Linux is an Open-Source Operating System. It was invented by Linus Torvalds in October 1991- when he was creating his project, he gave the world a freely available operating system. One crucial thing to be remembered is that- Linux has nothing to do with Unix. People often consider Linux as a derivative of Unix, which is not the reality. Linux and Unix are totally different operating systems.
What is an Operating system?
What is an Open-source software?
In brief, Open-source software is a program whose source code is made available to its users, so that users can study, alter, improve and if they wish, they can distribute the software made by them.
One should not confuse between Open-source softwares and Free softwares. This confusion arises due to the fact that many open-source softwares are available to the users absolutely free. But the fact is-“Open-source != Free”
Linux Distributions:
Some of the famous distributions of Linux are:-
- Ubuntu
- Fedora
- Red hat enterprises Linux
- SUSE Linux
- CentOS and many more..
What is a Shell?
Shell can be a Graphical User Interface (GUI) or Command Line Interface (CLI). GUI provides user a graphical platform to communicate with operating systems as in Windows 7, where we can see folder icons, we can right click, left click and so on. On the other side, CLI doesn’t provide any graphical platform, but a black window (just like Command Prompt in Windows), where one has to input commands (e.g. mkdir- in case of making a new directory).
What is “ROOT”?
As many operating systems provide multi-user environment, it has to take care that User-1′s settings should not be disturbed by User-2.
Coming to Root, it is often called as Super-User. When any person logs in as Root, he then has an authority to do anything in the system. For users other than Root, well, they do have different permissions to use the operating system which, I feel, should not be discussed at this point of time.
So, Root user is the highest level user of the operating system and has authority to do whatever he wishes with the operating system.
Capitalization:
If you have observed while using Windows that, if we make a directory named as “BOOK” and if we make another directory called “book” there itself, it will tell you that- “There is already a file having “book” as its name”. This means Capitalization doesn’t make any sense in Windows.In Linux, “BOOK” is a different file than “book” which is again different than “Book” which is different than “BooK”- All are different files. In brief, “Capitalization matters in Linux”.
Server vs. Desktop Versions
Server versions of Linux are installed with minimum number of softwares required for the system to work properly. After installation, you will see an entirely dark screen with a blinking cursor just like Command Prompt of Windows.Desktop versions of Linux are usually provided with a GUI environment along with numerous tools and applications. Post-installation, you will see a similar environment that appears much like that Windows or the Mac OS.
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