Purushothaman S

OS is the interface between hardware and user All computers need an OS OSes are used to run applications and control hardware Popular OSes include Windows, Linux, Mac OSX

Developed in 1991 by a University of Finland student Linus Torvalds. Basically a kernel, it was combined with the various software and

compilers from GNU Project to form an OS, called GNU/Linux Linux is a full-fledged OS available in the form of various Linux

Distributions RedHat, Fedora, SuSE, Ubuntu, Debian are examples of Linux distros Linux is supported by big names as IBM, Google, Sun, Novell, Oracle, HP,

Dell, and many more

DISTROS means A set of software components, often open source, that have been packaged into a larger product or component for distribution to end-users.

Inspired by the UNIX OS, the Linux kernel was developed as a clone of UNIX

GNU was started in 1984 with a mission to develop a free UNIX-like OS Linux was the best fit as the kernel for the GNU Project Linux kernel was passed onto many interested developers throughout the

Internet Linux today is a result of efforts of thousands of individuals, apart from

Torvalds

Can be controlled through command-line (CLI) or Graphical User Interface (GUI)

GUI run through Desktop Environments (DE) KDE, GNOME, Xfce, E17 are popular Des The GUI interface is easy-to-use and much like that of Windows and Mac

OSX The CLI is similar to that of UNIX/BSD

Modern languages are cross-platform, like Python, Ruby, Perl, Java Most Linux distros support these languages and have their runtimes pre-

installed GTK+ and Qt are widely used to design applications for Linux IDEs like NetBeans, Anjuta, KDevelop, MonoDevelop, Eclipse are available

for Linux too

Linux is desktop computer ready Large number of distros targeted at Desktop users are available Linux desktop distros come with many commonly used pre-installed

softwares The modern Linux interface is user-friendly and makes the interaction

with computer easy

Linux is the most used OS on servers 5 out of 10 reliable web hosting companies use Linux Linux is the cornerstone of the LAMP server-software combination (Linux,

Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python) which has achieved popularity among developers

Out of top 500 supercomputers, Linux is deployed on 426 of them

16.7% of smartphones worldwide use Linux as OS Linux poses a major competition to the most popular OS is this segment –

Symbian Nokia, Openmoko supply Linux on their select smartphones

Linux can be used on a wide range of electronic devices, like PC, PDAs, Smartphones, iPods, MP3 Players, PlayStation 2 & 3, mission critical servers and so on…

1983 (September): GNU project was announced publicly 1991 (September): first version of the Linux kernel was released to the Internet 2001 (second quarter): Linux server unit shipments at 15% annual growth rate 2004: Linux shipped on approximately 50% of the worldwide server blade units, and

20% of all rack-optimized servers 2005: Microsoft representatives accuse Brazilian college using Famelix of pirating

Microsoft Windows 2007: Dell announces it will ship select models with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed 2007: Lenovo announces it will ship select models with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop

10 pre-installed 2007: HP announces that it will begin shipping computers preinstalled with Red Hat

Linux in Australia 2007: ASUS launches the linux-based ASUS Eee PC 2008: Dell announces it will begin shipping Ubuntu based computers to Canada and

Latin America 2008: Dell is shipping systems with Ubuntu pre-installed in China 2008: Acer launches the linux-based Acer Aspire One

Governments of many countries around the world are shifting to Linux from Windows due to the many benefits it offer

Countries like India, France, Pakistan, Czech Reppublic, Brazil, Germany, USA, Austria, Spain, China, and Peru already use Linux

The widely popular OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) Project’s XO Laptop runs on Linux

Universities in countries, like USA, Germany, Netherlands, Philippines, Brazil, Russia, Switzerland, India, use Linux on their workstations and servers

No threat of viruses Linux systems are extremely stable Linux is Free Linux comes with most of the required software pre-installed Update all your software with minimum fuss Linux never gets slow Linux does not need defragmentation Linux can even run on oldest hardware Adding more software is a matter of a few clicks Most Windows-only apps have their either their native version

or alternatives for Linux With Linux, you get the highest degree of possible

customizability

Security has always been the number one priority with Linux

Linux has a robust security system There do not exist viruses for the Linux platform

Have you ever lost your precious work because Windows crashed? Have you ever gotten the "blue screen of death" or error messages telling you that the computer needs to be shut down for obscure reasons?

Crashes or freezes are not prevalent in Linux

Linux is free and always will be as compared to the very costly Windows and Mac OSX

Using pirated Windows is a bad thing

When the system has installed, why would you still need to install stuff ?

Common software such as music player, web browser, video player, image editor, PDF reader, chat messenger, office apps

Just like Windows’ Update tool, Linux has a more better alternative to it to update all your system in a few clicks

As Linux is impervious to viruses, trojans, spywares, which are the main reasons to slow down the PC, systems based on it do not get slower

Linux consumes lesser system resources

If you already know what fragmentation is, and are already used to defragmenting your disk every month or so, here is the short version : Linux doesn't need defragmenting.

Whereas Windows-based system get fragmented frequently and need attention in this regard.

Windows requires more and more hardware power as its version number increases (95, 98, 2000, Me, XP, etc.). So if you want to keep running Windows, you need to constantly buy new hardware

Linux runs perfectly well on older hardware, on which Windows XP would probably even refuse to install, or let you wait 20 seconds after each click

With Linux, everything is much simpler. Linux has what is called a "package manager": each piece of software is contained in its own "package". If you need some new software, just open the package manager, type a few keywords, choose which software you want to install and press "Apply" or "OK". Or you can just browse existing software (that's a lot of choice!) in categories.

Due to the various options available in Linux, like a lot of DEs, themes, Window Managers, and the modular nature of DEs, Linux is very customizable

The extent of customizability is clearly implied by the fact that some people have gone as far as to customize their Linux OS to make them look and feel like Mac OSX and Windows

So, what OS a user should opt to choose? The answer depends on user’s own choice.