The Internet and Linux   by Bravenet.com
 6/2003

Linux is an operating system that was initially created 
by Linus Torvalds. 
Linus started the project as a hobby while a student 
at the University of Helsinki in Finland. 
In 1991 he released version 0.02 and worked continuously 
until 1994 when version 1.0 of Linux was released. 
Currently we are on version 2.4.20 as of April 16, 2003.

The project started out as one person’s hobby now involves, 
in one way or another, thousands of people – everything 
from consultants to application developers to system administrators.

Linux is what we call an operating system. 
The function of an operating system (OS) is to provide a 
foundation for applications to run on. 
The OS is like a foreign language interpreter. 
It knows everything about the hardware in the computer 
and acts as a go-between for the application and the hardware. 
Windows does the exact same thing. 
The difference between the two types of OS's is that 
because Windows is a graphical-based OS it requires a lot 
more resources to run. Linux, on the other hand, is a text-based 
OS and needs substantially fewer resources. 

Because Linux was so efficient, 
it was easy for people to put up servers on the internet. 
They could use any old computer and it would run just fine. 
The other major reason is that just about all the applications 
including Linux are Open Source. So when you have something that 
runs extremely fast and is so inexpensive, it is natural that 
it would become the most popular OS used for servers on the Internet.

There are many different flavors or distributions of Linux. 
At the core they are all very much the same thing. 
What differs is what applications they provide with the OS. 
They also differ in their methods of installation and updating. 
For example, visit these sites

- Mandrake (http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/)
- Gentoo (http://www.gentoo.org/)
- Debian (http://www.debian.org/)
- Redhat (http://www.redhat.com/)
- Slackware (http://www.slackware.org/)

At each of these sites you can actually download the 
complete operating system. There are a few vendors out 
there that will sell you the OS on CDROM. 
As well in the back of most popular books about Linux is 
a CDROM with a version of Linux on it.

There are a ton of sites out there that can help 
you better understand what Linux is and how best to use it. 

Here is a list of a few in no particular order:

- Linux HQ (http://www.linuxhq.org)
- Linux Online (http://www.linux.org)
- Linux Apps (http://www.linuxapps.com/)
- Linux Center (http://www.portalux.com/)

Finally, if you are already running Linux, and want to learn 
about programming and database development, we recommend you 
have a look at this very valuable resource book: 
http://sitepoint.com/books/?bookid=LearnDB

Take care,
Brad.