?

This article borrows some or all of it's text from this article at Wikipedia.

Tux, the mascot of LinuxLinux (pronunciation: IPA: /ˈlɪnʊks/, lin-uks) is a Unix-like computer operating system. Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free software and open source development; its underlying source code can be freely modified, used, and redistributed by anyone.

The Linux kernel was first released to the public on 17 September 1991, for the Intel x86 PC architecture. The kernel was augmented with system utilities and libraries from the GNU project to create a usable operating system, which later led to the alternate term GNU/Linux. Linux is now packaged for different uses in Linux distributions, which contain the sometimes modified kernel along with a variety of other software packages tailored to different requirements.

Predominantly known for its use in servers, Linux has gained the support of corporations such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Novell, and is used as an operating system for a wide variety of computer hardware, including desktop computers, supercomputers, and embedded devices such as mobile phones and routers.

History of *nix

This article borrows some or all of it's text from this article at Wikipedia.

The Unix operating system was conceived and implemented in the 1960s and first released in 1970. Its wide availability and portability meant that it was widely adopted, copied and modified by academic institutions and businesses, with its design being influential on authors of other systems.

The GNU Project, with the goal of creating a Unix-like, POSIX-compatible operating system composed entirely of free software, began development in 1984, and a year later Richard Stallman had created the Free Software Foundation and wrote the first draft of the GNU General Public License (GPLv1). By the early 1990s, the project had produced or collected many necessary operating system components, including libraries, compilers, text editors, and a Unix shell, and the upper level could be supplied by the X Window System, but development of the lower level, which consisted of a kernel, device drivers and daemons had stalled and was incomplete.

MINIX, a Unix-like system intended for academic use, was released by Andrew S. Tanenbaum in 1987. While source code for the system was available, modification and redistribution were restricted. In addition, MINIX's 16-bit design was not well adapted to the increasingly cheap and popular Intel 386 architecture for personal computers.

In 1991, Linus Torvalds began to work on a non-commercial replacement for MINIX while he was attending the University of Helsinki. This eventually became the Linux kernel. Torvalds intended Linux to be specifically tailored to the capabilities of the 32-bit Intel 386 platform.

Linux was dependent on the Minix userspace at first. With code from the GNU system freely available, it was advantageous if this could be used with the fledgeling OS. Code licensed under the GNU GPL can be used in other projects, so long as they too are released under the GPL. In order to make the Linux kernel compatible with the components from the GNU project, Torvalds changed his original license (which prohibited commercial redistribution) to the GPLv2. Linux and GNU developers worked to integrate GNU components with Linux. Thus Linux became a complete, fully functional free operating system.


KDE 1.0

Modern KDE Desktop


Gnome 1.0


Modern Gnome Desktop (on Ubuntu Linux)

Pronounciation

This article borrows some or all of it's text from this article at Wikipedia.

In 1992, Torvalds explained how he pronounces the word Linux:

'li' is pronounced with a short [ee] sound: compare prInt, mInImal etc. 'nux' is also short, non-diphtong, like in pUt. It's partly due to minix: linux was just my working name for the thing, and as I wrote it to replace minix on my system, the result is what it is... linus' minix became linux.
—Linus Torvalds, comp.os.linux newsgroup, "Re: How to prounounce Linux?"


Torvalds has made available an audio sample which indicates his own pronunciation, in English and Swedish. However, an interview from the 2001 documentary Revolution OS indicates that his preferred pronunciation has slightly changed.

Many English speakers tend to pronounce the name as /ˈlɪnʊks/, lin-uks.

 

Get Linux

So you want to get give Linux a try?

You couldn't have picked a better time to get started! Linux is much easier to use than years ago. Thanks in part to funding, but more importantly thousands of dedicated developers around the world.

Linux easy w/ Wubi-Installer

Windows Users: Wubi is an officially supported Ubuntu installer for Windows users that can bring you to the Linux world with a single click. Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other Windows application, in a simple and safe way. Check out Wubi-Installer.


Some popular distributions

Installing Linux

General Install Directions

  1. Do some research on which distribution you want to try, project activity and hardware support matters. (view the distributions site, also you can check here)
  2. Download the .ISO file (for a list of ISO's check here)
  3. Burn the .ISO image file to a CD-R (~700MB) or DVD-R (>700MB) using cd burning software. Click here to learn how to burn a .ISO file to a CD/DVD
  4. With the CD/DVD-ROM drive set to #1 in your BIOS boot priority sequence, start your computer with the CD in the drive. Click here to learn how to change your BIOS boot sequence

Alternative: Ship-it (Free Ubuntu CD!)

Getting Help

Along your journey to the far off land of Linux, like when doing other technical nature, you may come across a jam you where you don't know what to do.

First and foremost, bringing your PC to the Linuxfest is a good idea. This of course is easier said than done if the computer is a desktop and not a notebook. Though it wouldn't be considered unorthodox for someone to do so. Computers are computers.

Also, there are many online message boards and knowledge bases across the internet. Sparsed out across forums, wikis, FAQ's, blogs, and so on. People on these message boards are there as a community to help you. A few good message boards are LinuxQuestions, HowToForge Forums, Linux Forum. For specific distributions, you can check out SuSE Forums, Gentoo Forums and Ubuntu Forums.

Sometimes, googling your error can lead you to pages where you can find help, such as a forum topic or blog post discussing how to fix the issue.

Command line

Using the Linux command line may remember some of MS-DOS. For people who have used a unix-compliant operating system before (Mac OS X, for instance) the command line may look familiar.

One interesting site is LinuxCommand.org -- an interactive linux terminal clone, allowing you to practice your form through your web browser.

Command line guides

Command references

SSH

SSH, or Secure Shell is a network protocol allowing people to access terminals remotely.Â