What Is Linux?
Linux is an operating system which is an enhancement over another UNIX system called Minix. It is developed under the GNU General Public License and its source code is freely available to everyone. It is among other things used primarily for networking, software development, and as an end-user platform.
Linux is an excellent, low-cost alternative to other expensive operating systems. By virtue of being functional and easily available, it has gained tremendous popularity across the globe. Many software programmers have taken Linux's source code and adapted it to meet their individual needs.
Reasons for Linux being considered the best operating system today:
- Linux holds a major share as a server operating system and has the largest market share for the entire Internet. Internet Presence Division provides value-added service and support on all versions of Linux.
- It is available almost free of cost or at negligible costs. A wide variety of commercial software is available if the free software doesn't satisfy your needs.
- It is reliable and stable. It is extremely powerful and the servers can go on for several days as compared to the frequent reboots required on Windows. Also, if there is a crash in the application, it is less likely to bring down the operating system under Linux.
- The Linux operating system comes with a complete development environment, including C, C++, Fortran compilers, and toolkits such as Qt and scripting languages such as Perl, Awk and sed.
- It has excellent networking facilities and allows you to share CPUs, modems etc. It is also considered the perfect environment to run servers such as a web server or an FTP server.
- This operating system is easily upgradeable and scalable. It can multi-task and runs more than one program at the same time. It has an excellent window system called X which is much more flexible than Windows.