What Is Linux?

There are many operating systems around such as Windows, DOS, and Mac OS and Linux is yet another. Linux is an operating system that evolved from a kernel created by Linus Torvalds when he was a student at the University of Helsinki. However Linux is different from most of those operating systems in many areas and following are some of them

1.  Linux is free
Unless you obtained Windows illegally, you probably paid for it. On the other hand, you can get Linux completely free of charge. This is a massive saving specially when comparing to all the programs you have to install with windows operating system

2.  Freedom
Linux and "Open Source" software are "free". This means their license is a "free license", and the most common is the GPL (General Public License). This license states that anyone is allowed to copy the software, see the source code (the "recipe"), modify it, and redistribute it as long as it remains licensed with the GPL.

3.  Forget about viruses
Linux hardly has any viruses, mainly because

• Most people use windows and people who develop viruses target larger audience so they attack windows
• Linux uses strong security mechanism, user cannot just go inside the system folder and what ever they want. Every time user try to do some modification, an administrator password is required. This is same when virus try to attack the system, authorization is required to proceed the action.
• Linux is open source, meaning it is contributed by developers all over the word that makes it more powerful

4.  Powerful shell
Of-course, GUIs are easy to use but sometimes shell can be so much faster and reliable. It allows you to do large number of complex operations using simple commands.    

5.  It is not only an OS
When you get linux you also get many other programs without installing anything.

• An office package to create documents, edit spreadsheets, make presentations and do many other things.
• A web browser to surf the web
• A photo editor 
• A music/video player
• A pdf reader
• etc...