Linux is a Unix-like and mostly POSIX-compliant computer operating system (OS)
assembled under the model of free and open-source software development and distribution.
The defining component of Linux is the Linux kernel,an operating system kernel first released on 5 October 1991 by Linus Torvalds.
The Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to describe the operating system,
which has led to some controversy.Linux was originally developed as a free operating system for personal
computers based on the Intel x86 architecture, but has since been ported to more
computer hardware platforms than any other operating system.Thanks to its dominance on
smartphones, Android, which is built on top of the Linux kernel, has the largest installed
base of all general-purpose operating systems. Linux, in its original form,
is also the leading operating system on servers and other big iron systems such as
mainframe computers and virtually all fastest supercomputers, but is used on only
around 1.6% of desktop computers with Linux-based Chrome OS taking
about 5% of the overall and nearly 20% of the sub $300 notebook sales.Linux
also runs on embedded systems, which are devices whose operating system is typically
built into the firmware and is highly tailored to the system; this
includes smartphones and tablet computers running Android and other Linux
derivatives, TiVo and similar DVR devices, network routers, facility automation
controls, televisions, video game consoles, and smart-watches.
The development of Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free and
open-source software collaboration. The underlying source code may be used,
modified and distributed commercially or non-commercially by anyone
under the terms of its respective licenses, such as the GNU General Public License.
Typically, Linux is packaged in a form known as a Linux distribution, for both desktop
and server use. Some of the popular mainstream Linux distributions are Debian, Ubuntu,
Linux Mint, Fedora, openSUSE, Arch Linux and Gentoo, together with commercial Red Hat Enterprise
Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server distributions. Linux distributions
include the Linux kernel, supporting utilities and libraries, and usually
a large amount of application software to fulfill the distribution's
intended use.
