DATUM Mar. 2014 | Page 33

Datum 2014 Navy Submarine Fleet, Federal Avia- Linux Facts Linux is one of the world’s most powerful and popular operating system. Linux operating system was developed by Linus Benedict Torvalds at the age of 21. At present there are more than 300 flavors of Linux available and one can choose between any of them depending on the kind of applications they want. Linux is a freeware and generally speaking its free from Virus and other malware infections. »»Only 2% of the current Linux kernel written by Linus Torvalds. »»The Linux kernel version is written in the programming language C. »»The first commercial distribution GNU / Linux was Yggdrasil was launched Lice-CD format in 1992. Red Hat was one of the first distributions to settle within companies and data centers in 1999. »»A guy named William Della Croce Jr. registered the name Linux and demanded royalties for use of the mark. Later, he agreed to assign the trademark to the true owner, who is Torvalds. »»Countries such as Russia, Brazil and Venezuela have put their focus on Linux as a basis for interoperable management , cost efficient and technologically independent. »»U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. air traffic control systems or control tion Administration uses Linux in gov- of nuclear reactors of submarines and ernment offices. Indian state of Tamil ships many nuclear war. Nadu uses Linux for education purpose. »»Linux programmers are often as- »»90% of the world’s most power- sociated with living “isolated” in the ful supercomputers using an operating world, however, over 75% of the code system GNU / Linux, in fact, the top ten developed for the Linux kernel came of supercomputers use Linux. In fact, from private sector developers. In fact, the penetration of Linux in data cen- large technology companies like Intel, ters is very high, 33.8% of the world Google, IBM, AMD, Sun Microsystems, runs on Linux servers compared to 7.3% Dell, Asus, HP, Analog Devices, Oracle, does so in a Microsoft operating sys- Novell or Red Hat help developing ap- tem. plications, contributing to the core or »»The name of the penguin, Tux , is pre-installing any GNU / Linux their not entirely clear. On the one hand, it is machines. In fact, during the 2003 Su- said that the origin of the name comes per Bowl (which paralyzes the United from the fact that penguins appear to States and remains glued to the TV be wearing a tuxedo, which in English for many Americans), IBM delivered a is said max tuxedo tux and is abbreviat- beautiful ad talking about Linux and ed. In contrast, another source comes open source options. from the letters of the logo of Tux are »»The GNU project in 1991, had no Unix Torvalds. drivers and kernel, that’s what led to »»Torvalds wanted to call the ker- Linus Torvalds to address the Linux nel Freax (a combination of “free”, kernel development. If GNU had had, “freak”, and the letter X to indicate perhaps, Torvalds had not been put to that it is a Unix-like), but his friend Ari work on that. Lemmke, who administered the FTP »»The Linux kernel is now the most server where the kernel was hosted widely ported operating system, run- for download, the download directory ning on a great variety of operating called kernel of Linux Torvalds. systems. »»Debian was one of the first GNU »»World known companies such / Linux that was constituted and orga- as Google, Cisco, Facebook, Twitter, nized as a community of developers. Linked in etc use Linux as their main »»Linux is present in highly critical operating system. applications such as Japan’s bullet trains, traffic control, San Francisco, the R.JAYANTHI B.Sc CT G1 - VI New York Stock Exchange, CERN, many 29