Linux - Journey from a fun to software that dominates the world

Linux is everywhere, crept into every corner of our lives. From the phone, computer, to the whole internet. Even Linux is now finding a way to be present on TVs, heat sensors, and cars.

25 years ago, August 25, 1991, Linus Torvalds, a Finnish computer student, announced a new project. " I am working on a free operating system. " He wrote that on a messaging system over the Internet and considered it a pleasure.

But then it became bigger, much bigger than the author's imagination. Today, the open source operating system - Linux - is one of the most important pieces of the computer software world. Linux runs on every Android phone and tablet on earth. It spreads over the entire Internet, serving on most websites that you see and support for most applications you use. Large websites, social networks like Facebook, Google, Pinterest, Wikipedia - all run on Linux.

Open source operating system - Linux

The idea started

The source of this operating system may have to be retraced more than 25 years earlier, by the time of the creation of the AT&T Bell Labs operating system in 1969. For decades, Unix was the target operating system. Standard for commercial computers, but it has a drawback. It is owned by AT&T, and it only runs on expensive devices. Technology enthusiasts want something that they can cook and patch on their personal computers.

Richard Stallman, who created GNU for Linux.

In 1984, Richard Stallman began working on GNU, an operating system similar to Unix. The GNU name stands for "GNU's not Unix" . By 1991, Stallman and the company had succeeded in rewriting most of Unix, but they lacked an important component: the kernel, which made the basic core of an operating system - this is also the part " talk "to the hardware and translate basic commands entered from the keyboard, mouse and touch screen, into things that the software can understand. So Torvalds decided to create a kernel.

Soon after, other developers used the Linux kernel in conjunction with GNU and a variety of other tools to put together their own operating system. So many people still call these operating systems " GNU / Linux distributions" . But this Linux kernel has made Android and a lot of newer parts of the software world.

Dominate the Web

According to a study of W3Techs, Unix and Unix-like operating systems provide about 67% of web servers. At least half of them run Linux and may be the majority.

Even Microsoft , one of Linux's archenemy, has to accept this open-source operating system. In 2012, Microsoft announced that it would allow companies running Linux on their cloud computing service, Microsoft Azure. About 1/3 of Azure users are running Linux instead of Windows. Windows itself also uses Linux for some network technologies behind Azure.

Even, Microsoft has partnered with a Linux and Canonical vendor to help developers easily build Linux applications on their Windows laptops. This shows the importance of Linux for web developers.

Because most Linux versions can be downloaded for free and even used for commercial purposes. Moreover, Linux is open source, meaning anyone can freely edit and redistribute its source code, modify it to better serve their own purposes.

As the web grows, developers edit Linux to respond to their requests and release new Linux-based operating systems, to pack all of their favorite web technologies together. Important technologies such as Apache web server, MySQL database, and Perl programming language become key components in every major Linux distribution.

But Linux also has a lucky part. It was not the only free operating system in the 1990s, but a legal battle between AT&T and a company called Berkeley Software Design slowed the growth of major Linux competitors.

Great progress

Before 2008, although it was well developed, Linux was still behind the scenes, silently providing the power of web servers of the world's largest companies that had never found much success on devices. personal.

It wasn't until Google released Android that Linux found its way to phones. Android can't run Linux desktop applications, but Android's success has given a big boost to Linux and the open source community, because ultimately, this open-source operating system can work on applications. for consumers.

Android is now dominating the smartphone market. You can even find Linux in smartTV from companies like LG, Samsung, Nest's thermal sensors, Amazon's Kindle ebook reader, and drones from companies like 3DR.

Big screens in Tesla 's electric cars also run Linux, and many other auto companies - like Toyota, Honda and Ford - who sponsor Automotive Grade Linux projects, to build software for connectivity car. And when the cars themselves run on the road, they will almost certainly use Linux.

The reason today's companies come to Linux when they want to build some new technology is similar to how developers found this operating system in the 1990s: They can customize it to suit their love. their demand, and then share (or sell) the result without any permission. And it all started from the day the student decided to share his achievements with the world.