Definder - what does the word mean?

What is Linux?

Incredibly stable OS which is completly free and can be changed in anyway and distributed freely. Often insulted by newbies or people with not enought patience to figure it out. Many different flavors of Linux.

Linux almost never crashes and works fast.

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Linux - meme gif

Linux meme gif

Linux - video


Linux - what is it?

A free, stable OS that will do the job of $1200 worth of Windows Server.

People who run Linux are doing the world a favour by giving Microsoft a reason to get their head out of their ass and actually write code.

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What does "Linux" mean?

Linux is a free (as in libre, not always as in gratis) kernel that, together with tools from the GNU project, forms a stable, high-performance, multi-user operating system.

Its advantages over Windows are mainly ideological; it's free, usually in both of the above senses of the word, and the license, the GNU GPL, prevents proprietary implementations from screwing you over (Linux "companies" sell support, not Linux itself, for this reason).

It's also much more stable than Windows, owing to its stricter memory management, access controls, and hardware abstraction policy, and its networking performance is better since it's really meant more for servers than for desktop usage. Linux has finer-grained access control at the user and device level, though to be fair, Windows has had Unix-style file permissions since NT. Reboot times for Linux, however, are measured in months, and the only reason you should ever need to reboot Linux is if you installed a new kernel.

The disadvantages of Linux compared to Windows are mainly issues of ease of use. Linux is hard compared to Windows, mostly because it tends not to detect certain devices. This is a circular problem, because the drivers tend to be written only for Windows to begin with. It also, despite what the makers claim, *does* require some work at the terminal in most cases, and this will scare away most Windows users who never worked with Dos and the 9x series. It shouldn't, because the terminal is much more powerful and easier to use than Dos ever was, but it does.

The other main issue is that, while there are a few hundred different flavors, referred to as "distros," most of them suck. There are a few big, well-supported distros, and many are based on them: RedHat, which is popular in the corporate world, Debian, which is minimalistic and tough by itself but forms the base for the popular Ubuntu, and Slackware, which is the oldest maintained distro and is closest to the "original" Linux philosophy. There are also a few oddballs like Gentoo, which is for experts only (forces you to compile *everything* but does the annoying work for you and gives you incredible performance), and Arch, which is a minimalist hybrid of Gentoo and Slackware.

Save yourself headaches: newbies should use Ubuntu, experts should use Gentoo or Slackware, purists should use Debian, and no one should use RedHat or any RedHat based distro unless you're corporate and need it, in which case you want CentOS (RedHat for free with no tech support). Just be prepared to get your hands a little dirty, and to search the web and your distro's forums for help. There is always, always an issue that pops up that will never be in the manual or installation docs.

Most of all, remember that Linux won't insult your intelligence, but it won't hold your hand either. You can't always breeze through a Linux install like you can with Windows (though Ubuntu and friends are changing that), but you will get a solid, stable, and working system. Linux rewards effort and inquisitiveness, and punishes laziness.

Linux is about choice. That means you're free to use it, or not to use it, but it will always be here for you.

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Linux - what does it mean?

An open source operating system that tends to get more secure and desktop ready everyday!!

To break a Linux box, you will have to work at it..
To break a Windows box, you just have to work on it..

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Linux - meaning

Linux is simply a word used to get OS Fanboys to spark a religious war.

Linux Fanboy: Linux, enough said
Windows Fanboy: MS rules and Linux sucks because no one uses it
Macintosh Fanboy: I'm cooler than the both of you because my OS is shiny

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Linux - definition

An excellent operating system that is more stable than Microsoft's Windows. Good for server use, but not practical for the average (aka home or gamer) user since it isn't compatible with most programs.

Notably used by either people who do know what they're doing, or immature idiots who think they're "l337" because they spited "M$" out of money (and seemingly wrote 90% of the definitions on this word as well).

Linux is a good OS, but it's most vocal users are hypociritcal idiots.

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Linux - slang

NOT AN OPERATING SYSTEM!!!!!!!!

Linux is a KERNEL, NOT AN OPERATING SYSTEM started by Linus Torvalds in 1991 at University of Helsinki in Finland. Linux was at first just a hobby for Linus. Linux is free software.

It just so happened that just when Linux was getting usable, GNU had everything it needed except a kernel. Thus, people started using Linux with GNU to make a completely free UNIX-like operating system called GNU/Linux.

Today Linux and GNU/Linux have come a long way from the early 1990's, although they're still mostly used by geeks.

Linux is at version 2.6.xx as of mid 2005.

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Linux

A computer operating system known primarily for its stability and its involvement with the Free Software and Open Source Software movements.

When I ran Windows I had to reboot every day, but since I've switched to Linux I now count my time between reboots in months.

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Linux

The OS equivalent of a hybrid car.

Q: How do you know if someone has Linux on their computer?
A: They tell you.

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Linux

Pronunciation: LIH-nucks or LIE-nucks

1. A reimplementation of the UNIX operating system kernel, written by Linus Torvalds, and distributed for free on the Internet. Linux has acheived remarkable compatibility with UNIX, from the point of view of a programmer compiling his software from the source code. Software originally written for UNIX can usually be compiled to run on Linux with no modifications. Linux binaries cannot run on UNIX systems that don't have Linux compatibility on purpose. Linux can be made to run binaries from SCO OpenServer via the Intel Binary Compatibility Standard (IBCS).

Linux is more compatible with UNIX systems that descend from UNIX System V than it is with BSD systems such as FreeBSD.

2. The Linux kernel, bundled with application programs like those that come with UNIX. When these applications are products of the Free Software Foundation, the combination is called GNU/Linux (the G in GNU is pronounced).

When the kernel is combined with applications, the result is called a Linux "distribution." Some distributions are commercially sold and have their own brand names.

3. A registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

4. A religion practiced largely on the USENET newsgroup comp.os.linux.advocacy. The primary ritual of Linux is arguing endlessly with one of two denominations of Linux practitioners: Linux advocates, and Windows advocates, over whether or not Linux is better than Microsoft Windows. The arguments that make up the ritual can be divided into five categories: Linux sucks, Linux rules, Windows sucks, Microsoft sucks and personal insults.

Linux practitioners are even more fervent than computer users who engage in other so-called "religious wars" such as the classic EMACS vs. Vi.

3. A registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Linux (the operating system) looks and feels very much like Sun Solaris, despite the fact that it is not based on the original UNIX kernel, and even its shell commands are complete rewrites of the originals.

GNOME, the graphical interface of Solaris, was written for Linux first.

Since its inception in 1991, Linux has become the most popular UNIX-like operating system, beating Solaris, and even UNIX-based Mac OS X.

1. ~ 2.6 does better under heavy load than ~ 2.4 did.

2. We have a web server running Red Hat ~.

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