ACM Teach Me
CSC243
  1. What is Object Oriented Programming?
  2. What is a class
  3. Let the Coding Begin
  4. Java Variables
  5. Stream Input/Output
  6. Arithmetic Operations
  7. Control Statements
  8. Switch Statement
  9. The For Loop
  10. The while loop
  11. The do...while Loop
  12. Break and continue
  13. Java Strings
  14. Java Arrays
  15. Traversing Arrays
  16. More on Object Oriented Programming
LINUX101
  1. Intro to Linux
  2. Linux Distributions
  3. The Linux Interface
WEB101
  1. What's HMTL?

Intro to Linux

In this tutorial, you will learn more about Linux, the most powerful operating system (actually it is the kernel, but don't worry you will understand this later on) available.


What is Linux?

Linux is an Open Source...But wait! What's Open Source? Well, to explain it briefly, Open Source software is software that you are free to use. Does this mean I do not have to pay for that? Well, free doesn't stand for free as in costly free but stands for a more powerful meaning: free as in freedom. This means that you could have the source code of linux, modify it and even distribute it.


Story of Linux

The GNU Project

It was in 1984 that Richard Stallman founded the GNU Project.
Richard Stallman was then a researcher in artificial intelligence at MIT. He wanted to create a new operating system running as Unix(Unix was an operating system back then). In other words, he wanted to create an operating system with the same commands as Unix.



Richard Stallman, founder of the GNU Project
(No not all programmers have beards)


Why create a "copy" of Unix ? Because Unix was paid and became more and more expensive! Richard Stallman wanted to respond with a free alternative: the GNU Project was born.

"GNU should not only be a free OS, it should be an OS free"

Meanwhile, Linus Torvalds having fun

In 1991, Linus Torvalds , a student at the University of Helsinki in Finland, began to create its own operating system on his free time. This system became known as Linux, referring to the name of its creator (Linux the contraction of Linus and Unix).



Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux


What relation with GNU? Well it turns out that these two projects were complementary: while Richard Stallman created the basic programs (program file copy, file deletion, text editor), Linus had embarked on the creation of the "heart" of an operating system (kernel). The GNU Project (free programs) and Linux (OS kernel) merged to create GNU/Linux .



Important Notice that GNU/Linux was created from scratch and not Unix-Based (like Mac). It is Unix-Like.