Computer Science Knowledge Base

Linux

5 min read

Info

History informs some of the technical information, as such this section will include technical info about linux, and some history. This I think is the best way to talk about linux & unix since often the history informs the technical decisions.

UNIX was an operating system developed at bell labs. UNIX was an incredibly popular operating system especially for academics when it was released. UNIX was primarily closed source, meaning it’s code was proprietary. It was a system that had tons of tools that were built to internally suit the needs of bell labs. These tools are often still used today (like grep, awk, cat etc.), or something inspired from them.

Linux on the other hand was open source and is a combination of a few pieces of software all rolled up into one package. Linux as we know it today is a combination of:

  • GNU tools (gcc etc.)
  • Linus Torvalds’ Kernel (called linux)

People who are a part of the free software movement will often call it GNU + Linux instead of just Linux. Technically Linux is just the kernel, and the rest of the tools in “Linux” are mostly GNU tools.

Info

You will see me use the word nix or *nix. This is a shortform for any unix-like operating system, like linux

Linux vs UNIX

What are the actual differences between them, and why are they mentioned together? The main reason you see the two mentioned together is because the philosophies that guided the development of UNIX were a large influence on Linux. Both follow the POSIX standards for how to implement operating systems. Many early Linux users were UNIX users who wanted to find a free software alternative to UNIX. At the time UNIX was relatively expensive, and so for individuals an open source alternative was appealing. Besides that they each use separate kernels, and internal tools to build out the specifics of each operating system.

Distros

A distro follows the traditional format of the underlying operating system, but typically with more specific changes. For example [linux mint](https://linuxmint.com/, Zorin OS, and ubuntu are all linux debian-systems, but they have quite significant differences as far as user experience goes. I mentioned debian in the last sentence, what is debian?

Well for distros there are lots of “base” of distros, where the distros will follow the design philosophies of a broader system. For example someone might say they use a debian based system (like we talked about before), or they may say they prefer to use arch-based, or maybe fedora based. What this means is that the distro implements the features of debian, arch or fedora, then adds on top of it. Which one your distro is based on will change what files you can install, the user interfaces you can use, and the philosophies behind the more “subjective” parts of the POSIX standard. Debian-based systems for example can install .deb programs, whereas fedora-based would instead be able to install .rpm programs.

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