Linux is an operating system that was initially
created as a hobby by a young student, Linus Torvalds, at the University of Helsinki in
Finland. Linus had an interest in Minix, a small UNIX system, and decided to develop a
system that exceeded the Minix standards. He began his work in 1991 when he released
version 0.02 and worked steadily until 1994 when version 1.0 of the Linux Kernel was
released. The current full-featured version is 2.2 (released January 25, 1999), and
development continues.
Linux is developed under the GNU General Public License and its source code is freely
available to
everyone. This however, doesn't mean that Linux and it's assorted distributions are free
-- companies and developers may charge money for it as long as the source code remains
available. Linux may be used for a wide variety of purposes including networking, software
development, and as an end-user platform. Linux is often considered an excellent, low-cost
alternative to other more expensive operating systems.
Due to the very nature of Linux's functionality and availability, it has become quite
popular worldwide and a vast number of software programmers have taken Linux's source code
and adapted it to meet their individual needs. At this time, there are dozens of ongoing
projects for porting Linux to various hardware configurations and purposes.
Linux has an official mascot, the Linux Penguin, which was selected by Linus Torvalds to
represent the image he associates with the operating system he created.
Although many variations of the word Linux exist, it is most often pronounced with a short
" i " and with
the first syllable stressed, as in LIH-nucks.