Linux
Linux is a computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open-source software development and distribution. Linux was released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds.
Linux was originally developed for personal computer but has since been ported to many more platform other than operating system. Because of Android on smartphones, Linux has the largest installed base of all general purpose operating system.
Linux was originally developed for personal computer but has since been ported to many more platform other than operating system. Because of Android on smartphones, Linux has the largest installed base of all general purpose operating system.
Uses
Beside the Linux distributions designed for general-purpose use on desktops and servers, distributions may be specialized for different purposes including: computer architecture support, embedded systems, stability, security, localization to a specific region or language, targeting of specific user groups, support for real-time applications, or commitment to a given desktop environment.
Desktop
The popularity of Linux on standard desktop computers and laptops has been increasing over the years. Most modern distributions include a graphical user environment, with, as of February 2015, the two most popular environments being the KDE Plasma Desktop and Xfce.
No single official Linux desktop exists: rather desktop environments and Linux distributions select components from a pool of free and open-source software with which they construct a GUI implementing some more or less strict design guide.
No single official Linux desktop exists: rather desktop environments and Linux distributions select components from a pool of free and open-source software with which they construct a GUI implementing some more or less strict design guide.
Smart devices
Several operating systems for smart devices, such as smartphones, tablet computers, smart TVs, and in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems, are based on Linux. Major platforms for such systems include Android, Firefox OS, Mer and Tizen.
Android has become the dominant mobile operating system for smartphones, running on 79.3% of units sold worldwide during the second quarter of 2013. Android is also a popular operating system for tablets, and Android smart TVs and in-vehicle infotainment systems have also appeared in the market.
Gaming
In the past, not many games were available for Linux, but in the recent years, more games have been released with support for Linux. Nowadays, many games support Linux (especially Indie games), except for a few AAA title games. On the other hand, as a popular mobile platform, Android (which uses the Linux kernel) has gained much developer interest and is one of the main platforms for mobile game development along with iOS operating system by Apple for iPhone and iPad devices.
On February 14, 2013, Valve released a Linux version of Steam, a popular game distribution platform on PC. Many Steam games were ported to Linux. On December 13, 2013, Valve released SteamOS, a gaming oriented OS based on Debian, for beta testing, and has plans to ship Steam Machines as a gaming and entertainment platform. Valve has also developed VOGL, an OpenGL debugger intended to aid video game development, as well as porting its Source game engine to desktop Linux. As a result of Valve’s effort, several prominent games such as Counter Strike Series, DotA 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal and Left 4 Dead 2 are now naively available on desktop Linux.