WHAT IS LINUX?
Linux is in the simplest of terms an operating system that is used on personal computers. An operating system is a program designed to run other programs on a computer. Operating systems are responsible for everything from the control and allocation of memory to recognizing input from external devices and transmitting output to computer displays. They also manage files on computer hard drives and control peripherals, like printers and scanners. The operating system passes on instructions from an application to, for instance, the computer's processor. The processor performs the instructed task, and then sends the results back to the application via the operating system .Many different operating systems such as Windows, OS X have been developed by programmers and Linux remains one commonly used operating system.
The man known as Linus Torvalds invented Linux itself. Torvalds who was then a computer science student at the University of Helsinki in Finland began using Minix in 1990, an operating system developed by Andy Tenenbaum.Minix was a non-free Unix-like system, and so Torvalds began writing his own kernel to upgrade Minix and improve its features even better. The kernel is the lowest layer of any operating system. It provides the core capabilities of the system and allows processes (programs) to access the hardware in an orderly manner. Basically, the kernel controls processes, input/output devices, file system operations, and any other critical functions required by the operating system. It also manages memory. These are all called autonomous functions, in that they are run without instructions by a user process. He started by developing device drivers and hard-drive access, and by September had a basic design that he called Version 0.01.
This kernel, which is called Linux, was afterwards integrated with the GNU system to produce a complete free, fully functional operating system. Linux is the first truly free Unix-like operating system. The underlying GNU Project was launched in 1983 by Richard Stallman originally to develop a Unix-compatible operating system called GNU, intended to be entirely free software. As an open operating system, Linux is developed collaboratively, meaning no one company is solely responsible for its development or ongoing support thus after the integration of Linux and GNU, anybody was allowed to add their code so long as they were willing to do it for free. It is non-proprietary software; which means its code is provided for use, modification, and redistribution. More and more free software was created for Linux over the next several years.
One of the most noted properties of Linux is where it can be used operating systems such as Windows are commonly found on personal computing devices such as desktop and laptop computers whereas operating