About Linux & various distributions

In 1991, a Finnish computer science student Linus Torvalds started developing a Kernel based on unix. Earlier he developed the kernel as a hobby & called other developers from across the globe to contribute to this project. The most important decision which Torvads took was to declare his Kernel “open source”. He made his Kernel available freely under GNU GPL. Torvalds was just 21 yrs old when he released the first version of Kernel, he named it LINUX and showed a Penguin as its mascot. Developers from across the world came forward to support & contribute to the project.

Linux was a Kernel and not a full operating system so many developers started to create fully functional operating systems built around the Linux kernel. One of the very first persons was Patrick Volkerding who started Slackware distribution in 1993. That time he put together all necessary softwares around Linux kernel & made the first successful Linux distribution. After this many developers came forward & started their own distribution. Let us first look at what a Distribution is:

Since Linux is open-source so anybody can download it from the internet freely, copy it, modify it & redistribute it. So many developers & companies developed their own operating system based on Linux kernel so all these Linux operating systems are known as distributions. There are a very large number of Linux distributions are available but out of those only a few really matter.

Linux evolved fast & became very popular on Servers, supercomputers & mobiles. However on desktop PC's Windows remained a dominant operating system for a long time but now scenario is changing and more & more people are moving towards Linux for their day to day computing needs. Now fortunately many good Linux distributions are available which are focused to common desktop user. Many Linux distributions release their server & desktop version separately.

Some of the most popular Linux distributions are:

for Servers :

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Suse Enterprise Linux

CentOS

Debian

Ubuntu Server

For Desktop Computers & Laptops :

Ubuntu (Ubuntu is the most popular distribution for desktops & laptops)

Linux Mint (Mint is based on Ubuntu and it is also quite popular)

Fedora (Fedora is Red Hat's sponsored project for desktops & laptop operating system)

OpenSuse (free & open source version of Suse Enterprise Server)

(the list is according to popularity of distributions. You can visit www.distrowatch.com for updates)

If you want to use Linux for your desktop or laptop, you will get any of the distribution free of cost. But while a company wants to implement Linux for it's servers, all Server Linux distributions are not free( but they are also open-source). For example Red hat enterprise Linux is not free. Actually the operating system is open-source but what you have to pay for Red Hat's logo which is copy right protected & also you have to buy a support contract from Red hat still it is very very less expensive than other proprietary operating system such as Microsoft Windows server.

Since Red Hat's source code is available freely, CentOS has been built based on that source code & all modifications have been made to remove Red Hat's logo. CentOS is freely available to download & implement on servers. Apart from this Debian & Ubuntu Servers are also available free of cost.

All Linux servers provide stability & performance that's why more than 86% servers in the world run Linux exclusively.

When you run Linux on your Desktop you get all of its qualities which include stability, performance, protection against viruses at no cost, open-source, support from a dedicated community across the world & many more. I have discussed many features of Linux in my first post.

Now you might be knowing that you would be running one of the several Linux distributions on your desktop or laptop. So now comes the most important question :- which distribution.

If you are an advanced user & you know something about Linux then you might have probably selected your distribution. But if you are a novice & want to migrate to Linux then I would recommend you to install Ubuntu & start using it. I have used many Linux variants like Fedora, Red Hat, opensuse and my personal experience is that Ubuntu is the most user friendly of all these. By saying Ubuntu the most user friendly I didn't mean that other distributions are not user friendly indeed they all are very good & all provide unparallel features of Linux but Ubuntu has been specifically customized for desktop users so it's a little more friendly. If you want you can surely try Fedora or opensuse or any other based on your choice.

Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu & you can use it in place of ubuntu. The only difference is that Linux mint contains some proprietary drivers & codecs by default while Ubuntu doesn't.

These Proprietary drivers and codecs are needed to play proprietary audio/video formats on Linux systems. They may be needed for some other softwares also. In ubuntu you will have to install those codecs once you have installed the Operating system. And this is a one click process through the software centre of Ubuntu. I will be describing the steps to download & install proprietary codecs & drivers in Ubuntu in my future posts.

So here you are ready to install Linux on your system. In the next section I will provide complete detail about how to install Ubuntu Linux on your system.