What is Unix/Linux? - Complete Guide 2023

Introduction 

What is Linux? - Linux is a Kernel Based Operating System just like Windows or MacOS, Linux is an Open Source and Community based OS not running by any company, for understanding more about Linux, you need to understand how it was invented and what was the challenges we were facing before and then Linux introduced. lets deep dive into the history of Linux.

Unix Vs Linux?

Before the Linux, Microsoft was the one company who was popular in the market but has some limitations and Microsoft was offering license based Operation Systems. In 1964 AT&T and GE decided to work together and create a Multi tasking and Multi User Operating System, they align 6-7 people in Bell Labs, but after 3 year, they have realized to withdraw this project officially because complex work around, but then in 1967 there were two people from the team, who name was  Dennis Ritchie(founder of C language) and Ken Thompson, they have decided to work again on this project unofficially and reimplement this project, In 1969 Unics was developed and the Bell labs got this news they have again announced this project official as a Unix in 1971.

Source: Wikipedia

Unix was introduced with multi tasking environment but not free, it was used for commercial purposes and in 1973 UNIXv4 was getting popular in the market and it was written in Assembly Language but then again rewritten in C Language. Unix is also Kernel based OS and many companies are using Unix Kernel to build their own Operation System and one of the popular OS is MacOS which is UNIX based kernel. 

GNU Project

The UNIX was introduced as commercial based OS, it was not free at all and that was really difficult for individuals for using the operating system, because of this problem people are still trying to find another choices in the market but unlikely there is the only the option available where you can use Microsoft or UNIX based OS. After sometime in 1983, the new project announced by Richard Stallman called GNU, which means  "GNU's not Unix!". the aim is to provides free Software as a open source, but GNU was not offering entire OS. 

What is Linux?

Linux was introduced by Linus Torvalds in 1991, Linux is an open source kernel based Operating System. it is using GNU project for system packages and utilities and Linux kernel.

Kernel is not an Operating System but it is a part of Operating System. Kernel is a interface between the Hardware and System Software and Operating system is a interface between the Software and User I/O. Linux is a clone of Unix but it doesn't mean that Linus Torvalds copy the code of Unix because Unix was not open source and Linus Torvalds wrote entire code from scratch in  C Language and GNU adopted Linux OS in 1992  and new version was released as GNU/LINUX OS.

LINUX is an Open Source OS, anyone can create own operating system by using Linux Kernel and we called as Distribution, we have many Linux Distro available which is totally free to use and some of them are commercial based OS like Red Hat Enterprise Linux. 

Why Choose Linux?

Now this is very important, why we should use Linux in 2023? Well the Answer is Linux totally free, it is an open source and secure Operating System which can allow you to do multiple tasks on same time with multiply users and it was a initial idea to create a environment that can be free and multi-tasking + multi-user. 

If you are Windows user, probably you have to learn Linux commands from basic and you can watch entire basic to advance Linux course in YouTube.com. 

I would suggest to watch this entire series. 

Related Article: Advance Linux Commands