What is LINUX? LINUX is a Computer Operating System. This is the software that allows your programs to interact with the computer hardware. It is important to understand what an operating system is NOT!
Those are all examples of programs. In fact, you will NEVER see or need to know that your operating system is there or doing it's job. All those programs I listed above are programs that the operating system allows to run.
Open Source Software is a neat idea. Normally, when a company writes a computer program or operating system, they intend to sell it for profit. It is important to them to keep the source code (what the programmers actually write) secret so no one will know how the program works and therefore can't easily make a competing version of their own. In the open source world, the origional source is publically available for everyone to see.
More than that, most open source software is written not by some programmers behind a locked door but by a group (somtimes a large group) of programmers who all share in the work of writing the software. Sharing the source code with anyone who wishes to help or even just look. 99% of the time this is for free. They do it just to make the world a better place and because writing programs is fun. As a result of this open environment, there are between dozens and thousands of people checking each others work. That means that any one programmer's mistake will be found very soon by many people and then fixed very quickly. This often does not happen in a corporate programming environment.
LINUX is a free, open source operating system written by thousands of programmers around the world. It is very stable and secure. That means that it is hard for evil people to write viruses that can take down a LINUX system. That means that if a program crashes, it can't take out your whole computer. That means that you don't have to re-install the operating system every 6 months or when the computer chokes which ever comes first.
A distribution is a collection of programs, the LINUX kernel, and often an installation program that comes on a set of CDs that you can install on your computer. There are hundreds of LINUX distributions available today. Most can be downloaded from the Internet for free. My current favorite distribution is Fedora.
You may know that Microsoft Windows® comes in many different "flavors". There is Windows XP Home, Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000, Windows 2000 Server, and probably more that I missed. The reason for this is that the different versions come with different capibilites. Most notably the Server edition comes with a web server and a database server. These are things that the average computer user doesn't need or want.
Most LINUX distributions come with EVERYTHING you will need and more. Normally, Lots more. You get the operating system, all the programs you will need to use on a daily basis, a variety of server programs, several programming languages, compilers, and the list goes on. For most LINUX installations, once you are done, you are done. There is nothing more to install. For example, all Microsoft Windows versions come with some programs that you will need and most likely use often. Examples are Internet Exporer Web browser and Outlook Email client. You don't however get much more. If you want to write nice documents you will need to buy Word. If you want to make spread sheets you need to buy Excel. Presentations? Power Point. If you want to edit graphics you need to buy Photoshop or an equivilant. If you decide to learn to program, you need to buy a Microsoft programming package, or you need to download one of the non-Microsoft languages from the Internet.
I have installed several distributions of LINUX in the past including Red Hat, Fedora, Slackware, Turbolinux, and Debian. All these distributions came with some kind of installer software. All of those programs asked "embarrassing" questions like "Which partition on /dev/hda would you like to use for your installation", "will you use DHCP or a static IP address for your network interface?", and "do you wish to activate iptables at boot time or when activating network interface ppp0?".
Clearly, installing a LINUX operation system can be intimidating for anyone without some experience with computers. It is not however impossible. There are many websites that offer explanations of all these questions. If you are a person of reasonable intelegence and are comfortable with your computer, you should be able to install the operating system yourself after a little reading. For the rest of you. Find someone who knows a bit about computers.
For the rest of you, have you ever tried installing Windows®? The actual operating system isn't really too bad. But, you aren't done. There are all the drivers for your system hardware, programs, liscensing, and only God knows what else! I can run a full LINUX install in less time and with less agravation than it takes to install a Windows system.
LINUX is only for geeks and scientists.
LINUX is hard to use.
LINUX is hard to install.
LINUX does not have the programs I want.
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