Linux is a kernel

The definition of the word Linux depends on the context in which it is used. Linux stands for the system kernel, which is the central controller of everything that happens on the computer.

When most people refer to Linux, they are actually referring to a combination of software called GNU / Linux, which defines the operating system. GNU is free software that provides open source equivalents to many common UNIX commands. The Linux part of this combination is the Linux kernel, which is the heart of the operating system. The kernel is loaded at boot time and continues to run to handle all aspects of the running system.

The history of Linux begins with UNIX, an operating system developed at AT&T Bell Labs in the 1970s. UNIX is written in the C language, which makes it particularly portable among competing operating systems, which are often closely related. to the material for which they were written. It quickly gained popularity in academic and research circles, as well as among programmers attracted by its modularity. Over time it has been modified and forked (that is, people modified it and those settings served as the basis for other systems), so now there are many variations. UNIX. However, UNIX is now both a trademark and a specification, owned by an industry consortium called the Open Group. Only Open Group certified software can be called UNIX.

Linux started in 1991 as a hobbyist project of Linus Torvalds, a Finnish-born computer scientist studying at the University of Helsinki. Frustrated by the licensing of MINIX, a UNIX-like operating system designed for educational use, and by its creator’s desire not to make it a full operating system, Linus decided to create his own BONE kernel.

From that humble beginning, Linux has become the dominant operating system on the Internet and possibly the most important computer program of any kind. Despite adopting all the requirements of the UNIX specification, Linux has not been certified, so Linux really is not UNIX! It’s just … UNIX.

Before and alongside this development was the GNU Project, created by Richard Stallman in 1983. While GNU initially focused on building their own operating system, they were ultimately much more efficient at creating tools that go with a system. UNIX-like operations such as editors, compilers, and user interfaces that make a kernel usable. Since the source was completely freely available, Linux programmers were able to integrate GNU tools to provide a complete operating system. As such, many tools and utilities that are part of the Linux system evolved from these early GNU tools.