Linux

What is Linux?
Linux is an UNIX compatible operating system *kernel*.

A kernel is but one (very important) part of an operating system.

This kernel was written from scratch by Linus Torvalds with assistance from a loosely-knit team of hackers across the net. It aims towards POSIX and Single UNIX Specification compliance.

Combined with the GNU utilities you get GNU/Linux which is the correct term for an complete OS.

It has all the features you would expect in a modern fully-fledged Unix, including true multitasking, virtual memory, shared libraries, demand loading, shared copy-on-write executables, proper memory management, and TCP/IP networking.

Linux was first developed for 32-bit x86-based PCs (386 or higher). These days it also runs on (at least) the Compaq AlphaAXP, SunSPARC and UltraSPARC, Motorola 68000, PowerPC, PowerPC64, ARM, Hitachi SuperH, IBM S/390, MIPS, HP PA-RISC, Intel IA-64, DEC VAX, AMD x86-64 and CRIS architectures.

Linux is easily portable to most general-purpose 32- or 64-bit architectures as long as they have a paged memory management unit (PMMU) and a port of the GNU C compiler (gcc).

Some basic commands
These Unix compatible 'commands' are not part of the Linux kernel. The are all separate programs that are used on many other operating systems. The unifying property of these commands is that they are all FreeSoftware, and most all are CopyLeft.

The best way to find information on how to use a command is the man command. This command tells you a lot of specific information on a command. Try man man for a start.

Some handy function keys
copied and extended from: PUSCII - # http://www.puscii.nl/

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