Kindle!!!: Ubiquitous Linux

Ubiquitous Linux

Linux OS started a great revolution by making itself opensource. Now, after becoming powerful, secure, stable, compact and secure by regular updates from millions of of people all around the world, it has been making its way into each and every device, from a small embedded device to mobile phones to powerful servers.

Today, Linux systems are used in every domain, from embedded systems to supercomputers, and have secured a place in server installations often using the popular LAMP application stack. Use of Linux distributions in home and enterprise desktops has been growing.

History

The Unix operating system was conceived and implemented in 1969 at AT&T's Bell Laboratories in the United States.

Linux kernel was released on 5 October 1991 by Linus Torvalds as a free operating system for Intel x86-based personal computers. Torvalds began the development of the Linux kernel on MINIX, and applications written for MINIX were also used on Linux. MINIX is an inexpensive minimal Unix-like operating system, designed for education in computer science, written by Andrew S. Tanenbaum. GNU applications replaced all MINIX components, because it was advantageous to use the freely available code from the GNU project with the fledgling operating system. (Code licensed under the GNU GPL can be reused in other projects as long as they also are released under the same or a compatible license.)

Future

As technology improves, there will be unlimited ability to mold and shape interactive information devices like phones, tablets, wristwatches and monitors into news shapes. Also, the sensors that let them interact with the real-world will undergo (are undergoing) similar explosive variation. Every one of these will need some sort of underlying embedded operating system unencumbered by restrictive licenses that developers can quickly understand and rely-upon and generalize about without having to learn the nuances of every single device their apps might target—and that embedded OS will often be Linux. Linux becomes just sort of a generic plumbing. Oh sure, some people will use Linux on the “desktop”, but that won’t be any philosphical debate. It’ll just be a by-product of Linux being everywhere else, and it only making sense. Of course in some cases, it will be Unix and other variations of *nix platforms that have even less restrictive licenses than GNU. But as a rule, manufacturers will use Linux as a short-cut to get around all the work they would have to do themselves for their own custom embedded Unix, or a proprietary one that could be even more expensive than “just sharing back” as GNU licenses generally require.