Linux is perceived by many as the operating system that is most popular. In the field of computing, it is regarded as the first free Unix-like operating system. The current paper is therefore devoted to describing the history of Linux. When conducting this research, the time-line of significant events were considered and are thus highlighted herein. As well, the presentation aims to provide information about the multiple 'flavors' of Linux.
Unix operating system was established and executed by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie in 1969 but was initially released in 1970. A GNU project was later officially commissioned in 1983 by Richard Stallman. The project was launched basically to develop a GNU which was a Unix-compatible operating system. Developers contributed many utilities and programs of the system but still, kernel was missing. In August 1991, Linus Torvalds conceived the Linux idea. It is this idea that later became Linux kernel. Same year in September, Version 0.01 of Linux was released and put on the net (Hasan 1).
Basically, in 1991, Linux kernel was publicly announced by Linus Benedict Torvalds. His development was done on MINIX by making use of the GNU C compiler. To date, GNU C compiler remains the compiling choice for Linux. In October, 1991, Torvalds again publicly announced the release of Version 0.02. This was however a basic version which still could not operate without MINIX. Torvalds rapidly improved the kernel. Come December, 1991, standalone version 0.11 of Unix-like Linux system was out. Users found version 0.11 better since it supported multilingual keyboards, Hercules, offered support for EGA, VGA as well as floppy disk drivers (Hasan 1).
In 1992, version 0.12 of Linux was released, basically as a stable, improved kernel. To signify that it was moving to a full featured system, the consequent versions were called version 0.95, version 0.96 and e.t.c. Version 0.11 was released under freeware license of Torvalds’ own devising. On the contrary, version 0.12 was released under an established GNU Public License.
Linux was constantly improved throughout 1990’s and thereafter started to be made use of in large-scale applications such as networking, web hosting, as well as database serving. In 1993, more than 100 developers worked on Linux kernel and with their support, the kernel was adapted to environment of GNU which offered a larger spectrum of Linux applications. It was as well in 1993 that for the first time, Linux distribution, Slackware, was released.
In 1994, Torvalds judged components of kernel as fully mature and thus released Linux version 1.0 and was published by Red Hat and SUSE. Linux kernel version 2.0 was later released in 1996 which could serve multiple processors at same time. Again, in 2001, a major release of Linux version 2.4 was made. This version provided higher compatibility with Intel’s 64-bit upcoming generations. Consequent years saw minor improvements to the current version 3.0 of the Linux kernel. Linux come in multiple flavors, namely, Redhat, Debian, Ubuntu, and e.t.c.
It is the first Linux distribution classification. Two most common in this classification are the Debian ones and the RedHat-based distributions (Weber 1). Of all time, these two are the most popular Linux distros. In terms of users, Debian is the largest Linux distribution. It is highly recognized for its quality and stability as well as its interoperability with different software. Its stability is high with friendly newbie. RedHat’s popular offspring is the Fedora. In fact, Fedora is desktop’s RedHat. Launched for Linux Hobbyist, it has remained very secure with room for vast number of packages. As opposed to Debian, it is less newbie friendly. Its current version is Fedora 10. In RedHat-based classification, CentOS is as well another which is very popular. Basically, it is best for shared hosting and this is the reason why vast web hosting organizations choose it (Weber 1).
OpenSUSE
This Linux distro is currently under ownership of Novell. It is an all inclusive package with excellent documentation. Its current release is 11.1 and presents users with better graphical tools. Being one of the Linux desktop distros, it offers multimedia functionality, web browser, office packages, image processing and e.t.c. (Weber 1).
Ubuntu
Ubuntu is the considerably the most renown Linux distribution since it was released five years ago. It is used with almost 40% of desktops because of its stability, quality as well as newbie friendliness. Besides, it is made with migration assistant specifically for Window refugees. It also works with vast hardware basically out of box. Its current release is 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope (Weber 1).
PCLinuxOS
This Linux distribution is of course good for first time Linux users. It is another distribution that as well operates out the box and is popular for its support of most hardware. Its website and documentation are superb. However, it is only applicable for English speakers. Its current release is PCLinuxOS 2009.1 (Weber 1).
In conclusion, Linux flavors can be classified as security enhanced, desktop Linux flavors, Slackware and Followers, Live CDs, Debain based, and RedHat-Based depaending whether it is majorly used for desktop or not. Overally, there is constantan release of the Linux distributors.
Works cited
An Introduction to Linux Flavors. 2009. Web. 23 Mar. 2012.
Hasan, R. History of Linux. 2002. Web. 23 Mar. 2012.
Linux History. 2012. Web. 23 Mar. 2012.
Weber, A. The Many Flavors of Linux. 2009. Web. 23 Mar. 2012.
