LinuxAvatar - Introduction to LINUX

Welcome to LinuxAvatar...!

What is an Operating System (OS)?

• OS is an interface between the user and the computer hardware

• Controls the execution of other programs and responsible for managing multiple computer resources (CPU, memory, disk, display, keyboard, etc.)

Examples of OS: Windows, Unix/Linux, OS X, Sun-Solaris, etc.

LINUX - Introduction:

Linux is one of popular version of UNIX operating System was originally created by Linus Torvalds with the assistance of developers from around the globe. Linux was designed considering UNIX compatibility. It's functionality list is quite similar to that of UNIX. It is a very powerful operating system and is gradually becoming popular throughout the world. It is a free open-source operating system as its source code is freely available. It is free to use.

Linux System Architecture:

• Hardware layer consists of all peripheral devices (RAM/ HDD/ CPU etc).

• Kernel sits on top of the hardware and is the core of the OS; It directly interact with hardware. Kernel receives tasks from the shell and performs them.

• Shell is the command line interface through which the user interacts with the OS. Most commonly used shell is “bash”.

• Linux has a kernel and one or more shells.