Abstract:
The Linux operating system involves a special position in the world of computer
science. Unlike the great preponderance of operating systems, which are generated by
commercial developers and sold at a value, Linux is produced and managed by a coterie
of tireless volunteers and is distributed with no license fees whatsoever. It is available in
several versions that run with almost identical looks and feel on various groups of
hardware platforms. Linux is famed both for its steadiness and for its efficiency, often
running for months, or occasionally years at a time without having to be rebooted, while
also achieving excellent performance. It conveys many of the properties of UNIX that
have made that operating system highly tourist among computer science professed.
Linux reference code is as easily available as the executable code, thus giving users
complete independence to change and adapt the operating system to the special
demands of their systems. Linux maintains the tradition of openness and voluntarism
that originally characterized the UNIX world, while at the same time avoiding the
concomitant fragmentation experienced by UNIX into a variety of dialects. Linux is
possible to continue to grow in importance.
