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Linux is an operating system that was initially created as a hobby by a young
student, Linus Torvalds, at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Linus had an
interest in Minix, a small UNIX system, and decided to develop a system that
exceeded the Minix standards. He began his work in 1991 when he released
version 0.02 and worked steadily until 1994 when version 1.0 of the Linux
Kernel was released. The current full-featured version is 2.4 (released January
2001) and development continues.
Linux is developed under the GNU General Public License
and its source code is freely available to everyone. This however, doesn't mean
that Linux and its assorted distributions
are free -- companies and developers may charge money for it as long as the
source code remains available. Linux may be used for a wide variety of purposes
including networking, software development, and as an end-user platform. Linux
is often considered an excellent, low-cost alternative to other more expensive
operating systems.
Due to the very nature of Linux's functionality and availability, it has become
quite popular worldwide and a vast number of software programmers have taken
Linux's source code and adapted it to meet their individual needs. At this time,
there are dozens of ongoing projects
for porting Linux to various hardware configurations and purposes.
Linux has an official mascot, the Linux Penguin,
which was selected by Linus Torvalds to represent the image he
associates with the operating system he created.
Although many variations of the word Linux exist, it is most often pronounced
with a short " i " and with the first syllable stressed, as in LIH-nucks.
General Linux Resources on the Web
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Compilation copyright ©1994-2003 Linux Online, Inc.
All rights reserved.
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