- Free :
Linux is free.
First ,It's available free of cost (You don't
have to pay to use this OS, other OSes like MS-Windows or Commercial
version of Unix may cost you money)
Second free means freedom to
use Linux, i.e. when you get Linux you will also get source code of
Linux, so you can modify OS (Yes OS! Linux OS!!) according to your
taste.
It also offers many Free Software applications,
programming languages, and development tools etc. Most of the
Program/Software/OS are under GNU General Public License (GPL).
- Unix Like:
Unix is almost 35 year old Os.
In 1964 OS called MULTICS (Multiplexed Information and Computing System) was developed by Bell Labs, MIT & General Electric. But this OS was not the successful one.
Then Ken Thompson (System programmer of Bell Labs) thinks he could do
better (In 1991, Linus Torvalds felt he could do better than Minix -
History repeats itself.). So Ken Thompson wrote OS on PDP - 7 Computer,
assembler and few utilities, this is know as Unix (1969). But this
version of Unix is not portable. Then Unix was rewrote in C. Because
Unix written in 'C', it is portable. It means Unix can run on verity of
Hardware platform (1970-71).
At the same time Unix was started to
distribute to Universities. There students and professor started more
experiments on Unix. Because of this Unix gain more popularity, also
several new features are added to Unix. Then US govt. & military
uses Unix for there inter-network (now it is know as INTERNET).
So Unix is Multi-user, Multitasking, Internet-aware Network OS. Linux almost had same Unix Like feature for e.g.
Like Unix, Linux is also written is C.
Like Unix, Linux is also the Multi-user/Multitasking/32 or 64 bit Network OS.
Like Unix, Linux is rich in Development/Programming environment.
Like Unix, Linux runs on different hardware platform; for e.g.Intel x86 processor (Celeron/PII/PIII/PIV/Old-Pentiums/80386/80486)
Sun Microsystems Sparc processor
- Open Source :
Linux is developed under the GNU Public License. This is sometimes
referred to as a "copyleft", to distinguish it from a copyright.Under
GPL the source code is available to anyone who wants it, and can be
freely modified, developed, and so forth. There are only a few
restrictions on the use of the code. If you make changes to the programs
, you have to make those changes available to everyone. This basically
means you can't take the Linux source code, make a few changes, and then
sell your modified version without making the source code available.
- Network operating system
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