A Very Brief Overview Of Linux

First of all, Linux is not an Operating System,
it is a central component of an operating system, refereed to as Kernel.

However once it is paired with commands,
which allow us to operate the system the two are installed on, we can then call the pair a Linux Kernel based Operating System.

And if the commands come from the GNU project,
then we can call it GNU/Linux.

Often when people say Linux, they mean,
that other class of operating systems that isn't Windows or Apple - which is wrong, but I think is perfectly fine.

Just using the word Linux is ambiguous, but OK-ish,
people just rely on context to figure it out.

When someone says I have installed Linux on all my computers they mean the operating system,
because you can't install the Kernel, you use it to craft a brand new new Operating System.

When someone says I am compiling Linux right now,
then they mean the Kernel, they are probably upgrading their Operating System Kernel to the latest version.

Kernel is shipped as source code, it contains code needed to talk to the computer hardware,
compiling is what you do with it.

When someone says GNU Linux, then they are being all classy and proper,
and are referring to the GNU Operating System that had its own Kernel swapped out with the Linux Kernel.

The GNU Kernel is named Hurd and and it is not as good as the Linux Kernel,
the GNU Operating System is so powerful that it can either use the Hurd Kernel or Linux Kernel.

You don't hear about the GNU Operating System very often,
because it it is usually something that Operating System creators build on, and their creations get their own names.

The GNU Operating System is often used as a base Operating System,
that has more stuff piled on top of it, and only then does it get a name.

I am currently writing this on Fedora,
according to Wikipedia the original programmer that created Linux Kernel Linus Torvalds also uses Fedora.

And there are many others,
Ubuntu, Linux Mint, SUSE, Arch Linux.

They are all Linux and most of them use GNU operating system components,
GNU is free, and good quality.

But yes, there are Linux operating systems that are Linux but try to avoid GNU,
Android is one of them, and then TV and close hardware things may get rid of GNU on legal basis as they don't approve of the GNU license.

Allow me to mention a couple of side notes here before we carry on,
all my computer programs are under the GNU license, I probably wrote almost a thousand programs by now.

It is not a big number, and most of it has been lost to broken hard rives, dying laptops, cheap floppies,
it was all written for the purpose of self education, I have about 200 programs on the internet now, and they are all GNU licensed.

I also wanted to explain what compilation is, it is what you to do convert human readable source code in a programming language designed for programmers,
to codes that are executable by CPU, by the computer hardware.

Computer hardware talks in an optimized language that is very hard to read by humans,
so programmers invented high level-programming languages that are somewhat english-ish to help themselves read code better.

The machine language is so hard to read that when crackers try to remove copy protection from programs that require purchase and registration,
they wouldn't dream of trying to understand all the machine code, they just try to find the first good place to short circuit the serial number check - and get the heck outa there.

It is cruel and unusual to read the machine code, some coders do it when source code is lost and only quick fixes are needed,
and artist write programs in machine code from scratch, but they don't write very big programs, just very artistic machine code.

And in the past, programmers used to look down on people that used high level more readable programming languages,
as they would often overlook something that the human mind could strategist about optimize really well, but computers got faster, and only high speed Wall Street traders, and graphic card manufactures worry about that now.

Personally, I go even higher than that,
I write in a language that does not ask me to specify the type of memory I need, which as you can imagine many programmers consider wasteful.

It is absolutely the same argument that was had back when coders wrote machine code,
strangely enough Microsoft added a kind of memory type information back to a variant of my language, which defeats the purpose of an un-typed language, they created a language by moving backwards.

Microsoft and Apple are another part of the reason why Linux Kernel Based Operating Systems are important,
because they tightly control their software, and consider their Operating System Source Code a secret.

Since nobody has a copy of the closed Operating System source code,
when a closed Operating System decides that;

You need an account with them just to turn your computer on, you will need to listen, you will have no choice, you will have to follow what they say.

It doesn't matter if this is something that you want to do or not,
this type of thing enlarges your attack surface, someone will either guess your password, or the account will get banned for some automatic reason and you will lose access to your files.

This should never be an issue, no one should track you,
or tell you how to turn on your computer, you shouldn't be considered a product that represents money.

Businesses that want to make less money do not exist,
therefore profit optimization and maximization will always end up pressuring you into things you don't want to do.

You should try to stay away from businesses that are trying to pinch your pennies to make money from you,
they do not want to give you anything of value, businesses just want to take the maximum that they can get way with.

Most of the Linux Kernel based Operating Systems are open and wouldn't dare to insult you,
and if something goes wrong and some project starts eroding due to shortsightedness and greed, the community makes a copy and the development of that project continues elsewhere.

And businesses try to take over open projects, right now the program I use for recording this text is under fire, or on fire,
I saw apologies and scalding, and lost trust, and what appears to be heavy moderation see https://github.com/audacity/audacity/discussions/1353

Here, when that first heart break occurs, when trust is lost, people ask things like "What stops you guys from taking another u-turn in the future?",
which is a quite a powerful question.

And then later forks that create a different developer community happen,
related ideas pop up, and lessons are learned.

In summary, Linux, is the stuff that talks to hardware,
GNU is an operating system that has a kernel named Hurd, that still needs some love.

But The GNU operating system is so flexible,
that people replaced its Hurd Kernel with Linux Kernel which is further along than Hurd.

Combining the two together you get the GNU/Linux,
but that is still pretty bare bones, and here people add even more stuff which is what Ubuntu, Linux Mint, SUSE, Arch Linux, etc.

Where nobody is allowed to make a copy of the Apple or Microsoft Operating systems,
as that would result in jail time.

The Linux Family of Operating Systems is different,
they believe that if you make your own copy a lot of the code you write will benefit them too, so it is all open.

And here finally, if you are wondering how to get an open Linux based Operating System going,
I recommend, a Raspberry PI based computer.

The $150 8GB "Raspberry Pi 4 Complete Starter Kit" needs a tiny bit of assembly but there are videos showing you how to do it,
and there is also the 4GB (which is OK) $100 fully assembled "Raspberry Pi 400 Computer Kit" that looks like a keyboard.

Other than that just search the internet for "Linux Laptop",
I have a cheap Walmart laptop that I installed Fedora on and everything works perfectly.

I think the most outrageous Linux computer is the Librem Phone priced at $2,000,
the opposite is the PinePhone at just about $150,

Finally the Pi's Pines and Librem Phone combined with the high end machines over at https://system76.com/
pretty much create a full range of products, worthy of a powerful Apple competitor.

If this text does convince somebody to get a nice Linux,
there is a product that I do not recommend but must mention because it is such a crazy good idea.

And that is the Linux Cheatsheet Mouspead,
they are all overpriced, and free Linux Cheat-sheets are all over the internet.

But there is something crazy honest about those mouse pads,
as they just capture the most important commands.

It is just something I wish I had when I started learning Linux,
I would memorize the heck out of that thing in lickety-split.