{"id":1236,"date":"2016-12-27T18:08:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-27T12:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abhinav.spsdarj.org\/?p=1236"},"modified":"2016-12-31T19:33:12","modified_gmt":"2016-12-31T14:03:12","slug":"what-the-hell-is-linux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/2016\/12\/what-the-hell-is-linux\/","title":{"rendered":"What the Hell is Linux?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Alright. Here we go! I&#8217;ve done some itty bitty research and will shortly forget what Linux is all about cuz I vaguely remember searching the same info before. So yeah! Let&#8217;s Start!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Unix<\/strong>: Initially, it was a AT&amp;T built\u00a0operating system. Now, It&#8217;s a family of operating systems that derive from it, like<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>BSD\/Berkeley Software Distribution (386BSD (<em>FreeBSD, NetBSD&#8230;<\/em>), Darwin (<em>macOS, iOS<\/em>),\u00a0SunOS))<\/li>\n<li>GNU<\/li>\n<li>Linux (Android, Chrome OS)<\/li>\n<li>QNX (BlackBerry 10)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Based on its design, <strong>Unix like operating systems<\/strong> have come to exist. Most Famous: Linux.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Linux<\/strong> releases a new version of their &#8220;kernel&#8221; every now and then. And due to the flexibility, customizability, free and open-source nature of Linux, it becomes possible to highly tune Linux for a specific purpose or just make a general purpose version. There are different foundations\/groups who pick up the kernel release, modify it and\u00a0package\u00a0it along with a bunch of mostly free (called GNU stuff) or paid software in a form known as a <i>Linux distribution<\/i> (or <i>distro<\/i> for short) for both desktop and server use. You cannot use Linux without a distro since Linux by itself is just a kernel. <a href=\"http:\/\/unix.stackexchange.com\/questions\/56481\/linux-without-any-distribution\" class=\"broken_link\">Read more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 137px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/1\/1b\/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/1\/1b\/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg\" alt=\"Linux Distribution timeline 2016\" width=\"137\" height=\"599\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Linux Distribution timeline 2016. Btw, the image is Ctrl + F able.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>General purpose<\/strong> <strong>Linux distributions<\/strong>: Some of the most popular are Debian, Fedora,\u00a0Ubuntu\u00a0(which is itself based on Debian)\u00a0together with commercial distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Specialized<\/strong> <strong>Linux distribution<\/strong>:\u00a0There are two main methods for creating them: building from scratch (i.e. Pure Linux) or from a general-purpose distribution as a base. Linux distributions built from scratch do not have general-purpose bases; instead, they focus on the <a class=\"mw-redirect\" title=\"JeOS\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/JeOS\">JeOS<\/a> philosophy by including only necessary components and avoiding resource overhead caused by components considered redundant in the distribution&#8217;s use cases. Eg of Specialized distros: <a href=\"http:\/\/distrowatch.com\/index.php?distribution=kali&amp;release=all&amp;month=all&amp;year=all\">Kali Linux<\/a> for digital security (Based on Debian).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Packages:<\/strong>\u00a0Each distro, while they may be based off of one another need to be &#8220;binary compatible&#8221; to allow packages (or softwares\/apps) from one distro to be used in another. So care for that must be taken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alright. Here we go! I&#8217;ve done some itty bitty research and will shortly forget what Linux is all about cuz I vaguely remember searching the same info before. So yeah! Let&#8217;s Start! Unix: Initially, it was a AT&amp;T built\u00a0operating system. Now, It&#8217;s a family of operating systems that derive from it, like BSD\/Berkeley Software Distribution&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[189],"tags":[233],"class_list":["post-1236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","tag-linux"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4KGvB-jW","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1003,"url":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/2016\/09\/whats-with-32-bit-systems-supporting-max-4gb-of-ram\/","url_meta":{"origin":1236,"position":0},"title":"What&#8217;s with 32 bit systems supporting max 4GB of RAM?","author":"Abhinav","date":"September 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"So you know that RAMs contain storage space. 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Online Resources: Udacity- \u00a0Intro to CS course, Coursera - Computer Science 101 Code in at least one object oriented programming language: C++, Java, or Python Beginner Online Resources: Coursera - Learn\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Knowledge&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Knowledge","link":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/category\/knowledge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1031,"url":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/2016\/09\/digit-magazines\/","url_meta":{"origin":1236,"position":3},"title":"DIGIT Magazines","author":"Abhinav","date":"September 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Stable Web archive version: Here. Beyond this, any backed up version of this page on web archive will appear broken. Actually, the links still work but it'll take you an extra click. So if you're currently viewing this page on web archive, go to the above linked url for best\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Tech&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Tech","link":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/category\/knowledge\/tech\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":960,"url":"https:\/\/abhinavkr.com\/musings\/2016\/07\/what-are-the-10-must-read-books-during-the-ages-of-21-25\/","url_meta":{"origin":1236,"position":4},"title":"What are the 10 must-read books during the ages of 21-25?","author":"Abhinav","date":"July 3, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The Defining Decade by Meg Jay. This book is entirely about you. It will answer questions about life, you didn't even know you was asking. 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