Linux Introduction

What is Operating System : 

An operating system is a software that enables the communication between computer hardware and software. It conveys input to get processed by the processor and brings output to the hardware to display it. This is the basic function of an operating system.

History of Linux : 

Linux is around us since the mid-90s which developed by Linus Torvalds in 1991, Its an open-source operating system like other operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS, iOS, Google android, etc. 

The timeline of Linux history and development can be summarized in the following chronology:

• 1991 : Linux kernel published to the community for development purposes on 25 August
• 1992 : Linux kernel license was changed to GNU GPL and for the first time Linux became a complete operating system and can be used immediately without the need to install supporting GNU applications separately.
• 1993 : More than 100 developers participated in the linux kernel development process, with their help the kernel was adapted to the GNU environment. Slackware became the oldest distribution still standing today(2017) followed by debian which became the largest distribution today (2017)
• 1994 : Linus Torvalds decides that all components of the kernel are completely mature and then he releases Linux version 1.0, the XFree86 project contributing to the creation of the Linux GUI. The commercial version of SE linux distro also released Linux with version 1.0
• 1995 : Linux is adjusted to run on new processor platforms, namely DEC Alpha and Sun SPARC processors. Both processors are the most modern processors at that time.
• 1996 : Linux kernel version 2.0 was released with a new feature, namely the Linux kernel can run on various processor platforms using symmetric multiprocessing (SMP).
  This method is an alternative choice used by many companies.
• 1998 : Many large companies such as IBM, Compaq and Oracle announced product support for Linux.
  An essay by The Cathedral and the Bazaar (which later became a book) which tells the author’s experience of the method when developing the Linux kernel in open source projects has had a tremendous impact on open source projects after they were published. It was because of this writing that Netscape decided to join the opensource community by publishing the source code of the Netscape Communicator Web browser suite.
  On the other hand a group of programmers started to build KDE’s graphical user interface (GUI).
• 1999 : A group of application developers work together on a GNOME Graphical environment project designed to replace KDE. In the same year IBM also announced additional projects to support Linux.
• 2000 : Dell announces that it is now the number 2 provider in the world that uses Linux in all of its products
• 2002 : Long story short, Microsoft killed Dell Linux, not only Dell, Microsoft also threatened other hardware vendor companies that campaigned for Linux.
• 2004 : the Xfree86 project team split up and merged with the X standards project which later became the X.Org Foundation which worked faster to develop an X server for Linux
• 2005 : The openSUSE project begins free distribution for the Novell’s community, as does the Openoffice.org project which introduces version 2.0 with support for the OASIS OpenDocument document format standard.
• 2006 : Oracle releases its own Linux distribution, namely Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), while Novell and Microsoft cooperate in protecting the use of patents.
• 2007 : Dell started to market laptops with the default Linux operating system Ubuntu distribution.
• 2009 : RedHat’s market development is on par with Sun’s, which is interpreted as a symbolic moment for the “Linux-based economy”.
• 2011 : Linux kernel version 3.0 released
• 2012 : Linux market exceeds Unix market in Server class market type
• 2013 : 75% of mobile phones on the market use an operating system based on Linux (Android)
• 2014 : Ubuntu claims to have 22 million users
• 2015 : Linux kernel version 4.0 released to the public
• 2019: Linux kernel version 5.0 released to the public