Special Edition Using Linux®, Sixth Edition

What Is Linux?

Linux is based on the UNIX operating system. It must be made clear that Linux is not UNIX, though. It is its own operating system, with its own nuances, its own quirks, and its own special features. It was written from the ground up by hundreds of developers spanning the globe, with the majority of the development taking place over the Internet.

The original idea behind Linux germinated in the early 1990s, at the Helsinki University Technology in Finland, by a Swedish student named Linus Torvalds. What began in 1991 as a project to provide an alternative to the Minix operating system became something of a movement when the first ALPHA grade Linux systems—generally in the form of a root and a boot disk—made their way to the Internet. ...