What is Linux?
In simple terms, GNU/Linux, or just Linux, is what most would call an operating system. Although treated mostly like an OS (operating system), Linux is actually a kernel. Linux is used in many famous operating systems such as Android and ChromeOS.
A kernel is the core of the OS. It is the middleman between the hardware (GPU, CPU, hard drive, RAM, etc.) on your PC and the software running on it (applications). Think of the kernel as a manager, receiving the hardware and controlling all aspects of it for the usage of software. Kernels are used everywhere, even in Windows! They help carry out tasks such as process and memory management, file systems, and more.
So, what you are using when you use Linux? That is called a distribution of Linux, or as most in the community call it, a “distro”. Linux has many distros, but some of the most popular distributions are Ubuntu, Arch Linux, Gentoo Linux, Fedora, RHEL, Kali Linux, Linux Mint, and CentOS (which was terminated in 2022). These distributions are flavors of the GNU operating system that come with the Linux kernel and firmware installed in them. This means that many of their file structures are similar and that they all share terminals (a command-line interface, or CLI) in bash, with similar commands in each of them.
Bash is a command interpreter created by Brian Fox in the GNU Project. It stands for Bourne Again SHell and was supposed to be a replacement for the Bourne Shell, the older command interpreter used in Unix (which will come up later). Bash is not only used in the terminal but also used in scripts, where programmers can automate many things, as the terminal and bash are just replacements for Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) in computers.
To get started with bash script, you must tell the computer to use the shell to execute the following commands in your script. In this example, I will write a sample program that prints “Hello World!” onto the terminal you execute it on.
#!/bin/bash
echo "Hello World!"
To execute it on the Linux terminal, type bash followed by the file name with a .sh at the end:
bash filename.sh
So, what makes Linux so special? Well, Linux is open-source, meaning it is developed by the community and not a corporation. It is completely free and all of its code is public so that everyone can see it and make changes for their own use or get their changes verified by the main creators for everyone else.
Open software versus proprietary (paid) software has been a controversial topic ever since technology was a thing. On one side, there is GNU and Linux and on the other side, there is Microsoft and Apple. It is theorized the reason that Microsoft and Apple keep their software source code closed and out of view from the public is because they have lousy code or they implement Security Through Obscurity (STO), which means the security of the system relies heavily or entirely on the fact that malicious individuals won’t be able to see the source code, therefore not being able to see any security malpractices in the OS’s code.
On one side of the community, it is said STO is good because if hackers can see the source code, they can find security mistakes, since everyone makes mistakes, it’s only expected for there to be some in the code. On the other side, however, it is claimed that STO is bad because there are many other ways to find possible penetrations in a system other than looking in the source code and that STO shouldn’t even need to be implemented since famous operating systems such as Windows and MacOS, which have tons of money poured into the production of them, shouldn’t have lousy code nor security flaws.
The truth is, with open-source projects, many of the security flaws are pointed out by the community and then fixed. This is why Linux is way safer than Windows and why there is virtually no anti-virus software for Linux. When talking about proprietary software, however, only a handful of individuals get to work on it and read it thoroughly, so sometimes they may skim through mistakes and not notice them.
The History of Linux
History is a present for the present. It soothes the understanding of why things are important. That is no different for technology. Linux has a complicated history, but here’s a summary of what started everything:
It all started with a curious lad named Richard Stallman. Stallman was a talented genius. After graduating from school and going on to university, computer science wasn’t exactly on his mind. He got a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in physics. After contemplating the choice of staying or leaving Harvard, he decided to leave it to go to the artificial intelligence sector of MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). While he was at MIT, Dennis Ritchie, a major contributor to computer science (having created the C language), and Ken Thompson created an operating system that they named Unix. This was made for AT&T and was not open-source. However, Richard Stallman liked it. So, he decided to create GNU, which stands for GNU’s Not Unix. GNU was an operating system that shared Unix-like features, but was composed entirely of open software and was utterly open-source. After creating GNU, Richard Stallman became an activist, giving speeches about free software at MIT, writing books about it, and even going as far as creating the Free Software Foundation and the GNU General Public License.
Far, far away from Stallman (who lived in the United States) was Linus Torvalds, born in Finland. At the age of 11, Linus had already picked up computer science. He wrote his own editor, assembler, a Pac-Man clone, and modified every aspect of a Sinclair QL, even down to its operating system. Later in his life, Linus created his own kernel, which was named Linux by his friend. The “x” at the end of the name was made to show that it was a Unix-based kernel. A few years later, Linus Torvalds and Lars Wirzenius went to one of Richard Stallman’s speeches about free software. Linus Torvalds loved it. He decided to use Stallman’s GNU on his Linux kernel, resulting in the birth of GNU/Linux. During the development of Linux, Linus used BitKeeper VCS as a version control software for the Linux kernel. The problem with that was, BitKeeper was proprietary at the time (it is now open-source). This sparked great controversy, as the whole point of Linux was to be an open-source alternative to other systems such as Windows. Because of this, Linus created his own version-control system, which he called Git. That’s right, the famous Git. From Git, GitHub was created, a cloud web app to host Git repositories. Now, over 83 million developers use GitHub to keep track of their code.
Now, neither of the founding fathers of Linux program anymore. Linus became a code manager for the Linux Foundation but is no longer a developer, and Richard Stallman became an activist, though he left MIT and FSF (Free Software Foundation) after having made controversial statements about sexual harassment and other things.
What Makes It Such a Deep Rabbit Hole?
Distros of Linux are used by millions worldwide. Linux is especially used for cloud services. There is even a famous phrase in the tech community stating “The cloud runs on Linux”. This is because Linux is efficient, easily scalable, and reliable, which are really important qualities in cloud computing.
Linux is such a deep rabbit hole because there are so many areas and new things to explore. Moving from Windows to MacOS or vice versa is often common. However, moving from Windows or MacOS to Linux is like going from one world to another. There are so many new features and different ways of doing things people either leave Linux for its “complexity” or get fixated on it and learn it nonstop until there is nothing left to learn (which is never the case). This is the exact reason that people specialize in Linux. Some people like to dive into hacking, others like to dive into ricing, and others like to dive into security.
Hacking
(Ethical) hacking is a complex subject. With Linux, however, penetration testing is way smoother than in Windows. Penetration testing, or pen testing, is when someone, with consent, checks for security breaches and tries to hack into a system’s network or infrastructure. Many hackers use Kali Linux or ParrotOS, which come bundled with many CLI hacking tools such as Nmap, HashCat, or Ettercap. However, others choose to just download the tools they need so that their system isn’t bloated with software they won’t use.
In hacking, there are three types of hackers: white hat, grey hat, and black hat. White hat hackers hack with permission and consent. They have no malicious intentions and there are many jobs centered around white hat hackers (vulnerability assignments and pen testing). Grey hat hackers usually have no malicious intentions when hacking. They will usually hack something for curiosity and report findings to whoever they hacked, sometimes asking for a fee in order to fix it. They mean no harm but sometimes break a few laws. Black hat hackers, however, have malicious intents, and hack for their own personal gain (usually to gain infamy/reputation in dark web forums or gain money through ramson). They are the stereotypical hackers who show up on the news.
Other than those three types, there are a few others like blue, red, or green hat hackers, but that will be in a different post.
Ricing
While hacking and security are pretty straightforward with their names, ricing may be a little confusing at first. “Rice? Like the food?” No, not the food. Ricing is just a term for when someone customizes their desktop for it to look nice. This may seem simple, but the customizing people who rice their systems do is not regular. Most riced desktops look amazing while keeping functionality.
Ricing is itself another complicated topic, involving window managers, program launchers, panels, terminal emulators, desktop environments, and more, so I will dive into it and give a deeper explanation of it in a different post.
Security
Probably ever since Linux and its competitors (Windows and MacOS) came out, there has been much talk about the security of each system, and which one is greater at handling it. Well, if you truly want security, Linux is the way to go. While there is Windows Defender for Windows and Webroot Antivirus for Mac, both systems are not as secure as people think. Every time, vulnerabilities are found in those systems (especially in Microsoft Office…). This is because of many factors such as how permissions are set up, the security features there are, the visibility of the software, etc. Now, being the devil’s advocate here, there is some logical reason to all of this. Windows and Mac both have a greater amount of users, so more viruses and malicious attacks are targeted toward them since malicious hackers mostly want money.
However, this is not to say all of the reasons for the greater amount of security features in Linux compared to Windows and Mac is just because of how many people use those systems. Linux is open-source, meaning everyone can spot unsecure code. Meanwhile, Windows and Mac use STO, which can be unsecure at times. Also, Linux needs “root” (admin) permission for pretty much everything.
In order to preserve all the fame Linux gets for its security, its community fights hard to find breaches in the kernel’s source code and make and tweak the latest and greatest security applications. SELinux, or Security Enhanced Linux, is an example of the community improving the security of the kernel. SELinux is a plethora of modifications to the kernel that make it safer and more secure and hardened. These modifications to the Linux kernel now come with the latest versions of Ubuntu, RHEL, and CentOS.
Conclusion
Just giving a simple understanding of the three branches of this large hole is not enough. Inside these areas, there are many other small areas that cover even more obscure and challenging topics. If you were interested in any of these, consider looking further into them. After all, everything nowadays is just a search away.
What should you take of this?
From this post, you should now have a deeper knowledge of what is Linux, its history, and its various branches. Now it’s your decision: do you want to take the blue pill, and go back to Windows or some other proprietary OS, or do you want to take the red pill, and make the switch to Linux?
Hold up for a moment, though. This change doesn’t have to be right now. You can start by testing out Linux’s distributions in a virtual machine, which is basically a computer that runs in your computer. There is a guide I have coming up on how to install it on a virtual machine through an application named VirtualBox, a free and open-source hypervisor.
Nevertheless, brush up on your Linux terminology. Learn some more! Trust me, there is always more to learn, and unless you start learning it, you will forever think it is hard and complicated. Choose a branch you want to learn and specify. After all, IT is all about learning.
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