Re: Computer Operating System.

Posted by MarkB_MI on August 31, 2013 at 03:14:03 from (75.219.4.17):

In Reply to: Computer Operating System. posted by Dave Sherburne NY on August 30, 2013 at 18:34:00:

Of the "free" operating systems, almost all are variants of Linux. The major exception is BSD, another UNIX variant with a different lineage. There are a few others, such as BeOS, which have a niche following, but in reality the only good option is one of the major Linux distributions.

So what is Linux? Strictly speaking, Linux is an operating system kernel, the lowest level of an operating system. The Linux kernel was developed in the early nineties by a Finnish student named Linus Torvalds. He was able to develop his kernel because of earlier work done by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation, which had developed various compilers and other tools (known collectively as "GNU") as stepping stones to develop a complete UNIX-like operating system. In a chicken-and-egg situation, GNU had most of the operating system components but no kernel. When Linus released his kernel, it immediately became popular. Although there were a lot of other UNIX variants under development, Linux quickly became the leading candidate to replace UNIX. Several companies started up (such as Red Hat) with the goal of making money off Linux, resulting in an enormous amount of development to build a viable commercial-grade OS from the hobbyist system.

Today, there are hundreds of Linux distributions, with a handful of them getting most of the attention. Although they all use the same kernel, they differ in how they are built, how they are loaded, how they are updated and which applications they offer. Most significantly there are multiple desktop environments available (unlike Windows, which gives you no choice). The most popular distributions are probably Ubuntu, Linux Mint (a Ubuntu variant), Fedora and SuSE. DistroWatch also lists Debian and Mageia in the top six, but their numbers are based on page hits, not installs, so I'm dubious of those numbers.

If you want to get your feet wet in Linux without actually wiping out Windows, I suggest you download a "live CD" version. All the popular distros offer a live CD that you can boot up without installing. A particularly good live CD distribution is Knoppix. Live CD distros will run a little slow, but you'll get a good idea of what the interface will look like.

Your choice of desktop environment will affect your experience a great deal. The most popular desktops are KDE and GNOME. Note that the latest version of GNOME (3.0) is similar in many ways to Windows 8. For that reason, I suggest you use either KDE, MATE or Cinnamon. (The latter two are based on GNOME but have a traditional Windows 95-like interface.) Most distributions will allow you to pick among different desktops, although you may have to download a few packages.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

• DistroWatch

Replies:

• Re: Computer Operating System. 550Doug 05:15:34 08/31/13 (1)
  • Re: Computer Operating System. MarkB_MI 05:38:11 08/31/13 (0)
• Re: Computer Operating System. Tx Jim 03:56:55 08/31/13 (0)

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