How the creator of the free operating system Linux became a millionaire. A brief history of Linux What is Linux

In January of this year, the FAS admitted that Microsoft dominates the market of operating systems (OS) for personal computers (PCs) in Russia. According to the 2015 data, which FAS operated, 95.6% of desktops and laptops were Windows. Apple held 2.5% of the market, but its Mac OS is not easy to install anywhere other than Mac computers. Microsoft's real competitors, the most serious of which are Linux, only had 1.9% of the market.

It would seem that the project to create a free operating system has failed. In fact, he is rapidly conquering the world. “A lot of people don't even know they are using Linux,” its founder, Finn Linus Torvalds, said in an interview with Linux magazine. Pick up your smartphone - if it's Android, it's built on the Linux kernel. Climb the sites of giants like Google, Amazon, Facebook or some small unknown companies - they use Linux. Linux powers the International Space Station, powers most supercomputers, and was taken over by the New York Stock Exchange in 2007. Tens of thousands of programmers around the world are working for free to continually improve the free system.

Employee Microsoft once told Torvalds that his portrait was being used in their office as a darts target. Steve Ballmer, while he was the CEO of Microsoft, publicly attacked Linux. Hardly because he was indifferent to her. After leaving, he admitted in an interview with Fortune: Linux poses an increasing threat to Windows and is already "looming in the rearview mirror." Ballmer's successor Satya Nadella went the other way: he launched the Microsoft Loves Linux initiative to adapt software to each other.

But Apple, on the contrary, at the end of last year banned the installation of Linux and other operating systems, except for Mac OS and Windows 10, on its new computers. And before that, Steve Jobs offered Torvalds to become one of the developers of the Mac OS and introduce into the process the same unusual development principles as Linux. But the Finnish programmer refused. “I think [Jobs] was pretty surprised that his argument about Apple's market share didn't work,” Torvalds recalled.

He has his own views on what is open source software and what is his role in the computer world, Torvalds. He created software that is free and on which he did not expect to make a cent (though he ended up making millions). But even when money was tight in the late 1990s, Torvalds gave up the $ 10 million he would have received for joining the board of directors of one of the nascent Linux companies.

In January of this year, Torvalds started development of the 5th version of the Linux kernel. “The change in the number does not mean something special. If you need an official reason - I ran out of fingers and toes, so "4.21" turned into "5", - he is quoted by InternetUA.

Mesmerized by the calculator

Linus Torvalds was born on December 28, 1969 in Helsinki and should have become a journalist - like almost all of his relatives. My father was a radio journalist, my mother was an editor at a news agency, my uncle worked for Finnish television, my grandfather was the editor-in-chief of a newspaper, and my sister, an employee of a news agency, opened her own translation agency, specializing in the translation of news reports.

A family legend says that Linus's great-grandfather, journalist and writer Ernst von Wendt, fought for the Whites in 1917 and was held captive by the Reds. Father Niels, on the other hand, was an ideological communist. Some children were even banned from playing with Linus, and he himself was teased at school because of his father's radicalism. When the parents divorced, the children did not notice it too much: the father lived in Moscow for a long time.

A rare exception to the family profession was the maternal grandfather Leo Waldemar Ternqvist, professor of statistics at the University of Helsinki. The grandson really enjoyed watching him work on a calculator. Unlike modern ones, those calculators needed time to calculate, and they blinked lights. The sight fascinated young Linus. In 1981, instead of a calculator, my grandfather bought the first computer, the Commodore VIC-20.

The rarest surname

In the biography “Just for Fun. The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary "(M .: Eksmo-press, 2002) Linus Torvalds, who belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, talks about the origin of his surname:" Father's grandfather, Torvalds<...> made it himself, using his middle name as an improvised material. At birth he was named Ole Torvald Alice Sachsberg. He was born without a father (Saksberg is his mother's maiden name) and then received the surname Karanko from the man my great-grandmother had married. Farfar (as the Finns call their paternal grandfather - “Vedomosti”) did not like his stepfather so much that he changed his surname: he added the letter “c” to the name Torvald to give the surname a more solid - as it seemed to him - sound. The name Torvald means "the domain of Thor". It would be better if he created the surname from scratch, and did not engage in alterations: the addition of "s" deprives the word of its original meaning and confuses both Swedes and Finns, who cannot understand how to pronounce this surname. It’s not the Torvalds who want to write it, but the Thorwalds. There are only 21 Torvalds in the world, and we are all relatives. We all face this family problem. "

Torvalds recalls that he was not an outcast at school and was quite dexterous - he was willingly taken on the team in the Finnish version of bouncers. But at the same time he was a typical nerd: "He looked like a beaver, wore glasses, dressed tasteless, most of the time my hair looked bad, and on other days it was terrible." Unsurprisingly, he became interested in the computer. This craze did not go away when he got older. Because of the Finnish weather, the country has nothing to do but program, have sex or drink, Torvalds joked. With the second, he did not work out very well - hackers in those years had not yet become fashionable, he did not particularly like to drink. It remains to write the codes.

Computer investment

When grandfather passed away, his computer was taken over by Linus by default. Then he bought Sinclair QL. The family did not boast: Torvalds recalls how his mother periodically pawned the only value - a share of the Helsinki Telephone Company (given to each owner of a phone) worth about $ 500. Having become famous, he will make the only exception for this company and will enter its board of directors.

In 1990 Torvalds entered the University of Helsinki. He bought a computer with an Intel 386 processor, for which he had to get a loan for several years. It was worth it: it was a powerful machine for its time.

The university had a Unix operating system. On Torvalds's computer - the free Minix OS. Torvalds didn't like how she connected from home via a modem to the university network, nor how she worked with the hardware of his computer. For example, Minix was designed for 16-bit processors, while Intel 386 was 32-bit.

Torvalds wrote several programs to solve these problems. But they required other programs: for example, his solution to work with the institute's network did not know how to write files to disk. In the end, so many additional functions were created that Torvalds realized: he had a replacement for Minix in five minutes. But he still worked with Minix until he accidentally messed it up: he wrote a command that damaged the hard drive in the place where the OS was written. Then Torvalds began to use his Linux as the main OS.

Free software ideologues

It cannot be said that Torvalds created an operating system from scratch. He created the kernel of the system, that is, that which connects programs with the hardware of the computer and allows them to work. This is a base on which you can hang many different add-ons. There is no one Linux operating system similar to Windows 10 - there are many operating systems based on the Linux kernel, some of which use the word Linux in their name.

Torvalds himself, to create a full-fledged OS on his own kernel, used a set of third-party programs under the auspices of the General Public License (GPL), developed by Richard Stallman. Torvalds reverently calls him "the god of free software."

Stallman began working on a free alternative to Unix in 1984. "Free" was the key word. His task was to prevent anyone from taking over the source codes and demanding payment for them. Stallman created the ideological and legal framework for such software, the Free Software Manifesto, and wrote the General Public License (GPL) with his lawyers. It says that if a programmer has used code licensed under the GPL, then he must provide everyone who wants the source code of the resulting product, the right to modify and distribute it. The next programmer will have to do the same, using GPL-licensed software for their programs, etc.

Torvalds, using Stallman's work, also licensed his kernel under the GPL. Therefore, in 2001, the CEO Microsoft Ballmer swore, “Linux is a cancer that devours all the intellectual property it touches. According to the license rules, if you use any open source software components, you must open the source code of all the software you have ”(Cnet quote).

Why Linux is popular

Initially, Torvalds did not want to distribute his work. But he boasted of his successes on the Internet forum and, so that he would not be considered a talker, posted the code.

His creation captivated other programmers, who began to install it on their computers and suggest improvements. Perfection was indeed very far away. One day Torvalds received a letter, the author of which praised Linux for a long time, and at the end said that there was a bug in the drive driver that had just destroyed his hard drive.

The system became more and more popular. By then, Torvalds hadn't been working on Linux alone for a long time. More and more people understood the code and offered their improvements, and they did it absolutely free. There is a system that allows volunteers to work on a new version of Linux with other developers, see changes made by others, and revert to previous versions of files in case of errors. Linux once had 10,000 lines of code. Now the bill goes to tens of millions. In 2017, about 80,000 improvements for Linux were proposed, 90% of them were paid programmers, and 30% of them worked for Intel, The New Yorker wrote.

Torvalds knows Linux so well that the proposed changes are often accepted or rejected at sight: "It's like looking into a book and not seeing individual letters or words, but grasping the whole sentence" (quoted by Bloomberg). But if the changes are serious, then he needs 10-25 minutes to test them. Although Torvalds has many helpers who filter out suggestions, he sometimes has to look through 30 changes a day.

Thanks to this system, Linux has attracted the attention of major players. The first among large companies to install Linux-based software on their equipment was Sun Microsystems, then IBM, Informix, Oracle ... Small companies were also interested. The rise of online commerce in the 1990s created the need for server software. Previously, you had to spend thousands of dollars on it, now you could bet it for a penny by adapting Linux. Anyone could open their own business online.

Torvalds believes that the key to Linux's success is that it doesn't have a niche. Once Unix relied on the supercomputers of the military, banks, financial institutions, he says in his autobiography “Just for Fun. The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary ”. This software cost a lot of money. Then she came Microsoft with its relatively inexpensive prices and began to work everywhere. “But imagine a liquid organism that floods any space it finds. If one of the niches is lost, it doesn't matter. The body fills the whole world, flowing into all holes. The same is happening with Linux now. She finds herself wherever there is interest in her<...> It can be found on supercomputers in cool places like the National Laboratory. Fermi and NASA. But there it flowed from the server space. And into it, in turn, I got from the world of desktop computers - here I started. At the same time, Linux is on embedded devices, from anti-lock brakes to clocks. See how she fills the world. "

Of course, another reason for the popularity is the image of Robin Hood. On the one hand, a monster corporation Microsoft , rumors of surveillance of users, etc., and on the other - free software and a humble Finn.

How Torvalds became a millionaire

“I had a hard time scraping together the money for the monthly payments for my computer, which were calculated for three years,” Torvalds recalled in his biography. But he thought it was wrong to charge for Linux. The reason for this is Finland, with its attitude to greed, and a stubborn communist father, and the unwillingness to make those who helped him make the program better pay, Torvalds argued.

On the Internet there are so-called harem pants (from the English shareware) - free software that asks: "If you like me, send money to the author." In Linux there was no such request, but many wrote to Torvalds that they would gladly support him financially. At that time, a letter from the "maximum repost" series was circulating on the Internet: allegedly the boy Craig was dying of cancer, but he could be encouraged by sending a postcard. Torvalds jokingly asked for a couple of lines instead of currency. When the mailbox began to burst with postcards from all over the world, the family suspected that Linus was doing something important. He himself did not talk much about Linux, despite all the reproaches that his modem was constantly on the phone line.

Torvalds lived and dined with his mother. It had about $ 5,000 in student loans, about $ 50 a month went into a computer loan, and some money was needed for beer. The loan problem resolved itself: a friend announced on the Internet a subscription to pay for Torvalds' computer, and he accepted the money as an exception. And he paid off the rest from his salary. Finland has a Swedish-speaking minority, to which the Torvalds belong. In 1992, a computer science assistant was needed for a course in the Faculty of Computer Science. He spoke Swedish and knew about computers. There were only two of them in the faculty.

Three years later, Torvalds became a staff scientist at the university: he received money for research, which, by and large, boiled down to improving Linux.

Thanks to teaching, Torvalds got married. A kindergarten teacher and six-time Finnish karate champion Tove signed up for his special course “Introduction to Computer Science”. The first task was to send an e-mail to the teacher - it was not as easy as it is now. In a letter, Tove invited him on a date. At first, they never parted at all, and Torvalds even abandoned programming.

In 1997, Torvalds moved to the United States with his family to work for Transmeta, a low-power processor development company. One of the co-owners of this company is Paul Allen, who together with Bill Gates founded Microsoft ... Torvalds' job was to maintain the project's Linux infrastructure.

Torvalds never had more than $ 5,000 in his bank account - until the turn of this century, when he became a millionaire overnight. If Linux is free, that doesn't mean you can't make money on it. Even when the project was just in its infancy, the kernel could be downloaded for free from the Internet - or bought from enterprising guys to record it on a floppy disk or CD. You can make money on Linux installation services, you can customize Linux for a fee to the needs of a particular company. The latter is handled by Red Hat, which went public on August 11, 1999. And before that, as a token of gratitude, she gave Torvalds an option on a block of shares.

On the very first day of trading, quotes doubled. But he had the right to sell the papers not earlier than 180 days later. Fortunately, all this time they grew (in 2009 Red Hat will enter the S&P 500), and the cost of Torvalds' package reached $ 5 million.

Soon after, another company, VA Linux, entered the stock exchange and gave Torvalds an option in the same way. In the wake of optimism, shares immediately rose 10 times to $ 300. But it turned out to be overkill, and the dot-com bubble was beginning to deflate. From $ 300, the shares began to fall, and at a minimum a year later they were given $ 6.6 for them. Torvalds recalls how awful it was for 180 days to watch your package get cheaper and you can't sell it.

With the money raised from the shares, the family (now the author of Linux has three daughters) bought a house in America, and Torvalds became addicted to keeping in the garage, in addition to the family Pontiac, a convertible, usually yellow.

In 2012, Torvalds won the Millennium Technology Prize, the world's largest technology award. He shared the prize of 1.2 million euros with another laureate of that year, Japanese stem cell researcher Shinya Yamanaka.

But Torvalds' main source of income after he left Transmeta in 2003 was the Linux Foundation (in those years it was called the Open Source Development Labs). His job is to evaluate other people's suggestions for improving Linux: “I haven't written any code myself in years. Everything I write is just fixing other people's mistakes, I make changes in one or two lines, my contribution is to combine different pieces of code ”(quoted from The Register). The fund is being funded with donations, including from companies using Linux. According to The New Yorker, in 2017 his budget was $ 50 million, and Torvalds received $ 1.6 million from the fund in 2016.

Responsibility for a rude person

“When I manage a project with hundreds of thousands of developers, I act in the same way as in my student days: I do not entrust anything to anyone, I just wait for someone to call,” Torvalds said in his biography book. - I approve or reject their work, but for the most part I let events go their own way. If two people are heading in similar directions, then I accept the work of both, to see who will be used. Sometimes both are used, but they start to develop in different directions. Once there was a lot of competition between two people: each of them insisted that his patches be used, which conflicted with the opponent's patches. I stopped accepting patches from both until one of the developers lost interest. This is what King Solomon would have done if he had run a kindergarten. "

This approach has proven to be effective on a Linux scale. But when Torvalds was instructed by Transmeta to manage a department of 15 employees, he showed his complete inadequacy. Three months later, he was quietly demoted back to programmers.

But as the main Linux coordinator, not everyone likes him, since the style of his communication with colleagues for many years remained "student": the programmer did not restrain himself in expressions.

In 2013, one of the developers even wrote a letter to Torvalds asking him not to offend or intimidate colleagues. “If you want me to 'act professionally', I can tell you that I am not interested,” Torvalds replied. - I sit at home in the study, wearing a robe. I am not going to start wearing a tie, and in the same way I am not going to engage in false politeness, deceit, office politics and hooking, passive aggressiveness and other fashionable words. Because THIS is what it takes to “act professionally”: people resort to all kinds of unpleasant things because they are forced to follow their usual promptings in an unnatural way ”(quoted by The New Yorker).

In 2015, Torvalds' closest associate, programmer Greg Kroah-Hartman, wrote the Conflict Resolution Code, in part to shield others from harsh language. Torvalds approved the innovation, but did not hold back. At the end of that year, Sarah Sharp and Matthew Gareth withdrew from the Linux kernel development team due to harsh treatment. “I am actually an unpleasant person. Some think I'm so cute and some are shocked to see otherwise. I'm not a nice person and I wanted to spit on you. I care about the technology and the core, ”Torvalds reacted (quoted from The Register).

Last October, kernel developers were scheduled to attend the Linux Maintainer Summit. Torvalds visited her for 20 years in a row. But this time I confused the date and planned a vacation with my family. This was revealed ahead of time, but he refused to change plans for the summit and left for Scotland. Then its participants decided to gather not in Vancouver, but in Edinburgh, closer to Torvalds, so that he could nevertheless join them for a short while. The story was vigorously discussed in programmer circles, and The New Yorker reporters made a meeting with Torvalds and asked him questions about the incident and his relationship with colleagues. In September 2018 - even before the article was published - Torvalds apologized for his behavior, promised to think about how to change it, and announced that he would be temporarily removed from Linux coordination.

In the same month, a new code of conduct for Linux developers was released, and in October Torvalds returned to the team (he also attended the forum).

Now the community lives by new rules. In the past, being spontaneous and straightforward in expressing opinions was considered natural and useful in open source software development. Now the criticism needs to be presented constructively, and after hearing it, you need to carefully consider. Derogatory comments, personal attacks, expressions with sexual connotations are prohibited. Torvalds is still trying to hold back.

The most popular operating system at the moment is the Windows operating system. This is both thanks to a successful start and the initial focus on working with it by inexperienced users. But almost everyone who has had several years of using this OS behind him raises the question of what analogs can offer. Here is one of these will be considered within the framework of the article.

Linux: what is it and what does it consist of?

This is not an easy question. To fully familiarize yourself with the capabilities of this development, you must read more than one book and spend a lot of time at the computer. The operating system itself is a set of programs with which it is possible to interact with a computer and launch other programs. At the very foundation there are several important applications that can be divided into the following groups:

1. Allowing to receive instructions from users and communicate with them.
2. Making it possible to read and write data to the hard disk, as well as their reproduction using a printer.
3. Allowing to control memory usage and launch of other programs.

The most important part of an operating system is the kernel (called Linux). What does this device give you in practice? The currently popular temporary samples use various programs that were written for this project as another part of the operating system. By the way, the full name of this OS is GNU / Linux. Next, you will find out why she has such a name.

Creature

GNU / Linux is modeled after the Unix OS. From the very beginning, this operating system was designed to be multi-user and multitasking. This is already enough to make it stand out. But there are much more differences in it. The most important thing is that it is free (a significant part of the development was created by volunteers at no cost) and the absence of an owner. The Free Software Foundation first began creating something like this in 1984. Then a Unix-like operating system was developed, which was called GNU. Many basic functions were created, with the help of which it was possible to solve problems of a wide range (when compared with what existed in general then). In addition to the foundation, many working groups and individuals have contributed, which in no way diminishes their work. But there are still some peculiarities. Thus, the foundation created most of the tools used, philosophy and community of enthusiastic users and independent programmers. Their forces and debugged appeared. But this is still the story of only the first part. The Linux OS kernel was created by a Finnish student in 1991 (the first stable version dates back to 1994). Then it was announced as a replacement for Minix. The creator has not retired since then and continues to lead a group of several hundred programmers who improve the operating system.

What does the operating system provide to users?

Today there is a lot of freedom in choosing the required software. So, there are a dozen command line shells, as well as several graphical desktops. Moreover, this does not mean visual design, but a change in the functional part. Also, due to the adaptation of the operating system for the execution of several programs, it is less susceptible to various failures and is better protected. Since its inception, Linux OS has slowly but surely conquered its audience. So, most servers are already running on it. She is just beginning her journey in the corporate segment and at home. Each distribution is different in its functionality, appearance and size. So, there are options that provide the broadest opportunities. There are also some that can fit on a small flash drive or work on old computers. Also, immediately after it is given the opportunity to quickly install software packages to work in certain areas (which is valuable if an "office" computer is being created).

Terminal

This is an important part of working with the Linux operating system. What is a terminal? It is a powerful tool with tremendous potential. With its help, you can facilitate, or even completely shift all routine work to the machine. Using the terminal, you can:

1. install and run programs;
2. customize the distribution or configuration files;
3. add new program storages;
4. and many other things that this Linux review will cover.

Basic use of the terminal, as well as installing programs

Start it up. To start the program, just enter its name. This way you can activate everything from simple timer programs to complex utilities. You do not need to enter the full path for this (which is very different from Windows). Let's take as an example starting the Firefox browser and immediately opening the site. The latter must be placed in the arguments. Their types depend on the programs that are called. So, the desired command will look like this: firefox "URL of the site we want to visit". Also an important feature of the terminal is that there are a number of commands that are only designed to work with it. That is, they have no graphical interface. Now is the time to talk about. Of course, there are graphical applications that can help with this task. So, launch a terminal and enter the following: sudo apt-get install package_name. Not difficult, right? The word sudo is used here to gain administrator rights to install the program. With apt-get, the desired parameters for the application are read. And install directly installs the program. Moreover, the peculiarity is that you can work with several applications at the same time - for this you only need to separate them using a space.

The name and purpose of the installation packages can be easily guessed without using various tools. But if this is not possible, press Tab. When changing distributions, it is not necessary to do everything first - you just need to export the names of the packages used to a text file in order to import its contents later. Here is such a simple Linux instruction required for the initial work.

Working with files and directories

There is a nuance here that will help you quickly understand the features of the operating system. So, work always happens in the current directory. To do something elsewhere, you must first specify it. There is such a command - nano. Used to open a text editor. If you enter nano "document name", then a file with the specified name will be created in the current directory. And what to do when it needs to be done in another folder? We register the command as follows: nano / home / rabota / documents / "Document name". If the specified directive does not contain a file with the required name and extension, a new one will be created and opened. And if you need to move from one folder to another? To do this, use the cd command. It can be specified by itself - with /, ~ or with a directive. The first three commands will move to the root directory. Use ls to list the files in the current directory. To create a new directory, use mkdir "Name or Path". The rm command is used to delete files. After it, it is necessary to indicate the name of the document or the directive for its placement.

To copy files, you must use the command cp "Document name" - "Path". Please note that it must be used in the directory where the portable object is located. Mv works the same way, but it is already moving the file. So, you must specify as follows: mv "Directory where the document is located" - "The path where the object is moved". From the outside it may look a little complicated, but a little practice will convince you that it only seems. Now you can basic Linux tweak to suit your needs.

Working with the system

Use Tab. This is an extremely useful key. So, it can help with autocomplete. This works for packages, files and folders. If there are several options, the system will offer to choose one of them. Also remember that taking care of Linux will be on your shoulders. Although you can use the provided assemblies, if you do not want to build your own brick by brick (although this is one of the features of the system). But just in case, know that this is a simple matter, and in most cases, the implementation of this action will not be difficult. Also, you can use any of the freely available graphical interfaces for work (although the easiest way to manage is the command line).

Installing Linux

What if you want to use this operating system? Then you need to know how to install and how to run Linux. Initially choose the distribution that you will have. Popularly used are Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS and many others. We draw attention to the operating systems presented, although the final choice is yours. To do this, you will need to acquire an .ISO image and burn it to disk. It is desirable to download the file from the official assembly site. Then you need to select the number of system bits. The 32 version has fewer compatibility issues and works better with drivers. But its analogue is 62 more powerful. True, they will also cause troubles that you will have to deal with. Make sure to back up all your important data before you start. Do not think that the system can spoil something for you. Simply, in most cases, users themselves, unknowingly or in panic, delete important information. So, you have a disk with a system image. Before reinstalling, configure the base I / O system to work with You can now reboot.

Installing Ubuntu will be considered as an example. It is a popular operating system, and it is not difficult to find recommendations for working with it. So, initially a screen will load where you will need to select "Install Ubuntu". Initially, you will need to select the Linux language. Determine your time zone. Then you configure the keyboard to work. In the next step, you will need to prepare the disk space. At this stage, the solution to this issue can be shifted to the operating system, or you can define everything manually. The latter option is suitable for advanced users who know what a data sector is and how a computer works in general. Moreover, the level of awareness should be very high.

After the questions with disk space are exhausted, you will be prompted to name this computer, as well as create an administrator. It will be necessary to remember what was indicated here, otherwise the operation of the machine in the future without reinstallation or reset will be almost impossible. By the way, the password and username will be needed not only to log into the system. After that, you will see a wizard for transferring settings from other operating systems. If not, then the step will be skipped. Otherwise, the operating system will offer to transfer files, as well as settings that were in user accounts. And at the end a window should appear in which the user's choice will be displayed. Check if everything is the way you want. If there are no complaints, then click on the "Install" button, and the process will be launched. Depending on the configuration of the computer on which all these actions are carried out, the speed of replacement of operating systems changes. When all the necessary actions are completed, you will be prompted to press the "Enter" button.

Launching Linux

When you first turn it on, you will be greeted by a bootloader. In this case, the launch of Linux will depend on the presence of extraneous OS. If it is alone, then Linux itself will boot. If this is not the case, then you will have three options:

1. When you select the first, the operating system will boot in ten seconds.
2. The second option is analogous to Windows Safe Mode.
3. Testing RAM.

Also, depending on the number of installed operating systems, options for launching them will be added, and not just loading the Linux system. After activating Linux, you can start customizing its design, start using additional applications - in general, do everything so that the operating system is customized as much as possible for you. exist in a huge variety, and you can choose what you like. Some problems can arise only when using games and calculation applications (AutoCAD and the like).

Removing and restoring Linux

The same Ubuntu will be used as an example. It doesn't matter why you wondered "how to uninstall Linux" - you didn't like the system or decided it was difficult. The main thing is how to do it. Let's consider two options. In the first, let's say you have a Windows fallback. In the second, we will assume that you do not have another operating system:

1. Place the installation disc in the drive. You boot from it, changing the priority in the basic I / O system. We open the command line. This can be done through the installation disc menu. Then select the "System fix" option. In English it looks like Repair your computer. Correcting the entry about the system boot. To do this, enter the bootrec / fixmbr command. And at startup, you will no longer see the operating system selection screen when you turn on the computer, and Windows will always boot. Everything is ready. Now, for the changes to take effect, restart the machine. If you want to completely get rid of Ubuntu, then you need to do two more steps. First, open the disk management menu. In the window that opens, you will need to right-click on the section with the operating system and select the command to delete it. That's it, she's gone. Now right-click on the Windows partition and select Expand Partition. Free space needs to be added to it. But, recall, this can be done only if there is a spare operating system.
2. Now imagine that you only have one Ubuntu. Then you need a disk with the desired operating system (Windows will be taken as an example). Insert it into the optical drive. Then you will need to delete the section that contains "Linux". After that, continue with the installation. If you do not do this, then you will not be able to use the computer. And then you have to create an operating system somewhere on a flash drive and perform the necessary actions from it.

Linux: so the same and different

Let's talk about what Linux analogs exist and give them a brief description. Only the most popular distributions will be considered:

1. Ubuntu. Focused on ease of learning and use.
2. OpenSUSE. A convenient distribution kit during setup and maintenance.
3. Fedora. One of the most popular options that has won love for itself due to its versatility.
4. Debian. This distribution served as the basis for many others. An extensive developer community is working on its creation. Has a strict approach to using proprietary software.
5. Slackware. One of the oldest distributions. Has a conservative approach to design and use.
6. Gentoo. A very flexible distribution. Compiled from source codes. The end result can be characterized by high performance and flexibility in task execution. Aimed at power users and computer technology experts.
7. Archlinux. A distribution that focuses on using the latest software versions. Constantly updated. Suitable for those who want to have all the benefits and modifications, but do not want to waste their time.

Besides all of these listed options, there are many other distributions. They can be based on those indicated above or created from scratch. In the second option, they are usually created to perform a limited range of tasks. Each distribution has its own concept, set of packages, advantages and disadvantages. None of them can claim to satisfy all users. Therefore, together with the leaders, there are successfully other implementations created by associations of programmers and firms. So, there are many designs that can function from a CD, and you don't have to install the system on the computer itself. If there are no specific goals, then any distribution can be used. If you want to assemble the necessary components yourself, I recommend paying attention to Gentoo, CRUX or LFS.

What do those who use Linux tell us?

In general, you can research the reviews yourself. But the article contains a certain "compilation" of them for those who do not have the desire or time to search and read various texts. Linux reviews are overwhelmingly positive. As a positive feature, they call a small amount of RAM, which must be allocated for the operation of the operating system itself. She also earned respect among those people who need to focus on work, but they are constantly distracted by games. This is not least due to the fact that relatively few entertainment programs have been released for Linux. Of course, you can use the services of operating system emulators, but this always requires a lot of time and resources. Therefore, for lazy people, this is a good option. Linux is very popular among representatives of the information technology sector. This is not least due to the availability of various various tools. Programmers and technicians speak positively about this system due to its versatility and ease of doing the required activities. The negative traits are usually the need to have significant knowledge of computers, be able to work with a scientific poke and visual difference from Windows. These are the opinions you can find about Linux. The operating system really differs significantly from the familiar interface of most personal computers, but there is an opinion that this is more an advantage than a disadvantage.

Conclusion

This is the end of the description of Linux. The review presented many different aspects. You have learned, You have also studied programs for Linux: what are the features in their work, how to install and run the operating system itself. Various commands have also been provided with which you can perform a basic range of custom operations. Hopefully, the information about Linux - what it is and with what it is eaten - will be useful to you in practice.

Oh, how interesting it is to learn the details and details of something that is already ordinary, which you don't even pay attention to as a matter of course. But when it was not. Once it was someone who began to create and invent!

Here's an interesting story , however, under the cut you will find a lot of text :-)

Taking a closer look at the past, we will see that the place of the dominant OS on the market could well be taken by UNIX, moreover, performed by the same Microsoft corporation. However, due to a number of circumstances, events developed according to a different scenario: CP / M -\u003e QDOS -\u003e 86-DOS -\u003e MS-DOS -\u003e Windows.

The Linux “genealogy” line looks different: Multics -\u003e UNIX -\u003e Minix -\u003e Linux. Hardly many people know that a secret IBM project, code-named Chess, is to a large extent "to blame" for the current dominance of Windows - a project to create an IBM PC based on the Intel 8086 processor with the working name Acorn.

The historic contract between IBM and Microsoft was signed on November 6, 1980. In accordance with it, Microsoft had to prepare an operating system and four programming systems (Basic, Fortran, Cobol and Pascal) for the first industrial 16-bit PC in the shortest possible time.

Why was Microsoft chosen? The main driving force behind IBM's management was Microsoft's impressive sales of programming systems across a very wide range of platforms. By 1979, about 1 million copies of Microsoft's BASIC alone had been sold. Oddly enough, both IBM and Microsoft viewed the operating system for the new computer as something secondary, assigning it a supporting role. Everything was done in a terrible haste. To understand how Microsoft bluffed in the fall of 1980, promising IBM by January 1981 (!) To prepare the first version of its DOS with a working BASIC interpreter, suffice it to say that Microsoft did not have any OS writing experience at that time. In February 1980, Microsoft, as part of its fight against Digital Research for the programming language market, just in case, acquired a UNIX license from AT&T Corporation (later Microsoft's dialect of UNIX was named Xenix). But there were practically no developments for UNIX either - the basic platform of Microsoft products was then the CP / M OS.

If we compare Windows and UNIX in terms of development, then Windows was built as a commercial product created in conditions of tough time pressure and market bluffs, UNIX grew in a calm environment, in the quiet of university and research centers. The commercialization of the project had a far less favorable impact on UNIX, while Microsoft wasted no time and directed the full potential of its specialists to improve the quality of the Windows implementation. Be that as it may, the development of both operating systems went on different paths.

Linux is born

Linus Benedict Torvalds was born in Helsinki in 1970. At the age of 10, he started programming, actively working on his home computer, the Commodore VIC-20. In 1989, as Linus was getting ready to go to university, at the Usenix conference in Toronto, AT&T announced a new pricing system for UNIX System V: about $ 40,000 per processor ($ 7,500). for educational institutions). It was a lot of money. University of Amsterdam professor Andrew Tanenbaum responded by writing Minix, a stripped-down version of UNIX that could run on a PC.

In the spring of 1991, already a student at the University of Helsinki, Linus Torvalds took on the rework of Minix, rewriting the kernel and adapting it to work on i386. He decided to figure out how the OS works by simply rewriting it. Here is the title of the historic post that kicked off the Linux era. ——- Begin post from Linus ——— From: [email protected] (Linus Benedict Torvalds) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: What would you like to see most in minix? Summary: small poll for my new operating system Message-ID: Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08 GMT Organization: University of Helsinki The message began with the words: “Hello everyone who uses Minix! I am making a (free) AT clone operating system based on 386 (486) processors. It's just a hobby, not something big and professional like GNU. " Further, Linus urged everyone who likes it or not to respond to his work. (See the full text)

In January-February 1992, on the comp.os.minix newsgroup, there was an open discussion about Linux flaws between Tanenbaum and Torvalds. Professor Tanenbaum considered Linux an obsolete approach primarily due to Linus' abandonment of a microkernel in favor of a mono-kernel. “This is a huge step backward,” Tanenbaum wrote. "It's like taking a working program in C and rewriting it in BASIC." Linus agreed that a microkernel was a good solution, but he insisted that a mono-kernel, while being more efficient, does not seriously compromise portability.

The progenitor of UNIX, the legendary Ken Thompson, spoke more harshly in 1998: “I see Linux as something that does not belong to Microsoft. This is a retaliation for the Microsoft team - nothing more, nothing less. I don’t think he will have much success. I have seen the source code, there are both quite decent components and useless ones. Since a variety of random people took part in the creation of these texts, the quality of its individual parts is significantly different. From my own experience and the experience of some of my friends, I can say that Linux is a rather unreliable system. Microsoft doesn't make very reliable software products, but Linux is the worst of its kind. This Wednesday won't last long.

If you use it on one computer, it's one thing. The software for using Linux in firewalls, gateways, embedded systems, and so on, still needs a lot of work. ” So it was not the technological excellence of the project, but the very atmosphere of enthusiasts' work on a useful project and the free distribution and use of source codes that became the basis of the Linux phenomenon. In 1998, the authoritative American magazine Forbes, under the heading "Icons of the Net", published the names of the most influential people who made a huge contribution to the development of the Internet:

Linus Torvalds (28) is the creator of Linux.

Richard Stallman (45) is the founder of the Free Software Foundation.

Tim Berners-Lee (43) is a developer of the World Wide Web.

Rob Glaser (36) is the founder of RealNetworks.

Jerry Yang (29) - Founder of Yahoo! The first place was given to Torvalds not by chance. The flaws did not stop Linux from radically changing the software industry. Thanks to its availability in tandem with the Apache server, this OS has occupied the entire Internet. The statistics speak for themselves. According to a Netcraft report (www.netcraft.com/survey/) in November 2000, Apache had a 59.69% share of all Web servers. It is followed by Microsoft Internet Information Server with 20.08% and Netscape Enterprise with 6.74%.

Torvalds is currently working at Transmeta on an ambitious project, which until recently was classified. Its important elements are the release of an OS and a VLIW processor, code-named Crusoe, capable of executing x86 commands and intended for embedded systems. It's funny that one of the owners of Transmeta is none other than Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates. Linux standardization and distributions Linus Torvalds did not develop the OS itself, but only its kernel, plugging in the existing components created within the framework of the GNU project, and above all the emacs editor and gcc compiler. Third-party companies, seeing good prospects for the development of their business, soon began to saturate the OS with utilities and application software. These include Red Hat Linux 6.2, GNU / Linux 2.2 from Debian, Linux-Mandrake 7.0, SuSE Linux 6.4, TurboLinux 6.0, OpenLinux 2.4 from Caldera, Conectiva Linux 5.1, Corel Linux OS Second Edition.

The disadvantage of these "set meals" is the lack of a consistent and well thought out procedure for installing the system, and this is still one of the main constraints to the wider adoption of Linux. In addition, developers of applied "boxed" software have to test their programs for several popular distributions at once, which makes life much more difficult. Standardization is always a painful process, and if it is carried out in the community of “free artists”, it is all the more difficult. But the first steps have already been taken. In October 2000, the Free Standards Group's Linux Development Platform Specification was published, and it immediately sparked polarizing assessments. By the way, the head of the standardization group, David Quinlan, like Torvalds, works at Transmeta. Large corporations' attitude to Linux Giants such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Oracle and several other major players in the computer market have significantly increased their support for Linux in the past two years. In 2001, IBM plans to invest $ 1 billion in the development of Linux. What is the reason for such an unusual generosity of corporations who decided to release, mostly free of charge, serious commercial products for "hobbyist" Linux? Why are they willing to spend energy and money to develop an alternative and far from the most technologically advanced branch of UNIX to the detriment of their dialects: AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, etc.?

The first thing that comes to mind is the desire to use Linux as a battering weapon capable of breaching the gates of Microsoft's heavily fortified kingdom. This is obvious, but is this the only point? Another reason may be the emerging trend in the development of a very profitable field of training and consulting. The complexity of technologies is increasing, and with it the gap between the quality of the offered products and the level of consumer demands is growing. Customers must be prepared to pay big bucks for smart service. Another possible reason is the cost-effective execution of large-scale projects, in which the inevitable costs of purchasing hardware and applications could be offset by the low cost of system software.

In a recent interview with VARBusiness Magazine (November 2000), IBM President Sam Palmisano highlighted IBM's stance on Linux development: “I hope that our engagement in bringing Linux into a world of reliable and secure computing with high transaction flows and also working with the open source community will be fruitful for both IBM and the industry as a whole. This is especially noticeable for companies providing turnkey solutions, who will see the potential that Linux has in itself. " One of the latest big steps of IBM was the Lawson project - installation by March 2001 in a network of Japanese shopping centers 15,200 Linux-servers (RedHat distribution kit), which provide operation of IBM eServer xSeries.

In late 2000, Hewlett-Packard also joined IBM. Both giants intend to support the execution of Linux applications in their UNIX dialects (we are talking primarily about IBM AIX and HP-UX, as well as about IBM Dynix / ptx). Here's another answer to the question of why leading corporations need to support someone else's free UNIX dialect with their own commercial one. Two birds with one stone are killed at once - first, some of the clients are pulled away from Windows in Linux, and then they are clearly shown how the latter is inferior to the UNIX dialects developed by this giant. This technique can be called the effect of distraction-attraction. Linux is not alone Speaking of Linux, do not forget that this OS is not so unique and inimitable. There are no less interesting and thoughtful non-commercial operating systems, even if we talk only about the Intel platform and UNIX dialects. Let's name just a few: FreeBSD (FreeBSD Core Team based on BSD4.4-Lite), NetBSD (NetBSD Foundation, BSD4.4-Lite + Mach kernel), OpenBSD (Theo de Raadt, BSD4.4-Lite), 386BSD (BSD4. 3 Reno), Hurd (Free Software Foundation, BSD4.4 + Mach 4.0).

New programming philosophy The Linux phenomenon has sparked speculation that a new programming philosophy has been born that is fundamentally different from what came before. Indeed, a product can be commercial or free, and its production process is artisanal or industrial. It can be occupied by both individuals and teams, amateurs and professionals. But in any case, consciously or unconsciously, they all follow the traditional stages of the software product life cycle: requirements analysis, specification development, design, prototyping, source code writing, debugging, documentation, testing and maintenance. The main thing that distinguishes this approach is the centralization of management of different stages and predominantly "top-down" development (constant detailing). However, Linux was built differently. The finished working layout was constantly improved and developed by a decentralized group of enthusiasts, whose actions were only slightly coordinated.

There is an anarchic nature and "bottom-up" development: the assembly of ever larger blocks from the previously created small ones. Another thing can be noted here. Traditional development is based on design and writing, while development a la Linux is based on prototyping, debugging and testing. The first two stages are difficult to parallelize, but with debugging and testing, the situation is easier. Two years ago, in an interview with Computer magazine, UNIX creator Ken Thompson stated that he was a proponent of bottom-up programming: “Looking at a building, I can't imagine the details of the constructor it was built from. When I come across a 'top-down' description of a system or language that contains endless libraries describing one level after another, I get the feeling of some kind of quagmire. " Thompson even suggested an interesting term: "computer Darwinism." In other words, Linux-like development is a trial and error method built on intensive testing. At any stage, the system should work, even if it is a mini version of what the developer is striving for. Natural selection leaves only the viable.

There has been a long debate about whether programming is a science, an art or a craft. And if the basis of traditional software development is primarily a craft, then when developing using the method of computer Darwinism it is undoubtedly an art. It is easy to see that "bottom-up" development characterizes the so-called exploratory programming, when the system is built around key components and programs that are created in the early stages of the project, and then constantly modified. At the end of 1999, the acclaimed book The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric Raymond was published by O'Reilly & Associates. Its author is the main ideologue of the open text movement. In the book, he expounds the idea of \u200b\u200bself-organizing anarchic programming, which he called "bazaar", opposing it to the traditional centralized, called "cathedral". Using Linux and other similar developments of originally non-commercial software, originating in the GNU project, Raymond tries with the reader to comprehend the nature of a new phenomenon called the open source movement. Lack of a clear plan, minimal project management, a large number of third-party geographically remote developers, free exchange of ideas and codes - all these are attributes of new programming. Quite often the "new" turns out to be well forgotten old. All this (albeit not on such a scale) has long been used in programming. However, the Linux phenomenon has given rise to a new faith, helping to recruit a growing number of adherents. Many articles have been written about the features of exploratory programming. So, the Swiss professors A. Kiralf, K. Chen and J. Nivergelt highlighted the following important points: * the developer clearly understands the direction of the search, but does not know in advance how far he can move towards the goal; * there is no way to foresee the amount of resources to achieve this or that result; * development does not lend itself to detailed planning, it is carried out by trial and error; * such works are associated with specific performers and reflect their personal qualities. The main advantage of the new philosophy is the organization of remote collaboration of large teams of third-party programmers on important projects, where the Internet and the right to freely dispose of a joint product play a key role.

In this regard, one cannot fail to mention the rapidly growing company VA Linux. She maintains an online open source repository called SourceForge (). There are already several hundred projects in it, primarily related to the development of Linux. Among them are the Berlin Project (graphical system) and the new generation of the Perl programming system. In addition to Linux, the SourceForge repository tracks projects for Windows, Mac OS, BeOS, PalmOS. One of VA Linux's own projects is MySQL, which has received the status of free software, distributed under the GPL (General Public License, www.fsf.org/copyleft/gpl.html). VA Linux is not alone in promoting collaborative programming. Its competitors here are OpenAvenue and Asynchrony. Returning to Raymond's book, we can say that the metaphors of "cathedral" and "bazaar" may not be well chosen. But is it a matter of metaphors?

Regardless of the skepticism of Linux critics and the rampant euphoria of its admirers, this operating system was a significant milestone in the late 1990s, defining the way the industry developed at the beginning of the new century. Can the success of Linux be replicated, and where is a new technological leap of this magnitude lurking? Here is what Ken Thompson says about it: “Any innovation will become a reality only through the kind of revolutions that UNIX has made. Nothing threatened IBM until something appeared that made its systems unusable. They completely occupied the mainframe market, but I'm sure it just turned out to be unnecessary. The same is happening with Microsoft: until something appears that can make its products unnecessary, it will be extremely difficult to overcome the price threshold to go to market and it will be impossible to displace them. "

Well, catching up, 22 reasons to switch to Linux. Controversial reasons? Surely ...

1. The first reason is the main one. As a free system, Linux is available to users for free. You can easily download "Axis" from the Internet or order a disc or box by mail at a very trivial price. One copy of the operating system can be installed on an unlimited number of computers without any conditions.

2. Since the Linux code is open source, the system can be freely modified and redistributed, even on a commercial basis. The ability to freely experiment with the source code of the operating system, based only on its own purposes, has made Linux such a useful and effective solution for a number of large companies such as Google.

3. Linux users do not have any special problems with technical support either, since the answer to your question on the operation of the OS can be freely obtained on forums or network conferences. Many users claim that this kind of technical support is no worse than what you can get for money. Of course, there is also paid Linux tech support. Such services include thorough system tuning, installation and upgrade of new programs in order to protect against hackers, fix bugs. Fortunately, the latter are rare in Linux.

4. There is almost no chance that Linux technical support will ever end, because open source attracts a huge number of users: many of them will be happy to help their "co-penguins" solve the problems that have arisen. In addition, there will always be people who will help with advice professionally, i.e. for money.

5. Don't be afraid that Linux will become obsolete in the future. The fact is that UNIX, on which the OS was built, has been tested and optimized for 35 years, proving its extreme efficiency, reliability and safety. Work on Linux does not stop for a second, and new versions of the operating system, as they say, "keep the brand."

6. Users of "Linux" are not subjected to totalitarian pressure from the owner of the operating system, because he - this very copyright owner - does not exist. As an opposite example, we can cite the actions of Microsoft: the company deliberately stops supporting old OS versions, thereby forcing users to buy new ones (sometimes it happens that you have to buy new "hardware" due to an unplanned OS update). In addition, new versions of Linux are also distributed free of charge.

7. Everything connected with the transition to a new version of the OS will cost the user a mere penny. The new version itself is free - this time. Secondly, tutorials, installation, etc. are inexpensive. Thirdly, Linux is not very demanding on the computer's power, so upgrading the equipment - if it is required at all - will not pull a lot of funds from the budget either.

8. Companies with hundreds of thousands of computers, having switched to Linux, remember like a bad dream what it is to monitor the compliance of the license of each of the software components on each machine. Indeed, in order to check this very compliance of the software license for all points of the EULA (End-User License Agreement), you need to have full-time staff and, oddly enough, pay them money for this. In addition, these companies are no longer afraid of sudden "raids" of BSA employees (Business Software Alliance - Alliance of software manufacturers for commercial organizations; created in 1988 by Microsoft), who need to check the license for MS Windows, MS Office, etc. ... Having found the slightest inconsistencies - and they will find them - they will forget about impressive fines.

9. Linux has long been famous for being less susceptible to viruses, Trojans, worms, spyware and other malware. The secret of the developers' success lies in the fact that they initially focused their efforts on system security, and did not think about it when the real problems appeared. For example, here is one of the original protection methods: a Linux user is not authorized in the system as an administrator, thereby protecting vital system files even in the event of an intruder. In addition, the most popular versions of Linux come with a built-in firewall, which has shown very high performance during this time. Finally, the non-exhaustive topic of open source again plays into our hands: thousands of people around the globe are busy looking for OS vulnerabilities, and there are absolutely no problems with patches.

10. Linux almost never crashes, after which you have to restart your computer. If we remember about large companies, then here they are also in unconditional gain, because literally a couple of minutes of inactivity of the entire connected system can result in huge losses. The reason is not difficult to guess again: from the very beginning, the developers tried to make the OS as stable and convenient as possible, and we can say with confidence that they have achieved their goal.

11. So far, Linux cannot compete with Windows in terms of the number of created and well-debugged programs. However, a lot of people are busy rectifying the situation. In the future, more and more programs will appear for a wide variety of needs. Not only that most programs for Linux are distributed free of charge, but in terms of functionality, reliability and power, some of them are not inferior to their counterparts in the Windows environment. It is worth getting rid of the stereotype, they say, "you won't find anything under Linux!"

However, it is necessary to make a remark: people who are professionally involved in working with music, photos or videos are unlikely to switch from Mac OS or Windows to something else, at least not yet.

12. The choice among Linux distributions is impressive - several hundred versions, each endowed with its own specific characteristics. Moreover, all systems are compatible with each other. All this allows the user to choose the version that suits him best. In addition, if one of the Linux vendors leaves the game, then this will not bring tangible damage to the distribution of the operating system - in addition to it, there are still many vendors. It is impossible not to point out the fact that this situation creates healthy competition, which is reflected in the improvement of quality and productivity. Of course, for many, it will be difficult to choose the right distribution from several hundred. In this case, choosing one of the most popular versions, like Red Hat or SuSE, you won't go wrong.

13. Another feature of Linux is the possibility of very fine tuning. Contrary to popular belief, customizing Linux for yourself will not cause any problems for a more or less experienced user. During installation, you can specify a variety of options to help you choose the configuration that's right for you. Whether it's a purely business computer, media center, laptop, web server, storage server, or even a network router. From the inquisitive user, the settings for the appearance of the operating system are not hidden, which can be customized in thousands of variations. Dreaming of an Apple Mac or still nostalgic for Windows? In Linux, all of this can be recreated visually. All this thanks to open source, which provides the user with truly endless possibilities.

14. In Linux, as in all other free software, the file format used is open. Unlike proprietary files, they comply with generally accepted standards and can be used by any software developer to create programs compatible with them. Thanks to the use of open formats, the problem of software isolation is solved, when files have a closed extension and can only be used by certain software. In addition, the user no longer has to worry about the loss of valuable data if the developers who created the software go out of business or stop supporting their early products.

15. Linux is renowned for its excellent compatibility with other operating systems. For example, "Pinvgin" can read, write, copy, erase and perform other actions with files located on partitions of the hard disk where Windows is installed without any problems. In addition, in Linux, you can use Windows clients and even work directly with programs that are sharpened mainly for OS from Microsoft. And Windows is not only unable to work with HDD partitions on which other operating systems are recorded, but also cannot format these disks for the subsequent installation of another axis. By the way, Linux can boot just like a Live-CD - i.e. installation, in fact, does not require any.

16. If this could in any way affect your choice, there has never been a single case in the United States where antitrust lawsuits have been filed in Federal courts against the "treacherous" use of Linux. On the contrary, the antitrust agreement was created to regulate the activities and completely destroy economic monopolies for the sake of free competition in the market. Linux, as we already understood, is not a monopoly at all, because it does not impose itself on anyone: everything is of its own accord

17. When using Linux, you don't have to seriously upgrade your hardware if you decide to install a more recent version. Even on older computers, thanks to very well-written code, Linux will work flawlessly.

18. "Linux" scales well and can work on systems not only based on solutions from Intel or, say, AMD. It can be installed on almost all electronic devices, from supercomputers and robots to medical equipment, mobile phones, and even wristwatches.

19. For technical universities, Linux is becoming a real godsend. The openness of the code provides tremendous opportunities for learning about the structure of a computer, not just how to work with it. Many educators do believe that it is much more useful for students to learn the basics of computing, which will serve to build more and more advanced computers in the future, rather than practice in programs such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint, which change with each new version, and after a few years are becoming obsolete.

20. For government agencies, Linux, like other free software, is provided by the so-called. transparency of software, since information in Linux is stored in open formats that comply with generally accepted standards. In contrast, there are, respectively, closed formats used by many commercial programs. In general, such transparency of the software means that there is no hidden data in the company, and absolutely all users have access to all information, and they do not need to use expensive programs that can understand the required formats.

21. It is believed that in many paid programs there are certain "holes" through which hackers of a competing company or even a government organization can get hold of valuable data. So, it probably won't be loudly said that Linux is a real headache for hackers, because it is almost impossible to get into the system through loopholes due to the fact that the source code of the system is completely available for scanning in case of hacking.

22. Linux, unlike Windows, does not require disk defragmentation. Even if this process is not so complicated and expensive to perform, since it does not need to be carried out very often, but the fact is, for a well-debugged operating system, like Linux, defragmentation is not needed.

So we have listed all the stated 22 reasons why you should change your operating system. The choice is always yours, but whether Linux will leave it to you is another question;)

sources

I would also suggest that you remember what was

Now, using the latest version of Ubuntu, Fedora or OpenSUSE, we can enjoy a beautiful and modern desktop environment, the ease of use of graphical programs, and most of the computer hardware is supported by the system without additional configuration. But have you ever wondered how our beloved operating system got to all this?

Do we account for and appreciate the amount of time and effort spent by a huge number of developers to achieve this near-perfect state of the system? Most likely no. Let's take a look at the history of this wonderful OS and its journey over the past few decades. When she was born? How did it evolve? What distributions emerged during development, and what was the turning point that made the one-person operating system the ubiquitous operating system we have today? And what were the distributions that the community sent to the archive?

So, let's mentally go back in time, almost 30 years ago, and remember how the history of Linux systems began.

1991 - the beginning

In the beginning, there was Unix, created by programmers Ken Thompson and Denis Ritchie in 1969. Then, throughout the eighties, many Unix-based projects were created, inspired by this philosophy. These were: The GNU Project by Richard Stallman, BSD (Berkley Software Distribution), the book by Professor Andrew Tanenbaum "Operating Systems: Design and Implementation", and MINIX (a mini version of Unix), which appeared around the same time as the book.

But it wasn't until 1991 that the history of Linux began. A young Finnish student named Linus Torvalds combined everything he knew about existing systems into a new kernel that could take over the world. There are many legends about why Linus decided to work on his system. One of them says that he worked in MINIX and transferred data to a hard disk instead of a modem, thereby destroying all Minix partitions. After that, he became disillusioned with this OS and decided to create his own.

Another version says that he wrote a kernel to improve the functionality of the new Intel 386 machine he was using. And since it was forbidden to improve Minix, he had to develop his operating system.

Whatever the real reason, he created a free terminal emulator that was based on Minix, which in turn was based on Unix, and this became the basis for working on the operating system kernel. In 1991, on August 25th, Linus posted his famous post on the Minix newsletter.

After that, the first version of Linux, which was then called Freax, quickly spread through FTP servers around the world, and the number of users began to grow rapidly. Version 0.01 was very different from what is available today. You can download the 71 kilobyte kernel yourself and try to install it from here.

We go further along the road of history. Needless to say, Linux evolved into a full blown OS, and Manchester Computing Center created one of the first distributions to use a combined boot and root partition. The distribution was called MCC Interim Linux.

1992 - 1994 - development of desktop systems

It didn't take long, and between 1992 and 1994 we saw the emergence and development of the most famous and influential Linux distributions: Slackware, Red Hat, and Debian. The kernel version has increased to 0.95, and here there is support for the X Window System, which allows you to run graphical applications.

Slackware was one of the first distributions to use the new Linux kernel. It was then called SLS (Softlanding Linux System) and was founded by Peter MacDonald in 1992. SLS was quite ahead of its time, as it was the first Linux distribution to contain not only the Linux 0.99 kernel, but also the TCP / IP stack and System X Window. But this distribution had a lot of problems and was soon replaced by Patrick Volkerding's Slackware. It is now the oldest Linux distribution.

But SLS didn't just give birth to Slackware. Due to the problematic SLS interface, another user decided to make his own system and thus launched another branch of Linux distributions. In 1993 Ian Murdock released the Debian Linux distribution, which he says was named after his then girlfriend Debra Lynn and himself.

As Slackware evolved, companies emerged to provide technical support for such software. One of them appeared in 1994 and was called Software und System-Entwicklung, now it is better known as S.U.S.E Linux.

Another distribution that was released on November 3, 1994 is called Red Hat Commercial Linux. The distro was created by Mark Ewing and bears the name of the red hat that the author wore at university.

In 1994, on March 14, Linux 1.0.0 was released, which consisted of 176,250 lines of code. This is how the history of the development of Linux systems began.

1995 - 1999 - Gnome and KDE emerge

During this period, the Linux operating system has made a big leap forward in development, as the main Linux distributions that are known and widely used now will appear in the next five years, as well as less visible distributions. All of this takes place during the Penguin Attack and the dot.com boom.

Jurix Linux has been an interesting distribution and popularity for a number of reasons. First, it was the first distribution with a scripted installer that allows the administrator to simplify the installation process. It was one of the first distributions to support bootp and NFS, and the first to use the ext2 filesystem.

But this is not why Jurix was a milestone in the history of Linux - it was the basis for SUSE Linux, which we still use today.

Distributions based on Red Hat Linux have also developed extensively during this time. Versions such as Caldera, Mandrake, TurboLinux, Yellow Dog and Red Flag have appeared. The Linux kernel version has now changed from 1.2 to 2.2.

Version 2.0 was released in 1996 and had 41 releases ahead of it. It was this rapid development of the kernel and the addition of some very important features that solidified the Linux operating system as the server OS and system for IT professionals around the world.

For example, version 2.0 introduced support for the SMB protocol, improved memory management, and support for working on various types of processors. Version 2.2 received improvements to SMB, PowerPC support, and the ability to mount NTFS, but so far read-only.

There is a legend that once while on vacation in Australia, Linus Torvalds visited the zoo, where he was bitten by a ferocious penguin. After which he contracted penguinitis and fell in love with penguins very much. Linus liked the penguins anyway. As he said, they are clueless and funny. As for the name of the Linux symbol - Tuxa, on the Internet it is deciphered as (T) orvalds (U) ni (X). Now you know everything.

Debian-based systems have not evolved as actively as Red Hat. The developers preferred to work more on the usability and appearance of their distributions. More desktop oriented, such distributions often appeared on the covers of popular IT magazines of the time. I came across such names as Libranet, Storm, Finnix and Corel Linux.

Undoubtedly, the most important event in this part of Linux history was the emergence of KDE and Gnome. KDE (Kool Desktop Environment) appeared in 1996. Its founder was Mathias Ettrich, a student at the University of Tübingen. He offered not just a collection of applications, but an entire desktop environment in which they could run. Users now have the choice to use either X11 or KDE, which is written in the recently released Qt framework.

By 1998, KDE 1.0 was released and the first distribution to use it by default was Mandrake. By 2000, version 2.0 was released, which received many improvements, as well as Konqueror, KOffice and the KIO library.

Miguel de Icaza and Federico Men announced the development of a new desktop environment and applications for it based on the GTK + library. This new desktop environment was called Gnome. It is believed that the first operating system to use Gnome was Red Hat Linux. Gnome quickly became a popular desktop environment due to its high performance and ease of use for general users. By May 2000, Gnome 1.2 Bongo had been released.

2000 - 2005 - the emergence of Live distributions

This period saw an important step in the history of the Linux operating system. During these five years, its popularity has grown greatly, and many new Linux computers have appeared. The kernel continued to receive improvements, new programs appeared, and the first live distribution also appeared.

Knoppix, a friendly Debian-based distribution developed by Klaus Knopper, was one of the most popular at the time. It was remarkable for many reasons, but the main one was the ability to start and try the system right from the CD.

We now consider this feature to be standard. But in those days, Knoppix, released on September 30, 2000, could run on any computer and get a complete system with support for various hardware and networks. This was new. Knoppix became the basis for many distributions, and some of them are known and used to this day.

In addition to ready-made distributions, a project has appeared that helps users build their own distribution. Linux From Scratch (LFS) was developed in conjunction with a book by Jared Beekmans, which showed how to build your Linux distribution from source.

Linux is primarily about freedom, and it needs to evolve. But in order to support development, ensure its protection and maintain independence, it is necessary to form a company that will do all this. Therefore, in 2000, a fund was created to sponsor Linus and the developing community, to build and improve Linux, and to protect and preserve the core values \u200b\u200bof the movement.

A key moment during this period was the release of the Linux 2.4 kernel on January 4th. This version added support for USB, PC cards, ISA Plug and Play, as well as Bluetooth, RAID and ext3. In fact, it was the longest supported kernel, ending with version 2.4.37.11 in 2011. The kernel has changed a lot and has become more versatile since 1.0.

Red Hat, which had already entered the stock market and received money to support the free Red Hat Linux OS, decided it was time to take a more commercial approach. Therefore, the distribution was split into two branches. Red Hat Enterprice Linux 2.1 is released with kernel 2.4.9. It was more stable, long-term supported, and for commercial users. And the second distribution, Fedora, is free for the community.

Red Hat Enterprice Linux is still open source. The company hosts the source code on several FTP sites, from which several independent development teams download and compile their distributions: CentOS, Oracle Linux, CERN, and Scientific Linux. They have all the stability benefits of a commercial distribution, but do not have access to software and support from Red Hat.

In December 2002 an interesting distribution kit appears - CRUX. Its main goal was to keep it as simple as possible, a trend that was very popular at the time. CRUX was very lightweight and focused more on the developer rather than the average user. While other distributions have seen exponential growth and competition to be the best replacement for Windows, CRUX has remained simple and minimalistic. And it is interesting to us because it became the basis for the now very popular ArchLinux.

On December 18, a new version of the Linux kernel, 2.6, was announced. This version introduces support for PAE, new processors, improved support for 64-bit processors, increased the maximum file system size to 16 TB, added EXT4 file system and more.

Linux distributions were already good enough at that time, but they were still very far from ideal for those who liked Microsoft products. Therefore, a new philosophy was needed that would make Linux closer to the average user. For example Ubuntu.

The goal of Ubuntu, a Debian-based distribution, was to create an easy-to-use Linux desktop that could be enjoyed by the average user with little experience with the system. With the release of Ubuntu 4.04 on October 20, 2004, this concept has been implemented.

2006 - 2012 - the rise and fall of Ubuntu

During this period, many distributions have become more stable and continue to improve. Lots of new distributions also appeared. One of them, the first version of which was released in 2006, is very popular today. This is Linux Mint. It was based on Ubuntu and contained both free and proprietary software. This greatly simplified the installation of codecs, drivers and other components for beginners. The developers of the distribution tried to include new programs in it, and also listened to the opinions of their users, which won the support of the community.

In the meantime, a new version of the KDE4 desktop environment was released, which was met with criticism from users for its lack of stability. Even Linus himself stated that this version of KDE breaks everything and only provides half the capabilities of the previous version. Nevertheless, users started using KDE4 with a Plasma environment and a modern look, and by the release of version 4.2, which took place in 2009, they had already forgotten about their negative experiences.

On September 23rd, the most popular operating system based on the Linux kernel was released, although 90% of users do not even know that they are using Linux. Of course, this is Android. Version 1.0 was released for the HTC Dream and could do whatever you'd expect from a modern smartphone, but it was really bad. In version 1.1, most of the bugs were fixed, but it was not until version 1.5 that the Android system began to conquer the world of smartphones.

Throughout this time, Ubuntu has grown stronger and stronger. It regularly ranked # 1 on Linux distributions, gained more and more fans, and was fairly easy to use. But then, one sunny April day, Ubuntu 14.04 was released, it came with a new default environment - Unity. Gnome 3 and KDE 4 have never received as much negative feedback as Unity. We can say that then almost everyone hated Unity. But Canonical didn’t abandon the idea right away, and the shell became quite usable.

After many years of development in the 2.6 branch, kernel 3.0 was finally released. And no, there were no significant changes in it. It's just that Linus and the community decided that 2.6. * Numbering had become too complicated and it was time to change the number.

The failure with KDE4 is not the only unfortunate history of the development of Linux environments. After it, one could say that the developers would have to learn from someone else's experience and already know what their audience likes. But this is clearly not the case for the Gnome development team, which released Gnome 3 in April 2012. Now Gnome users were very unhappy with the interface changes and were switching to KDE or using older versions of Gnome. But in the next versions Gnome became much better, and the Linux Mint developers decided to keep the old look of Gnome with new features and created their own environment - Cinnamon.

2012-2018 - Linux and games

Nowadays, Linux has almost completely conquered the server market and has become even more attractive to home users. One of the factors that make Linux attractive to ordinary people is games. In February 2013, Valve, the maker of a major game distribution platform, released a Linux version of its Steam client. At that time, most games could only be run through the Windows emulator, and those games that were for Linux, as a rule, were of little interest.

Several years later, SteamOS, a Linux-based operating system for Valve's game consoles, was released. There are currently over 3000 games available for Linux on Steam. Valve also recently began work on integrating a Windows game emulator into Steam, which will make it even easier to launch them, given that support for many libraries from DirectX 10 and 11 has recently been added to this emulator.

New distributions continue to emerge at the same rate as before. Some of them are interesting. For example Manjaro based on Arch Linux. It appeared in November 2013, but despite its youth it already occupies a leading position in popularity in many tops. Its advantage is that it simplifies the installation and configuration of ArchLinux, but at the same time retains its flexibility and some advantages. In addition to Manjaro, many more interesting new distributions have been released, for example Antergos, ElementaryOS, Deepin Linux and others, which are now popular among users.

As for the Linux kernel, the version was changed again to 4.0 in 2015. Once again, there were no major changes, a vote was taken and the community decided that the kernel version should be changed. Significant changes during this period include the addition of UEFI support, improved work with new hardware, the addition of security systems, porting of the subsystems required for Android, improved Btrfs stability, and much more.

In 2013, the Ubuntu development company decided to try its hand at the mobile market and released a mobile version of Ubuntu - Ubuntu Touch. The advantages of the operating system were supposed to be the ability to turn a smartphone into a full-fledged computer when connected to a screen via HDMI. For it, a separate Unity 8 shell was developed, the Mir display server instead of the X Window, and even several smartphones were released. But nothing came of the project, it was closed in 2017, after Smasung released its DEX. In addition, in version 17.10, the Ubuntu developers decided to abandon Unity and returned to Gnome, and instead of their Mir display server, they will now use the community-developed Wayland, which is also being developed to replace the outdated Xorg.

conclusions

Unfortunately, our tour of the Linux past has come to an end. We saw old Linux distributions and learned how it all began. It is not known what will happen in the future, but the Linux operating system is evolving and more and more people and companies are interested in it. This is not the end of the history of Linux creation and, most likely, it has a great future.

Many of those who have switched to Linux now do not want to go back to the Windows operating system. This is due to the availability of this operating system even for novice users. If you want to install Linux, you need to download one of the many distributions that are based on the Linux kernel. We will give examples of the best of them and tell you about the features of the system.

What is Linux and why are there so many operating systems based on it?

GNU / Linux was designed as a multiuser and multitasking kernel for various operating systems. For which programmers have created many graphical managers and software shells. The distribution kit (operating system) determines what you will use your computer for. Each Linux-based OS differs in its functional part. The only part of all distributions is "Terminal", this is their main part. With it you can:

• install and run programs;
• add storages for storing software;
• configure configuration files and the distribution itself.

Now this system is especially popular among programmers, and it is also very often used for servers.

It began to spread widely in home computers relatively recently, having won the love of users due to its wide customization options: some versions of distributions can be run directly from a flash drive, others are suitable for weak computers. Distributions differ in their functionality, size and appearance.

Not all Linux-based operating systems can be downloaded. For example, Google Chrome OS (yes, there is such an operating system, not just a browser) comes pre-installed on some models of Samsung, HP laptops, etc. This operating system cannot be found in the public domain of official distributions. But there are many forks and copies. We will not provide links to such sites in this review. For each distribution in the review, we provide a download link to the official website or official community.

Why are users abandoning Windows for Linux?

Most often, the advantages of Linux-based operating systems are called:

1. Lack of... This is not to say that this system is generally impossible to hack, but hackers rarely show interest in Linux. There are a few routines that help to penetrate servers, but they hardly run on home PCs. The fact that the system is safe is also evidenced by the fact that no anti-virus utility has a database specifically for Linux. Basically, programs are configured to search for malicious code that was transferred from using flash drives or disks.
2. Almost all distributions are distributed free of charge, which allows people with multiple home devices not to spend tons of money on licenses. With this, you can regularly reinstall distributions, test them and change them. An added benefit is that Linux software is also free. And a nice bonus is the absence of ad inserts and third-party programs that are loaded into the PC memory along with the main utility.
3. The system is diverse and unlimited possibilities for customizing the appearance... Besides many distributions, you can install different working environments on your PC. This will help you change them as needed or in your mood.
4. The system has a built-in repository... His idea formed the basis for the Google Play app store. From there you can install a variety of programs without resorting to the help of sites and third-party programs. The only inconvenience that is noticeable right after switching from Windows is the lack of familiar names for the utilities.
5. The system is convenient for the external interface and dividing programs into menus. Each utility has its own section in the menu, which makes it easier to find. Such small pleasant moments help to make your work much more convenient.
6. Almost all necessary drivers are embedded in the Linux kernel for peripheral equipment. You can install any device, and it will immediately start working. You don't have to look for drivers, like for Windows, download them on another computer, so that later the equipment will start working without failures. There will be no inconvenience even when connecting a new network card.
7. By default, the system encrypts disks on its own, which allows you to protect files if your computer falls into the wrong hands. In Windows, this option is available only with third-party programs.

These positives are enough to make you want to try an operating system based on the Linux kernel. But before choosing a distribution kit, you should familiarize yourself with the features of each shell and carefully study the shortcomings of the OS.

Disadvantages of Linux

To begin with, here are the situations that the programmers who created Linux distributions could not cope with. Such troubles are rare, but for novice users they can be fatal.

1. Poor compatibility with a number of modern devices... Most printers, scanners, routers, and other devices are built for Windows. Therefore, they may not always work correctly. Users can change the distribution on their own so that the connected devices work correctly. If you do not know how to independently adjust the OS settings in the same terminal, then you just need to download and load the modern version of the distribution kit.
2. Incorrect operation of the graphics subsystem... After exiting sleep mode, when using discrete graphics cards, you may experience a hang. The only way to get rid of this problem is by rebooting. Problems with video cards most often appear after updating the kernel or components responsible for displaying graphics.
3. Although many are embedded in the kernel, they can stop installing automatically or deleted after a system update. This problem is solved by rolling back to the previous version of the distribution or installing a new shell.
4. Incorrect operation of the cooling system in laptops. Due to improper control, coolers begin to make noise or do not do their job well.
5. Steam for Linux is developing very slowly, users cannot download and purchase any music and applications. If you choose a paid program, then there may be problems when entering the card data (not all plastic is accepted by the store). While it's worth noting that the Windows app store isn't much better developed, it can cause problems when using it. But in the latter case, there are many alternative sources for programs.

In order not to face these problems, it is worth installing only modern versions of operating systems. For most ordinary users, such troubles can become a reason to abandon the Linux OS.

It's worth noting though that over the years, the interface of the shells has become more and more user-friendly. The developers are trying to solve the problems listed above, but so far they have not been able to completely get rid of them.

Review of the best Linux distributions with download links from official sites

Before installing Linux, you should familiarize yourself with the specifics of its distributions. Each of them have their own pros and cons.

Elementary OS

If the design of the operating system is important to you, then you should opt for Elementary. Visually, the desktop resembles Mac OS, which makes it look expensive and beautiful. Among other distributions, this option stands out only for its design and this is its drawback. Although this is why users fell in love with Elementary.

It is a lightweight and convenient system, suitable even for low-powered machines. By default, it has not the largest, but well thought out set of programs:

• midori browser;
• file manager Pantheon Files;
• media player Totem;
• geary email client;
• shotwell photo manager.

This system performs 100% of everyday user tasks. In addition, the support of the fans of this OS led to the fact that inside the shell they began to develop their own software products. But at the same time, users do not yet have the ability to customize and fine-tune the shell.

Linux Mint

This option is convenient for adapting users who have worked with Windows for a long time. They are similar to the taskbar area, navigation system, and desktop. Several working environments have been released for this system, from which you can choose the most convenient. Mint is a different flavor of Ubuntu. It has several advantages over other distributions:

• this assembly is quite widespread, has good support from users and developers;
• free distribution;
• several working environments can be easily switched using a lightweight and user-friendly graphical interface;
• there are several built-in functions: plugins for fast application loading, launching and updating;
• frequently updated and modified.

There are two flaws: it is developed by a team of enthusiasts and there are no public security bulletins for this system. These shortcomings do not affect the operation of the operating system. The absence of a company responsible for development can even be called an advantage - the creators of the system are closer to ordinary users.

Manjaro Linux

Several operating systems have been released based on Arch Linux. One of them was Manjaro. It has a number of features:

• easy installation process;
• automatic hardware detection;
• extensive desktop customization;
• stability of work;
• the ability to install multiple kernels;
• special scripts.

There are two versions for the desktop, one of which is used for advanced users. It is a fast and popular system with a large number of users, thus getting good community support. For inexperienced users, the tool for downloading programs - AUR will be convenient in this system. It allows you to do without repositories.

Ubuntu

This distribution is the most widespread and popular. Almost all Linux users have tried it at least once. The system is ideal for beginners who just want to familiarize themselves with the capabilities of distributions. There is nothing superfluous in the interface, including the developers got rid of the terminal. For inexperienced users, it can be a disadvantage to use the command line to work with the system.

Benefits of Ubuntu:

• free distribution, programs and components can also be freely downloaded;
• the installation process does not take more than 10 minutes;
• the interface is easy to understand and understandable;
• without the user's permission, nothing happens in the system, so the risk of virus infection is minimal;
• can be used on the same computer with Windows, the ability to multiboot is embedded in the system;
• the assembly includes a sufficient set of programs;
• communities and forums allow you to solve any problem.

The main disadvantage of this version is the instability of work. Many refuse the distribution kit because of the failures that accompany almost every system update. Newer versions often throw errors that other users have not encountered before. After this version of Linux, it will be difficult to use other distributions.

openSUSE

This version is most commonly used commercially. Developers have released the source code of their system so that programmers around the world can improve it. This allowed new versions to be released frequently. First of all, the openSUSE product is interesting for beginners who have not used Linux before.

The system can be installed even on weak computers. Its minimum requirements are: 3 GB of free hard disk space, a Pentium 4 1.6 GHz processor and only 1 GB of RAM. Management of this system is concentrated at the center of YaST. Inexperienced users should not install the Tumbleweed version, as it often causes problems. It is best to run on Leap, which is updated less frequently and is more stable.

Steam OS - Linux for games!

A big problem for Linux users is that few games have been released for this operating system. For this reason, a Steam OS was released based on Debian for gamers. It is used by those who want to reduce resource consumption during games. In this version of the shell, the capabilities and functions of the Steam platform were used. You can play with your keyboard or joystick.

The disadvantage of this version is that the computer cannot be used to perform various tasks. After installing this operating system, it turns into a gaming machine. You can install the software to perform other tasks, but it will not work correctly. Another drawback is the low prevalence of the system and poor support. Besides, your processor must support 64-bit architecture.

Tails - for complete anonymity on the Internet

Another system has been released on the basis of Debian - Tails. It is intended for those for whom it is important to maintain anonymity on the network. From the advantages of this system: it does not need strong equipment, it is stable. Tails is perfect for surfing the Internet and doing everyday tasks.

CentOS 7

If you want to find a free alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, then you should download CentOS 7 on your PC. Most often, the choice falls on this system when the user has already worked with Red Hat, but had to abandon it due to a crash. In this case, you can use the same programs in both versions. You do not have to modify the system or look for a replacement for your favorite utilities.

Debian

This version is loved for its stability and security. The development team is impressive, but system updates are rarely released. This system is convenient for remote administration, so it is often installed on servers. For beginners, the assembly is difficult, there are too many settings and programs. At the same time, the distribution has several positive qualities:

• stability;
• many architectures are supported;
• safety in use;
• more than a thousand software packages;
• easily updated;
• works quickly and efficiently even on outdated computers.

Unlike other distributions, Debian will have to be configured right after installing. Only an experienced user can figure out the number of options. The popularity of the distribution is maintained only due to its stability, but in terms of interface and usability, it is outdated. Operating system updates are rare, but downloading and installing them is extremely simple.

Fedora

If you want to be one of the first to test new things from the Linux world, then you should install the Fedora distribution kit. He's also affiliated with Red Hat, which uses this version as a free testing ground for new products. Linux founder Torvalds Linus himself uses this distribution as the main one, and his choice should not be trusted.

The only drawback of this system is only a small number of errors after the update. The distribution is good for home use. It does not fail after the introduction of new products. It keeps up with the times and is suitable for computers with different capacities.

The choice of a distribution kit is based on your wishes. Each version of Linux is good in its own way, but not without its drawbacks. You can write about your experience of using distributions of this operating system in the comments. If you liked the article, please share it with your friends.