History of Linux

A popular open-source operating system is Linux. It was initially created by Linus Torvalds in 1991. At the time, Torvalds was a computer science student at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and began working on the Linux project as a personal endeavor. The name Linux combines his first name, Linus, and Unix, the operating system that inspired his projects. At the time, most operating systems were proprietary and expensive. Torvalds wanted to create an operating system that was freely available to anyone who wanted to use the operating system, He originally released Linux as free software under the GNU General Public License. This meant anyone could use, modify, and redistribute his source code.

Early versions of Linux were primarily used by technology enthusiasts and software developers, but over time it has grown in popularity and is used in various types of devices such as servers, smartphones, and embedded systems. Linux is considered one of the most stable, secure, and reliable operating systems and is widely used in servers, supercomputers, and enterprise environments. Today, Linux is one of the world's most widely used operating systems, with an estimated 2.76% of all desktop computers and more than 90% of the world’s top supercomputers running on Linux, and approx. 71.85% of all mobile devices run on Android, which is, you guessed it, Linux-based. The Linux community has expanded to include thousands of developers and users who work on the creation and upkeep of the operating system. Nowadays Linux has many distributions (versions) namely:

1. Ubuntu

2. Fedora

3. Arch

4. Plasma


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Indexed allocation

Image
  Indexed allocation is a file allocation method used by operating systems to manage how files are stored on disk. The core idea is simple but powerful: instead of storing a file in contiguous blocks or linking blocks one-by-one, the system uses a special index block that contains a list of all the disk block addresses where the file’s data is stored. This removes many limitations of earlier methods like contiguous and linked allocation. In indexed allocation, each file has its own index block . This index block acts like a table of contents. Every entry inside it points to a data block that belongs to that file. When a file is created, the OS allocates an index block and then fills it with pointers to the actual data blocks as the file grows. These data blocks can be located anywhere on the disk , so the file does not need contiguous space. This makes storage much more flexible and avoids external fragmentation. When the system needs to access a particular part of a file, it fir...
Read more

Thrashing

Image
Thrashing occurs in a computer system when the operating system spends a significant amount of time swapping pages in and out of memory, rather than executing actual processes. This typically happens when the system's memory is overcommitted, meaning there are too many processes competing for too little physical memory, leading to frequent page faults. How Memory is Used 1. Initial State: App1 is running, and its two pages are loaded into memory: Frame 1: App1, Page 1 Frame 2: App1, Page 2 Frame 3 and 4 are free. App3's pages are present in swap memory. 2. Switch to App2: Now, you switch to App2, which also requires 2 pages: Frame 3: App2, Page 1 Frame 4: App2, Page 2 Memory is now full with both App1 and App2’s pages. App3's pages are present in swap memory. 3. Switch to App3: You decide to switch to App3, which needs 2 pages as well. Since the memory is full, the system needs to make room: App1’s pages are moved to swap memory: Swap Memory: [App1, Page 1] [App1, Page 2] F...
Read more

Basics of paging

Image
Paging is a memory management scheme that eliminates the need for contiguous allocation of physical memory and thus helps in handling fragmentation. It involves breaking down memory into fixed-size blocks called pages and frames. The OS typically decides the page size when the system is configured or during the OS design phase. This page size is constant for the entire system and is determined based on considerations such as hardware architecture, efficiency, and the type of applications running. Common page sizes are 4 KB, 8 KB, or 16 KB. Here's a simple explanation with an example: Basic Concepts Page: A fixed-size block of logical memory (virtual memory) used by a process. Frame: A fixed-size block of physical memory (RAM) where a page is mapped. Page Table: A data structure used by the operating system to keep track of the mapping between pages and frames. The Page Table Base Register (PTBR) is a special register in the CPU that holds the starting address of the page table for ...
Read more