What is Linux?

* Ubuntu - Linux for Human Beings!

The Linux kernel, pronounced
'linnuks' is the heart of the Ubuntu operating system.
A kernel is an important part of
any operating system, providing the communication bridge between
hardware and software.


Linux was brought to life in 1991 by a Finnish student named
Linus Torvalds. At the time, it would run only on i386 systems,
and was essentially an independently created clone of the UNIX
kernel, intended to take advantage of the then-new i386
architecture.


Nowadays, thanks to a substantial amount of development
effort by people all around the world, Linux runs on virtually
every modern architecture.


The Linux kernel has gained an ideological importance as well as a technical one.
There is an entire community of people who believe in the ideals
of free software and spend their time helping to make open
source technology as good as it can be.


People in this community gave rise to initiatives such as
Ubuntu, standards committees that shape the development of the
Internet, organizations like the Mozilla Foundation, responsible
for creating Mozilla Firefox, and countless other software
projects from which you've certainly benefited in the past.


The spirit of open source, commonly attributed to Linux, is
influencing software developers and users everywhere to drive
communities with common goals.