In this article, we try to answer the question is Linux and operating system??
There’s been a great deal of confusion about the word Linux, because of how it is used popularly, versus how it is used technically. Let’s look at it from both angles.
Technically Linux is actually not an operating system! an operating system is system software that does two things: it manages computer hardware and software resources, and it provides common services for computer programs. Almost all computer programs require an operating system to function.
There are several components of an operating system that together make the different parts of a computer work one of these key components is called the kernel and that’s where Linux comes in.
Linux is a kernel. A kernel is the core program of an operating system it’s the first program loaded on startup and it mainly does the three things:
-It handles the rest of the startup process.
-It handles the input-output requests from other programs.
-It manages memory and hardware peripherals like keyboards monitors printers speakers etc.
Linux is the most widely used free and open-source kernel on the planet, Android Google’s mobile operating system uses a modified version of the Linux kernel and many if not most internet servers also use the Linux kernel. It is a very versatile piece of software that helps power millions of devices every day.
From the popular angle, what happened was in the early to mid 90s shortly after the creation and release of the Linux kernel in 1991, many developers began combining the Linux with a free and open-source operating system called GNU, replacing the kernel that GNU was currently using, they did this because of the functionality and benefits that Linux was currently offering its users that GNU kernel at the time was lacking.
The popularity of this new operating system combination grew exponentially over the next couple of years. However there also grew a controversy among the free software community about what to call operating systems that were using this combination of the new software and the Linux kernel.
The controversy continues to this day. The general public mainly refers to this combination of software as Linux, and more technical users refer to it as GNU Linux, or GNU plus Linux. Fortunately the benefits that GNU and the Linux kernel provide today are available to any user in the form of distributions. Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and Fedora are examples of such distributions.
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