Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
| Domain | Definition |
Computing | Linux /lee'nuhks/ or /li'nuks/, _not_ /li:'nuhks/ n. The free Unix workalike created by Linus Torvalds and friends starting about 1991. The pronunciation /li'nuhks/ is preferred because the name `Linus' has an /ee/ sound in Swedish (Linus's family is part of Finland's 6% ethnic-Swedish minority) and Linus considers English short /i/ to be closer to /ee/ than English long /i:/. This may be the most remarkable hacker project in history -- an entire clone of Unix for 386, 486 and Pentium micros, distributed for free with sources over the net (ports to Alpha and Sparc and many other machines are also in use). Linux is what GNU aimed to be, and it relies on the GNU toolset. But the Free Software Foundation didn't produce the kernel to go with that toolset until 1999, which was too late. Other, similar efforts like FreeBSD and NetBSD have been technically successful but never caught fire the way Linux has; as this is written in 2001, Linux is seriously challenging Microsoft's OS dominance. It has already captured 31% of the Internet-server market and 25% of general business servers. An earlier version of this entry opined "The secret of Linux's success seems to be that Linus worked much harder early on to keep the development process open and recruit other hackers, creating a snowball effect." Truer than we knew. See bazaar. (Some people object that the name `Linux' should be used to refer only to the kernel, not the entire operating system. This claim is a proxy for an underlying territorial dispute; people who insist on the term `GNU/Linux' want the FSF to get most of the credit for Linux because RMS and friends wrote many of its user-level tools. Neither this theory nor the term `GNU/Linux' has gained more than minority acceptance). Source: Jargon File. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
This article is about Linux-based operating systems, GNU/Linux, and related topics. See Linux kernel for more extensive coverage of the Linux kernel itself, from which these systems derive their names.
|
The term "Linux" is now even applied to whole Linux distributions, which typically bundle large quantities of software, from web servers like Apache to graphical environments like GNOME to office suites like OpenOffice.org, with the core operating system.
Since its initial release, the Linux operating system has experienced rapid growth in popularity, overtaking proprietary versions of Unix and even beginning to challenge the dominance of Microsoft Windows. It has been deployed in applications ranging from personal computers to supercomputers to embedded devicess such as mobile phones, supporting a remarkable variety of computer hardware.
The official logo of Linux is Tux the penguin. Local Linux User Groups exist as forums for users of Linux-based operating systems in most areas. The Linux trademark (SN: 1916230) is owned by Linus Torvalds, and is defined as "Computer operating system software to facilitate computer use and operation."
There are many Linux distributions (distros), assembled by individuals, corporations, and other organizations, and each may include any number of additional system software and application programs, as well as a program to install the whole system on a new computer.
The core of each distribution includes the Linux kernel, but also various software packages from the GNU project including a shell and utilities such as libraries, compilers and editors. Because these facilities (without which the system would not resemble Unix from a user perspective) stem from a longstanding free operating-system project that pre-dates the Linux kernel itself, Richard Stallman of GNU asks users to refer to the entire system as GNU/Linux.
Some people do; most simply call the system "Linux".
Most systems also include tools and utilities from BSD backgrounds and typically use XFree86 to provide the underpinnings of a GUI interface.
Linux users, who traditionally had to install and configure their own system, have been stereotypically more technologically oriented than those of Microsoft Windows and Mac OS, often revelling in the tag of "hacker" or "geek".
With the adoption of Linux by several large PC manufacturers, however, computers with Linux distributions pre-installed on the first or second hard disk have become available, and Linux has begun to make slow inroads into the wider desktop market.
Alternatively, some distributions (such as Knoppix, Gnoppix -the Gnobian version- and Gentoo) allow Linux to be booted directly from a CD (sometimes called a LiveCD), without modifying a hard drive. One can download CD ISO images for these and other distributions from the Internet, burn it to a CD, and execute Linux from the CD.
Still other possibilities include booting over a network or (for a minimal system) from a few floppy disks or network card NetBoot flash drivers (see Isolinux).
Linux is also a cornerstone of the LAMP server-software combination that has achieved widespread popularity among web developers.
Linux is also being used as an embedded operating system.
The relatively low cost of Linux makes it possible to use it in devices such as the Simputer, a low-cost computer aimed especially at low-income populations in developing nations.
With desktop environments such as KDE and GNOME, Linux offers a graphical user interface more like Mac OS or Windows than the traditional Unix command line interface, and many no-cost (though not always open source/free) software packages offer the functionality of programs available on the other desktop operating systems.
One study of the Red Hat Linux 7.1 distribution found that this particular
distribution contained 30 million physical source lines of code (SLOC). Using the COCOMO cost model, it could be estimated that this distribution required about 8,000 person-years of development time. Had it been developed by conventional proprietary means, it would have cost over $1.08 billion (1,000 million) to develop in the U.S. (in year 2000 dollars).
The majority of its code (71%) was in C, but many other languages were used including C++, shell scripts, Lisp, assembly language, Perl, Fortran, and Python.
Slightly over half of all its code (counting by line) was licensed under the GPL.
The Linux kernel contained 2.4 million lines of code, or 8% of the total, showing that the vast majority of a Linux operating system is not contained in the Linux kernel.
GNU/Linux is the term promoted by the GNU project and its supporters, in particular by its founder and main activist Richard Stallman, to refer to the Linux operating system. Their basic argument is that GNU was an ongoing project to develop a free operating system that pre-dated the Linux kernel by eight years, and Torvalds' kernel was only the final missing piece completing that project. Besides failing to credit the GNU project, some additionally argue that naming the whole system after the kernel alone encourages substantial technical confusion among the public. Nevertheless, the historical sequence of events and other factors have resulted in most people continuing to call the whole system Linux.
A popular misconception is that GNU argues for GNU/Linux purely on the basis of the large number of GNU tools used in Linux; rather, Stallman writes (in Linux and the GNU Project):
The requests to call the system "GNU/Linux" have met with mixed success at best.
Only a few distributions have followed the lead of Debian in calling their systems "GNU/Linux".
The corporate world, including most media outlets, do not. Amongst the users and developers in the free software and open source movements, some have followed this request; many others have ignored or opposed it.
Some consider the term "operating system" to refer to only the kernel, while the rest are simply utilities (regardless of the practical necessity and volume of such utilities).
In this sense, the operating system is called Linux, and a Linux distribution is based on Linux with the addition of the GNU tools.
On the other hand, both the name GNU and the name Linux are intentionally parallel to the name Unix, and Unix has always referred to the C library and userland tools as well as the kernel. Kernel-author Torvalds wrote, in the 1991 license statement for version 0.11 of Linux (which was not under the GPL until version 0.12):
One practical problem with the use of the word "Linux" to refer to both the kernel and the distributions as a whole is that it has often led to confusion in the popular media (and hence among the general public). Thus, media sources frequently make erroneous statements such as claims that the entire Linux operating system (in the popular sense) was written from scratch by Torvalds in 1991, that Torvalds directs the development of other components such as graphical interfaces, or that new releases of the kernel involve a similar degree of user-visible change to new major versions of proprietary operating systems such as Windows.
The history of Linux is heavily tied to that of GNU project, a prominent free-software project led by Richard Stallman.
The GNU project was begun in 1983 to develop a complete Unix-like operating system composed entirely of free software.
By 1991, when Linux was written, the GNU project had produced nearly all of the components of this system, including a shell, a C library, and a C compiler.
The kernel of the system was incomplete, however, because the GNU kernel (called the Hurd) was so ambitious that it proved unexpectedly difficult.
The Linux kernel was initially written as a hobby by a Finnish university student, Linus Torvalds, who was attending the University of Helsinki.
But, subsequently, thousands of volunteers of computer programmers throughout the world have participated in the project. (See the first Linux announcement, archived on Google.) Torvalds and other early Linux developers adapted the GNU components to work with the Linux kernel, creating a completely functional operating system.
Linux, thus, filled that final gap in the GNU operating system. Although the Linux kernel is licensed under the GNU General Public License, it is not part of the GNU project. The GNU project has a separate kernel development project, the HURD, whose completion is still eagerly awaited in some circles.
The Linux kernel now presents a major competitive threat to the manufacturers of proprietary operating systems.
Early in 2003, SCO filed a lawsuit against IBM claiming that IBM had included portions of SCO's intellectual property into the Linux kernel.
Additionally, SCO reportedly sent letters to many companies warning them that Linux may be a liability. Red Hat has now filed a lawsuit against SCO, seeking to stop SCO's intellectual property claims, and seeking legal redress for the harm done to Red Hat by such claims. On November 13, 2003 SCO Group filed subpoenas for Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds.
See SCO v. IBM Linux lawsuit for details.
Linux distributions
Applications of Linux-based operating systems
The scale of the Linux development effort
"GNU/Linux"
The name "GNU/Linux" was first used by Debian in 1994 as the name of their OS distribution based on the Linux kernel and GNU programs.
(In 1992, The Yggrasil distribution was called Linux/GNU/X). In GNU's 1994-June Bulletin, Linux is referred to as a "free UNIX clone" (with many GNU utilities and libraries). In the 1995-January edition, the references to Linux were changed to "GNU/Linux". In May of 1996, Richard Stallman released Emacs 19.31, changing the system target "Linux" to "Lignux". He argued that to give rightful credit to GNU, it is proper to use the terms "Linux-based GNU system", "GNU/Linux system", or "Lignux" to refer to the combination of the Linux kernel and the GNU system. Stallman later stopped using the term "Lignux" and used "GNU/Linux" exclusively.
Some of the reasons people refer to the system as "Linux" instead of "GNU/Linux" are because the former is shorter and thus easier to say, because Torvalds has called the combined system Linux since its 1991 release, and because Stallman only began asking people to call the system "GNU/Linux" in the mid 1990s after the system had become popular. And, of course, since "Linux" is the most widespread name, many people simply copy this usage without learning the history or debate behind it.History
Litigation
See also
External links
Linux distros
Reference
Tutorials
Online publications
Printed publications
Linux and Gnu
Linux kernel
Others
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Linux."
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
| Lilo | English | Linux Loader | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Crosswords: LINUX |
| Specialty definitions using "LINUX": arbitrary precision calculator ♦ Bigloo, BogoMips, brown-paper-bag bug, busy-wait ♦ CLISP ♦ DB2, Debian GNU/Hurd, demoscene, dogfood ♦ Eli Compiler Construction System, empeg ♦ FDISK, FreeBSD, FUDGIT ♦ GCC, GCT, Get a real computer!, GNU assembler, GNU Network Object Model Environment ♦ Halloween Documents ♦ ICI ♦ kernel-of-the-week club ♦ Language for Communicating Systems, LDP, Linus, Linux Network Administrators' Guide, Logical Block Addressing, Lossless Predictive Audio Compression ♦ Marlais, memory protection, Miranda, Moscow ML ♦ Open source license ♦ Portable Forth Environment ♦ Red Hat ♦ Sather, slackware, SWI-Prolog ♦ Unix conspiracy, Unix manual page, Use the Source Luke, userland, UTSL ♦ virtual beer ♦ Windows 2000, wintel, wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk ♦ XSB. (references) |
| Domain | Title | ||
References | |||
Books |
| ||
Periodicals |
| ||
Theater & Movies | |||
High Tech |
| ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | The rise of Linux as a global phenomenon is also a key challenge to the existing order of software markets in China. (references) | |
There are some free firewall software in use that can be freely downloaded such under GNU public license such as LINUX. (references) | ||
Some new applications are implemented on PCs and workstations with Intel processors utilizing the Linux platform (2%). IDRISI software is steadily increasing its market share in GIS projects. (references) | ||
Economic History | Netherlands | Smaller companies use Linux on a small scale. (references) |
China | Also as a few major local computer manufacturers are preload Linux to their new PCs, the market share for Linux is growing rapidly. (references) | |
China | For now, the most sought after retail products are games and entertainment software, but Windows 2000 did allow Microsoft to announce an 83% increase in China revenues for 2000. Stiff competition from Linux is emerging, but here too are opportunities for foreign vendors. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Country | Name |
| USA | VA Linux Systems, Inc. |
| (more examples...) |
Source: compiled by the editor from Icon Group International, Inc.
Expressions using "LINUX": Linux Documentation Project ♦ Linux Network Administrators' Guide. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
linux | 12,591 | linux for window | 168 |
red hat linux | 902 | linux wallpaper | 167 |
linux download | 557 | linux distribution | 165 |
mandrake linux | 519 | linux hardware | 161 |
linux operating system | 476 | linux firewall | 141 |
linux hosting | 455 | free linux download | 141 |
linux software | 392 | linux os | 132 |
suse linux | 322 | linux laptop | 126 |
linux accounting | 305 | red hat linux download | 125 |
linux command | 285 | linux training | 124 |
linux server | 251 | embedded linux | 122 |
linux tutorial | 232 | linux iso | 120 |
linux game | 227 | linux anti virus | 118 |
linux driver | 219 | learn linux | 116 |
linux and web hosting | 216 | linux penguin | 112 |
kazaa linux | 211 | box linux x | 109 |
linux play station | 207 | linux msn | 104 |
linux downloads | 191 | linux certification | 103 |
free linux | 170 | linux messenger msn | 102 |
linux wine | 168 | red hat linux 9 | 90 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "LINUX"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||
Korean | 리눅스. (various references) | ||||
Pig Latin | inuxlay | ||||
Misspellings | |
"LINUX" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Laux, Lindum, Linyun, Liqun. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "i-l-n-u-x" | |
-2 letters: lin, lux, nil, nix. | |
-3 letters: in, li, nu, un, xi, xu. | |
| Words containing the letters "i-l-n-u-x" | |
+1 letter: influx. | |
+2 letters: fluxing, fluxion. | |
+3 letters: exulting, fluxions, influxes, luxating, luxation, uniaxial. | |
+4 letters: anxiously, duplexing, effluxion, excluding, exclusion, expulsing, expulsion, fluxional, luxations, luxuriant, noxiously, refluxing, unisexual, unmixable. | |
+5 letters: antisexual, boxhauling, effluxions, exclusions, expulsions, exsolution, exultation, exultingly, flummoxing, fluoxetine, luxuriance, sextupling. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Crosswords 2. Usage: Commercial 3. Quotations: Non-fiction 4. Names: Company Usage | 5. Expressions 6. Expressions: Internet 7. Translations: Modern 8. Abbreviations | 9. Acronyms 10. Derivations 11. Anagrams 12. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
