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History of Linux |
Linux is not the only operating system out there on the market. Yet Linux's market base is growing very rapidly and its number of users keep increasing. After you read this guide, you'll know how Linux stands with the other operating systems and what makes Linux so special.
Linux Versus the World
There are many reasons to use Linux. Linux is an affordable alternative to the more expensive Unix operating system. It allows users to develop and test Unix software without having to spend money to buy the operating system. Linux is freely available on the Internet. For college students, Linux provides them opportunity to run and learn about a Unix based operating system on their own personal computers, making them more aware of how to run Unix on their university computer networks. Linux is not just for personal computer users. It is able to handle bigger tasks of running large networks. Many businesses are turning to Linux to run their workstations. An increasing number of people are becoming aware of the powerful features Linux has to offer and many are switching over to Linux.
Linux Versus Windows 95 and Windows 98
Linux and Windows 95/98 are two totally different operating systems. Comparing them would be like comparing apples and oranges. Windows 95/98 is run on personal PCs and is not used to manage no more than a small home network. The popularity of Windows 95/98 is based on its low cost and availability to personal PC users. Instead of spending several thousands of dollars on a commercial operating system, Windows offers a fully functional operating system that can be used to perform many tasks such as connecting to the Internet, word processing, gaming, and many others. As an alternative, Linux can be run on a personal PC, albeit without unleashing the full networking power of Linux. Yet, for users willing to experiment with a new operating system and test out the features of Unix, Linux is for them. Although commercial software for Linux is growing, it still remains pitifully small compared to the number of programs out on the market support Windows 95/98. Word processing through Microsoft Word and its Office Suite is extremely easy. The Star Office suite by Sun Microsystems is an open source office suite for Linux that is gaining in popularity. It allows users to save and load .doc files, making it easier to interact between Microsoft Word and Windows. Gaming is growing on Linux but Windows 95/98 still has the upper hand on commercial games. Therefore, many Linux users use Windows 95/98 concurrently and there are many tools available to Linux that allows Linux users to access Windows files. Also the Wine Windows emulator allows users to run many popular Windows applications.
Microsoft's Windows NT is becoming very popular for server computing. Windows NT is similar to Linux in that it is a full multitasking operating system, supporting multiprocessor machines, several CPU architectures, virtual memory, networking, security, and several other features. The main difference between Windows NT and Linux is that Linux is based on the Unix platform, Unix being the more widely used operating system to run networks in large corporations. Since Linux is a version of Unix, it benefits from any contribution made to both the Linux and the Unix communities. Many vendors distribute Unix and no single corporation controls the design for standardization. Linux suffers from the same problem. Windows NT is a proprietary system. A single corporation, Microsoft, controls its interface and design and only Microsoft may implement any changes to its code. This type of organization is beneficial in that it sets a standard for the operating system. However, it does not implement any of the Open Source ideals that Linux embraces. Windows NT is not likely to be offered for free anytime in the future. Although both Linux and Windows NT exhibit different strengths and weaknesses, Linux prevails over NT in the area of networking performance. Linux is also much smaller that NT and uses less system resources. In addition, Linux crashes less frequently than NT. Linux has been known to run continuously on systems for several months, while NT has a notorious reputation for crashing often. For a operating system quite new and lacking the "brand name" of Windows, in the past year, Linux has become a rather serious competition to the Windows operating system. Microsoft has begun to give Linux a second glance, and maybe even a hard stare.
In terms of features, Unix and Linux are quite similar. However, the major difference between Unix and Linux is that Unix was designed specifically for networking. Linux runs perfectly fine as a personal Unix system and on large servers. Linux supports a much wider range of hardware than Unix and because of the Open Source model, any driver for certain hardware can be written for Linux as long as someone has the time to do so. Many universities and companies are beginning to use Linux instead of Unix because it can provide the functionality of a workstation on PC hardware at a fraction of the cost. There are other free Unix versions available such as FreeBSD. FreeBSD and Linux are similar but based on different goals and therefore designed differently. The goal of Linux was to develop a free Unix system that could be run on both a personal level and on large network servers. FreeBSD sought only to modify the existing BSD Unix code. Another inexpensive implementation of Unix is Minix, an academic Unix clone upon which earlier versions of Linux was based on. However, despite all the other Unix systems being developed and marketed, it can be clearly seen that more and more users are turning towards Linux to run their systems.
The choice is for you to make. You've read our guide and only you can make the decision. If you're feeling adventurous or if you're just bored of Windows, go out and grab a copy of Linux and try it for yourself. Once you get it working on your machine, the possibilities are endless.
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