Linux and Ubuntu

This blog is continuation of my Goodbye Bill! and "Why I hate Bill" posts. This blog is about my journey into an unknown world of non Windows operating system. I am writing this blog with those people in mind as well, who like me, do not know what Ubuntu is. There is this dude from Helsinki, Finland. His name is Linus Torvald. In 1996, he created a portable operating system called Linux which could run on a PC, driven by primarily then Intel i386 based processors. Linux operating system was modelled after popular industry strength operating system, Unix. Until this time, there were only a handful of vendors, who sold Unix based operating systems which would run on PCs. As we know now that none of them became successful primarily due to lack of interest and support from customers. Even though Linux was Torvald's M.Sc. thesis project, he essentially started a movement. Linux was free and he made the source code available to public. Soon, hundreds of developers joined in and started contributing to Linux. The core operating system is called kernel, and is now maintained by the Linux Foundation, which Torvald is still a part. A vast community of developers write software and device drivers on top of this kernel. Since everything is free, many organizations have bundled Linux based software with the kernel, and gave it a name. Some of these names you may recognize as Red Hat, Suse, Debian, Mandrake, Ubuntu etc. The common thread for all these flavors of Linux operating systems is essentially the kernel. So why Ubuntu, why not something else. The answer to this question is really a matter of preference and your comfort level with geekness. And, I mean geekness as a compliment. For a spoiled brat, raised on Windows, I need user friendly GUI to work. In that regard Ubuntu and Red Hat perhaps have taken the lead. There after only one difference remains. Red Hat has become commercial. Which means, though the software is free, any support for it will cost you. Ubuntu is still free and you will get most of the answers by googling or by posting on the appropriate forums. I feel that there are a lot more developers involved with the Ubuntu project as well. So, it is all a very big happy family.