The LInux Operating System - Research Paper Example

Thus, one can download the software and edit and make changes as per one’s requirements. This adds to the flexibility and adaptability of the operating system to user requirements. Linux is often called a derivative of UNIX, the other operating system that is character based and one that is widely used in research laboratories around the world. Linux operates in many flavors and some of the popular distributions of Linux are Fedora Core, Debian and SuSE Linux. According to many software sites, “Although there are a large number of Linux implementations, you will find a lot of similarities in the different distributions, if only because every Linux machine is a box with building blocks that you may put together following your own needs and views.

Installing the system is only the beginning of a long term relationship” (Linuxtopia, 2008). Thus, one can install Linux and build on top of it or use it in any way possible according to one’s needs. Linux is an operating system, a software program that controls your computer. Linux traces its evolution to a mainframe operating system called Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service). UNIX was developed by two Bell Labs software engineers who during their spare time used to play a game called Space Travel.

Sometimes they used to find themselves without the operating system by which they could play their favorite game. Thus, the two software engineers, Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie developed the game to play on an otherwise unused PDP-7 computer. This was the origin of UNIX that was a precursor to Linux. Once the UNIX operating system began to be widely used and freely available, AT&T decided to license it and this led to its claiming a huge license fee for UNIX and it secured the intellectual property rights for UNIX.

Once UNIX was no longer a freeware, a MIT scientist called Richard Stallman began what is known as the GNU (Or Not Unix) operating system and started to make it available under the