What is Linux? a Short History and Review

A couple of months back my computer crashed. Crashed for the third time in a year. It was a virus attack and the antivirus could not help. As i sat next to my laptop, looking at the blank screen, i knew deep in my heart that there was something that i would have to do to help myself out of this mess. All my files, my documents, designs, programs, software,pictures, videos and important contact details were gone...all that was left was this blue screen with some cryptic information about 1'ns and 0's and fancy characters and a computer virus at work further destroying my data as i stared at my laptop screen. I knew i would have to work very hard to retrieve or recreate the lost data. Some of it would be irreparable loss. Was there no solution to all this? Sometime back my computer was hacked by a script kiddie. As i stared into my laptop screen, i was thinking hard about the solutions i could implement to stop such issues from occurring. The options were running through my mind one by one at good speed: better anti virus, windows upgrade, better firewall, better backup software, anti hacking software, better browser, Linux, reformatting the hard drive, reloading windows....wait a min! i asked myself if I'd seen Linux appear as a solution in my mind? Linux was on my colleague's laptop and i was impressed by its power. I recollected the impressive features that my friend had told me about and in a moment i had made up my mind. I had the solution all this while right in front of my eyes: Linux. And it's been 3 months ever since I've installed Linux on my laptop and and all the problems i had been facing with my windows box are history. Why Linux?

Welcome to the world of Linux. Are you scared of computer viruses and system crashes? Well now you can forget them. Yes, you heard me right. There are no known viruses for Linux at the time of this writing and Linux is very stable and efficient. Are you worried that your system speed is slow? Forget that too. Linux is very fast. Windows and various software upgrades burning a hole in your pocket? Well you can now save your hard earned money. Linux is free. Software on Linux is also free. And there's no compromise on quality. In fact open source software is safer and more stable. What about important OS and software upgrades? Don't worry. Linux does it all with one click. But someone told me that Linux is only for the techies and is difficult to us? Hmm that's an interesting question. Wait till you check out a few of the Linux distributions like Ubuntu. That apprehension would vaporize in an instant. Can't believe it? Well you'll see it once you use it. There's no substitute to first hand experience. And the best part of it all is that you can sort of get a test drive of Linux before you decide to install it. How do you do it? Well there are versions on Linux which are bootable from CD's. No hassles, no installations, no formatting. Get the feel of Linux first hand. You can also install Linux as your primary OS or if you're still attached to your windows version, you can have Linux and windows side by side. But why should i trust Linux? Good question that and the answer would surprise you. Linux is used by all the major corporations in their mission critical operations, it's used in medical equipments, embedded devices, in robots, used in rocket and space aviation, used for doing complex weather calculations, used by scientists, engineers, researchers, defense personals and wait a minute before you assume again that Linux is only for the techies, it is also used by schools, academic institutions, libraries, banks and many other government institutions. If you are a techie or a newbie, there is a Linux distribution for everyone out there. Brief History of Linux

Linux was invented by Linus Torvalds in 1991. He as a student of University of Helsinki then. Those were the days when Unix was a costly operating system. Linus was looking for an alternative for the costly Unix OS. Also during those days, programmers worldwide were greatly influenced by the GNU Project by Richard Stallman. The GNU philosophy of providing free software inspired Linus to take up a college project. His professor at that time was Dr Andrew Tanenbaum who had developed a small working version of a Unix clone which he called Minix. When Linus submitted his idea of creating an operating system similar to Unix but with more flexibility and features, he was met with criticism and discouragement. However, like all great ideas, his idea took shape and Linus started working on developing the OS. Few months down the line, the kernel of the operating system which later came to be known as Linux was born. Initially Linus did not know what to name the OS. One of his friends, took Linus and tux and made up the name Linux. And since then Tux the penguin has been the Linux mascot. Linux grew steadily to become one of most popular OS of all time, outperforming Unix in many areas. Its power came from the sturdy design of its kernel and open source nature. Soon, many organizations took up to Linux and began customizing their own distributions around the Linux kernel. One of them was Red Hat. This distribution of Linux remained one of the more popular choices from amongst the broad range like Fedora, Suse, Mandrake till recently it lost its popularity to a more user friendly version of Linux called Ubuntu.

Go ahead and try Linux today and you'll know what makes it so powerful and why it is used in mission critical operations. Ubuntu is a very user friendly distribution of Linux and i recommend it to you. Try it and you would be surprised at what you've been missing till now. The future is Linux unless Microsoft learns from its mistakes and decides to make windows into a truly better operating system. Till then you know what to count on for the solution of all your problems, just like I did 3 months back and since then Linux has been an asset to me and my business.