Welcome to Introduction to Linux and Unix. After watching this video, you will be able
to: Explain what an operating system, or OS, is Describe the origins of Linux and Unix. And list some of the features of Linux and
Unix. So, what is an operating system? It is software that: Manages computer hardware and resources And allows interaction with hardware to perform
useful tasks. So, what is Unix? It’s a family of operating systems Some popular Unix-based operating systems
include: Oracle Solaris (and Open Solaris) FreeBSD HP-UX IBM AIX And Apple macOS, which is one of the most
popular desktop operating systems today. In the 1960s, the original Unix OS was created
at AT&T Bell Labs. However, like many operating systems at the time, it was made for a specific
hardware system, in this case, the PDP-7 computer. In the 1970s, the Unix OS was rewritten in
C, distinguishing itself from other systems and making it portable to many hardware architectures. And then in the late 1970s, UC Berkley developed
Berkley Software Distribution (or BSD), an add-on to Unix providing additional software
and capabilities. The famous macOS was later derived from BSD. So, what is Linux? Linux is a family of Unix-like operating systems.
However, when referring to Linux, people are usually talking about a specific distribution
or flavor. And Linux was developed as an effort to create
a free, open source version of the Unix OS. Key Linux features include the following: Linux is free and open source, which means
anyone can view the source code. With so many eyes on the source code, Linux
has become the most secure OS over the years. It’s multi-user. Linux is designed to support
multiple users accessing the system simultaneously. It supports multitasking, running multiple
jobs and applications at the same time And it’s portable. Linux has been ported
to run on many different types of devices and hardware platforms from desktops to servers
to appliances. How did Linux start? In the 1980s, GNU was developed at MIT. GNU
stands for “GNU’s not Unix” and was made as a free, open source set of the existing
Unix system tools. And in 1991, Linus Torvalds developed a free,
open source version of the Unix kernel called Linux. The kernel is the core component of
an OS that enables components to communicate with the machine’s hardware. Here is Linus Torvalds’ famous email where
he shared his progress making his own open-source Unix-Like Kernel. He references minix, which was another Unix-like
kernel at the time. Soon after, in 1992, the potential of unifying
GNU and the Linux kernel was realized as popular Linux operating systems began to appear. And in 1996, a computer scientist named Larry
Ewing created ”Tux” the penguin, which was later adopted by Linus Torvalds as the
official Linux mascot. Today, the BSD-based macOS runs on millions
of devices across the world. Billions of Linux instances run on servers,
serving us the modern web. And especially among developers, modern Linux
operating systems such as Ubuntu are beginning to gain popularity in the PC space. What are the most common use cases for Linux
today? First, it’s used in billions of smartphones
around the world via the Android operating system, which uses a Linux-based kernel. Linux is also widely used in supercomputers
where many Linux-powered servers are clustered together for high-performance computing applications. Enterprise and cloud data centers also use
Linux over millions of servers running all kinds of applications, web servers, databases,
and so on. And finally, versions of Linux can be easily
used as your PC’s operating system. Many people install Linux today as a learning experience
or as their daily driver. In this video, you learned that: Unix is a family of operating systems dating
from the 1960s. Linux was originally developed in the 1980s
as a free, open-source alternative to Unix. Linux is multi-user, portable, and supports
multitasking. And Linux is widely used today in mobile devices,
supercomputers, data centers, and cloud servers.