The almighty question: What is Linux?
Back on the magical day of September 17, 1991; a man by the name of Linus Torvalds set forth a standard and kernel that is met and used by a family of OS distributions known as Linux. It is based off of Unix.
Linux is a kernel for a family of OSes. Linux is free and open sourced. All of them use the "Linux Kernel"
You can run Linux on almost anything. You can run Doom on almost anything too.
There are multiple branches to this family: ArchLinux ; RedHat ; Debian ; Etc . They are all Linux. They are all very different yet in a specific standard of ways they are the same.
The main differences between different distributions are their package management systems. I will have to go into that individually into each one I cover as I cover them in detail. That will not fit in one article.
The Linux operating system comprises several different pieces:
- Bootloader – This manages the boot process of your computer(GRUB normally{GRand Unified Bootloader}). This will normally be a splash screen.
- Kernel – This is what is actual Linux. The kernel manages the CPU, memory, and peripheral devices. The kernel is the lowest level of the OS.
- Init system – This is a sub-system that "bootstraps" the user space and is charged with controlling daemons. One of the most widely used init systems is systemd
- Daemons – Services are called Daemons in Linux
- Graphical server – This displays the graphics on your monitor. It is known as the X server.
- Desktop environment – This is the piece that the users actually interact with. There are many desktop environments to choose from (GNOME, Cinnamon, Mate, Pantheon, etc.). Each desktop environment includes built-in applications. They can sometimes be interchanged if you want to go through that effort.
- Applications – THERE ARE SO MANY!!! They are installed using the package management system of that particular distribution.
The more common distributions are more stable than Windows.
The Penguin is named Tux and I do not know where the mascot originated from.
