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Need much work, today Linux is it- 4

 Friends,

Last week I really tried to spend at least two hours studying per one hour class. It certainly helps. I was sort few hours however. In any event, what I come to notice is to be able to really understand the concepts clearly we need to spend lot more hours researching about the topic than only few hours. I am positive that all the researching time spent on to really understand a topic from foundational level would pay off in future. One day I spent couple of hours just to understand what Linux is. 

First let us understand operating system - operating system is a software which allows us to actually navigate the computer and do our work. The only operating system I was aware of before was Windows. I knew windows but didn't know it was an O.S - this could be the case for many people who are not computer terms literate despite the fact that they use computer in daily basis in some way. In essence, operating system is also a program - a program that facilitates user. What I am trying to say is - if there wouldn't be a system of communicating with computer hardware and translate it in a way we understand , in a way so that we can actually use computer to simplify our lives , then computer perhaps wouldn't be of much value to ordinary people like us despite its potential - which we clearly see in today's world.

Without beating around the bush - Linux is a family of unix like operating systems developed by a person named Linus Torvalds in 1991 based on the Linux Kernel. To really build our understanding from base level we have to go back in history and try to make sense. Luckily, the history of computer is not that long. First programming beginning can be traced back to Ada Lovelace circa 1845. Then nothing significant we have to know till around the end of second world war. There was a programing language called Plankalkul (from plan calculus) in 1945. We have assembly language in 1949 (I will be learning it also in future), short code in 1949 (first high level language), Fortran( named from formula translation) in 1957, C in 1972, fast forward to Python in 1991, Java 1995 and so on. I am saying all of this to make us understand what unix is. Unix was created by Ken Thomson, Dennis Ritchie (Ken $ Den - to remember) and others after dispersing from an attempt to create a highly ambitious multics program which had a big organizational backing. Ken, Den and others focused on creating something less daunting than multics (multiplexed information and computer service)and initially named their program unics (uniplexed instead of multiplexed)  like a word play to multics and later sometime switched the name to unix. So unix is an operating system which has  unix kernel, it was indeed originally written in assembly language but rewritten in C in 1972. Guys, by now we understand what it means when we describe Linux as unix like operating system. And I have already mentioned about Kernel in my last post - Kernel is the core of O.S - someting which connects computer resources with operating system - to understand it roughly.

Since, I have mentioned Linux is a family of operating systems, we have to understand another term called GNU. GNU was a project to create free softwares founded by a legend from MIT in 1978 named Richard Stallman. GNU literally means the animal -wildebeest and I also found a somewhat funny and catchy song called GNU from the 1950's. I am convinced that Mr. Stallman may have listened to it growing up and used GNU for his awesome project - a name which is a recursive acronym -meaning the GNU doesn't have to stand for a full form but is a name of itself and also a word play to meaning GNU is not unix.

So, my friends Linux uses lot of free softwares provided by GNU project and uses its own unix like kernel called linux. Therfore , understand this way linux operating system (also referred to Linux distribution) is Linux Kernel + family of free softwares (provided by GNU).  Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora are some of the popular linux distribution. Like for example, someone may say that she/he uses windows as their O.S on their P.C , I can say I use Ubuntu. Here, Ubuntu is one of the many examples of Linux/linux distribution based operating system.

And do not forget, what makes Linux cool is also because it is open source - meaning the software is free to use, free to be modified, distributed and all. There are no restrictions on its usage, how awesome right ?  

This much for today people , see you in my another post. 

P.S - There is a book written by Linus Torvalds called 'just for fun' published back in 2001 - which I am really looking forward to read it and perhaps share with you guys in one of my blogpost or even in a youtube video. 


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