Linux is a sophisticated piece of software called a operating system.
The main purpose of the operating system is to relay information between the application and programs you are using on your computer, to the equipment like (CPU) Central Processing Unit and (HDD) Hard Drive.
I like to think of the programs on your computer as people or cities and the operating system is the world they exist and move and operate within.
Other Operating Systems you may have heard of is Microsoft Windows XP, 7, 8, 8.1, 10 and OsX by Apple.
Even smart phones have operating systems such and IOS and Android.
Without your operating system it would be impossible to usr your computer, phone and many other devices.
The History of Linux
Linux was invented or announced to the world in 1991 by a Finn computer science student named Linus Torvald.
Linus announced on Usenet group on 21st August 1991 that he had started developing his own free operating system based on Unix (another very secure operating system from the 1960’s) and it was open for all to contribute and scrutinise.
What started off as a hobby saw 10 years later many companies around the world not only adopt Linux for their environment but also invest considerable money into the development of particular flavours of Linux.
IBM would invest $2 billion into Linux and Dell would make it an operating system choice when buying their computers as an alternative to Microsoft Windows.
What makes Linux so unique
What makes Linux so unique is that it has no single owner or developer.
Although Linus was the original kernel developer, he gave his code and developer tools out to the world in hope that as many people and developers would contribute to it as possible to maximise its potential.
Doing this allowed may others to developed their own flavour of Linux such as Suse, Red Hat and Ubuntu.
The beauty of having the code for Linux open to everyone (Open Source) is that it makes it more secure. At first thoughts it is easy to think having the code open and available for everyone to see would make it less secure for people with malicious intentions to exploit.
But it is quote the opposite. Having the code open, allows more people and developers to see it and in turn more developers to patch up any mistakes and vulnerabilities in the code. Making Linux very secure.
Who can use Linux
When Linux first came out it was all command line. A black screen with white writing which has to be typed into to do anything.
Over the years people started developing (GUI’s) Graphic User Interfaces to give us the operating system most of us are used to know where we can click and execute the applications we want to run with our mouse.
Initially because of the security benefits of Linux it was used as a server sided application or operating system system to run serves of all different types.
Since the introductions of the different GUI’s such as Gnome it made it much easier for the average user as well as enthusiast to use Linux on their laptop or desktop with popular flavours such as Ubuntu and Suse.
The future of Linux
Right now you can use Linux for yourself on just about any computer or laptop you can get your hands on. You can do just about anything you want on a Linux computer including surf the web, email and world processing.
Anything you can do on a PC you can do on a Linux box and more with the help of Virtualisation.
Linux is growing popularity by the day due to people being more concerned with security and stability.
Linux can still be a little bit hard to install software sometimes which is a serious bottle neck, but the stability and security when using Linux is obvious. With very few restarts needed and built on the secure Unix platform, Linux is a great choice for any environment if you are willing to invest some time and can deal with the learning curve.
