The Linux kernel was originally written by Finnish Linus Torvalds as a personal hobby when he was a student at the University of Helsinki. At that time, he was not satisfied with Minix, an operating system used for teaching. . In the initial vision, Linux was an operating system similar to Minix. The first version of Linux was released on the Internet in September 1991 by Ari Lemmke, a university FTP server administrator. Initially, Torvalds

called the name of this core "Freax", which means "free" ) and "freak", with the commonly used letter "X" attached to match the so-called Unix-like system. However, the FTP server administrator felt that the original name "Freax" was not pleasant, so he changed the name of the core to "Linux". At that time, there were only 10,000 lines of code, and it still had to be executed on the Minix operating system, and it had to be booted from a hard disk; Then in October the second version (version 0.02) was released. At the same time, this college student from Helsinki, Finland posted a message on comp.os.minix: Hello everybody out there using minix-

I 'm doing a (free) operation system (just a hobby,

won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.

II. History< /p>

The history of Linux is closely linked to GNU. The GNU project, started in 1983, is committed to developing a free and complete Unix-like operating system, including software development tools and various applications. By the time the Linux kernel was released in 1991, GNU had almost completed the development of various necessary software except the system kernel. Thanks to the efforts of Linus Torvalds and other developers, GNU components can run on the Linux kernel. The entire kernel is based on the GNU General Public License, also known as GPL (GNU General Public License, GNU General Public License), but the Linux kernel is not part of the GNU project. In March 1994, Linux version 1.0 was officially released, and Marc Ewing established Red Hat Software Company and became one of the most famous Linux distributors.

Unix & Linux History The early Linux boot loader used LILO (Linux Loader), which had some intolerable flaws, such as the inability to recognize hard drives other than 8G. Later, GRUB was added (GRand Unified Bootloader) overcomes these shortcomings and has the function of 'dynamically searching core files', which allows you to edit your boot configuration system files when booting, and load Linux through the ext2 or ext3 file system. Kernel.

The logo and mascot of Linux is a penguin named Tux. The origin of the logo is because Linus was bitten by a penguin in the zoo when he was in Australia, so he chose the penguin as the Linux operating system. logo. Linux is a registered trademark owned by Linus Torvalds. This is because in 1996, a lawyer named William R. Della Croce began to send letters to various Linux publishers, stating that he owned the ownership of the Linux trademark and requiring each publisher to pay royalties. These publishers collectively appealed and demanded Reassign the registered trademark to Linus Torvalds.

Linus Torvalds has repeatedly stated that Linux is free and he can sell it, but Linux must not be sold.

Some versions of Linux distributions do not require installation and can be used via a CD or bootable USB storage device. They are called LiveCD.

3. User group

Promotional pictures designed by GNU/Linux enthusiasts and licensed under GPL

Stereoscopic diagrams designed by the GNU/Linux community and used GPL License Traditional Linux users generally install and set up their own operating systems, and they tend to be more experienced than users of other operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. These users are sometimes called "hackers" or "geeks." However, as Linux becomes more and more popular, more and more original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) begin to pre-install Linux on the computers they sell. Among Linux users, there are also ordinary computer users, and Linux systems also begin to slowly seize the market. Desktop computer operating system market. At the same time, Linux is also one of the most popular server operating systems. Linux also has an advantage in the embedded computer market, and its low cost makes Linux popular among users. The main cost of using Linux is the cost of transplantation, training and learning. In the early days, because there were fewer people who could use Linux, the cost was higher. However, with the increasing popularity of Linux and the increasing number of software on Linux, the cost has become more and more expensive. More, more and more convenient and reduced.

Desktop systems such as KDE and GNOME make Linux more like an operating system such as Mac or Windows, providing a complete graphical user interface, unlike other systems that use the Command Line Interface (CLI) Unix-like operating system.

4. The direction of the future software industry

Linux, as an earlier open source operating system, will lead the direction of future software development.

Based on the open source nature of Linux, more and more large and medium-sized enterprises and governments are investing more resources in developing Linux. In today's world, many countries are gradually moving computers in government agencies to Linux, and this situation will continue. The widespread use of Linux has saved government agencies a lot of money and reduced concerns about the potential security of closed source software.

5. The English pronunciation of Linux

According to Torvalds, the pronunciation of Linux rhymes with "Minix".

The pronunciation of "i" in "Li" is similar to the pronunciation of "i" in "Minix", while the pronunciation of "u" in "nux" is similar to the pronunciation of "o" in the English word "profess" pronounce. According to the International Phonetic Alphabet, it should be ['linэks] - similar to "Linakos"

There is an audio of Torvalds himself speaking, and the audio content is "Hello, this is Linus Torvalds, and I pronounce Linux as Linux ".

6. Application

KDE desktop environment running on SUSE. In the past, Linux was mainly used as a server operating system, but its cheapness, flexibility and Unix background make it suitable for a wider range of applications. Traditionally, the Linux-based "LAMP (a combination of Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python)" technology has been widely popular among the developer community and is also the most commonly used by current website service providers. platform.

Based on its low cost and high degree of configurability, Linux is often used in embedded systems, such as set-top boxes, mobile phones, and mobile devices. On mobile phones, Linux has become the main competitor of Symbian OS; on mobile devices, it has become an alternative to Windows CE and Palm OS. The currently popular TiVo digital cameras use customized Linux.

In addition, there are many hardware-based network firewalls and routers, such as some LinkSys products, which are driven internally by Linux and use the firewall and routing functions provided by the operating system.

More and more supercomputers use Linux. According to the November 2005 issue of the TOP500 supercomputer list, the two fastest groups of supercomputers in the world currently use Linux as their operating system. Among the 500 systems listed in the table, 371 groups (or 74.2%) use Linux as the operating system. Among the top ten, 7 groups use Linux.

The SONY PlayStation 3, which was launched in 2006, also uses the Linux operating system. Previously, Sony had also launched a DIY package called PS2 Linux for their PlayStation 2. As for game developers Atari and id Software, they have launched Linux desktop versions of their games. In addition, Linux Game Publishing also specializes in writing games for the Linux platform, and is committed to porting other game codes compiled on the Windows platform to the Linux platform, and providing licenses for ported games.

A project called One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), which aims to provide laptops to all children living in developing countries, uses Linux as the default operating system.

7. Distro

Linux is mainly used as part of a Linux distribution (often called "distro"). These distributions are written by individuals, loosely organized teams, as well as commercial and volunteer organizations. They usually include other system software and application software, as well as an installation tool to simplify the initial installation of the system, and an integrated manager to allow software installation and upgrade. Distributions are made for many different purposes, including support for different computer architectures, localization for a specific region or language, real-time applications, and embedded systems, and many even intentionally include only free software. Currently, more than three hundred distributions are actively developed, with about a dozen of the most commonly used distributions.

A typical Linux distribution includes: the Linux kernel, some GNU libraries and tools , a command-line shell, a graphical interface for the X Window System and corresponding desktop environments such as KDE or GNOME, and contains thousands of application software from office suites, compilers, text editors to scientific tools.

The most famous distributions currently include Debian, Red Hat (redhat), ubuntu, suse, CentOS, fedora, etc.

8. The difference between Linux and other operating systems

< p>Linux can coexist on the same machine with other operating systems such as MS-DOS, OS/2, and Windows. They are all operating systems and have some features, but they have their own characteristics and differences.

The operating systems currently running on PCs mainly include Microsoft's MS-DOS, Windows, Windows NT, IBM's OS/2, etc. Early PC users generally used MS-DOS because this operating system did not have high requirements for the hardware configuration of the machine. With the rapid development of computer hardware technology, the price of hardware equipment is getting lower and lower, and people can relatively easily upgrade their computers. hardware configuration, so I started to use operating systems with graphical interfaces such as Windows and Windows NT. Linux is an operating system that has recently attracted people's attention, and it is gradually being accepted by PC users. So, what are the main differences between Linux and other operating systems? It will be discussed below from two aspects.

The difference between Linux and MS-DOS

It is very common to run Linux and MS-DOS on the same system. In terms of the processor function, MS-DOS does not fully Implements the functionality of an x86 processor, while Linux runs entirely in processor protected mode and exploits all features of the processor. Linux can directly access all available memory in the computer, providing a complete Unix interface.

MS-DOS only supports some Unix interfaces.