I have mentioned linux quite a bit in pretty much anything I write about computers. This is because when it comes to operating system there really is nothing to compete with it. Looking at my resume it is easy to conclude most of my career has been spent drawing with CAD and running windows based systems. I do have extensive experience and knowledge of the “Wintel” platform. It is designed for and used predominantly with personal computers. It is however not a good choice for studying and learning about computers as a technology in and of itself. If you know me you are aware my first passion on life is computers. A word that is thrown around quite a bit, its meaning to me though is the actual electronic device(s) not their application or end use.
Linux is at its very core a network operating system based on principals derived from Unix. Back in the days when computer were categorized as Micro, Mini, and Mainframes one of the major distinguishing factors was the operating system the machine ran. The Mini & Mainframe domains ran a version of Unix. The reason for this was, this architecture was, Unix was a time sharing system with provisions for users, permissions, and priority as well as interconnectivity between systems. This made them suitable for large organizations with multiple users all working on the same “system”. Micro computers were designed for the use of one user. As time went on and processors became more powerful and less expensive the lines began to blur.
When Linix was first developed its purpose was really as a learning exercise by a college student. He had the vision to release the source code through a licensing scheme known as the GPL (General Public License). At the time there were many Unix utilities also available with the same licensing agreement. This included pretty much all of the Unix tools being used by proprietary systems. A major factor was this tool set included a “C” compiler. It was not long until all of this was running on the Linux kernel and linux distributions started to appear.
This was around 1993 or so. The first linux distribution I managed to get installed and running was/is called Slackware. It was an ordeal since it was on floppy disks. I don’t remember what specific version it was but, I do remember at the time my CD-ROM drive was a slot mounted single speed deal. I have been hooked on linux ever since. I have installed and configured linux hundreds of times since then. Exploring distributions has been a long term hobby. The major ones are: Slackware, Red Hat (until it became proprietary, Suse, Debian, Mandriva (now obsolete) and most recently Kali, Cent OS, Mint, Ubuntu, Noobs (Raspberry Pi) and Knoppix. These days I tend to hover around using Debian based distributions because the package manager is so mature and refined it really saves a lot of work getting a system up and running the services needed.
What Linux provides once it is up and running can provide a multitude of services and applications. Applications are a straight forward thing most people only use a few and this is the extent of their exposure to computers. A basic list of these apps would include; a word processor, spread sheet, e-mail, web browser, contacts, and calendar this pretty much covers 90 percent of most user’s needs. There are also Power Apps used by more advanced end users such as accounting, CAD, commercial graphics packages, and databases. My role in business has been mostly in the CAD role. This is because work was readily available and paid well enough. Studying how technology works is my real passion. A linux server can be set up to provide all of the back end network functions to support any or all of the above described users. It can also be infrastructure. Providing Web Server Services, Database Server, Domain Name Services, E-mail, Samba Server, CUPS, X, and pretty much anything else you can name or need.
The nice thing about linux is you can have as much or as little as you want. It plays nicely with other computers even windows and apple machines. It is highly scalable. It is in active and ongoing development and has a huge user base of skilled users.