What Is Linux? | The Best Explain

What Is Linux?

what is Linux? Linux is an operating system such as Microsoft Windows, Apple MAC OS, IOS, Google, Android etc… In fact, one of the most popular platforms on the planet, Android, is powered by the Linux operating system. An operating system is software that enables the communication between computer hardware and software. It conveys input to get processed by the processor and brings output to the hardware to display it. This is the basic function of an operating system. Linux has been around us since the mid-90s. It can be used from wristwatches to supercomputers. It is everywhere in our phones, laptops, PCs, cars, and refrigerators. It is very much famous among developers and regular computer users.

How does the Linux operating system work?

The Linux OS follows a modular design that is the key to its many variations and distributions. All Linux distributions are based on the Linux kernel, but they can differ depending on factors such as:

1. Bootloader

A bootloader also spelt as boot loader or called boot manager and bootstrap loader is a computer program that is responsible for booting a computer. what is Linux

When a computer is turned off, its software‍—‌including operating systems, application code, and data‍—‌remains stored on non-volatile memory. When the computer is powered on, it typically does not have an operating system or its loader in random-access memory (RAM). The computer first executes a relatively small program stored in read-only memory (ROM, and later EEPROM, NOR flash) along with some needed data, to initialize RAM (especially on x86 systems), to access the nonvolatile device (usually block device, eg NAND flash) or devices from which the operating system programs and data can be loaded into RAM.

2. Kernal

The kernel is a computer program at the core of a computer’s operating system and generally has complete control over everything in the system. It is the portion of the operating system code that is always resident in memory and facilitates interactions between hardware and software components. A full kernel controls all hardware resources (e.g. I/O, memory, cryptography) via device drivers, arbitrates conflicts between processes concerning such resources, and optimizes the utilization of common resources e.g. CPU & cache usage, file systems, and network sockets. On most systems, the kernel is one of the first programs loaded on startup (after the bootloader). It handles the rest of the startup as well as memory, peripherals, and input/output (I/O) requests from software, translating them into data-processing instructions for the central processing unit(CPU). what is Linux

3. Init system

In Unix-based computer operating systems, init (short for initialization) is the first process started during the booting of the computer system. Init is a daemon process that continues running until the system is shut down. It is the direct or indirect ancestor of all other processes and automatically adopts all orphaned processes. Init is started by the kernel during the booting process; a kernel panic will occur if the kernel is unable to start it. Init is typically assigned a process identifier.

4. Daemons

In multitasking computer operating systems, a daemon is a computer program that runs as a background process, rather than being under the direct control of an interactive user. Traditionally, the process names of a daemon end with the letter d, for clarification that the process is in fact a daemon, and for differentiation between a daemon and a normal computer program. For example, syslogd is a daemon that implements a system logging facility, and SSHD is a daemon that serves incoming SSH connections.

5. Graphical Server

The graphical server protocol is used by both the server running as a service in a process separate from the client. Both client and server will exchange various messages to manipulate the diagram. The server process can be used to manipulate various diagrams simultaneously. what is Linux

6. Desktop Environment

This is the piece that the users actually interact with. There are many desktop environments to choose from (GNOME, Cinnamon, Mate, Pantheon, Enlightenment, KDE, Xfce, etc.). Each desktop environment includes built-in applications (such as file managers, configuration tools, web browsers, and games).

7. Applications

Desktop environments do not offer the full array of apps. Just like Windows and macOS, Linux offers thousands upon thousands of high-quality software titles that can be easily found and installed. Most modern Linux distributions (more on this below) include App Store-like tools that centralize and simplify application installation. For example, Ubuntu Linux has the Ubuntu Software Center (a rebrand of GNOME Software) which allows you to quickly search among the thousands of apps and install them from one centralized location. what is Linux