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Linux I guess everyone and their dog has a page about Linux these days... But I've gone ahead and made my own page dedicated to my favorite OS anyway. Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds with the assistance of developers around the world. Developed under the GNU General Public License , the source code for Linux is freely available to everyone. So that's the cookie-cutter description of what Linux is. What is Linux really? Linux is a powerful OS for desktops, servers, and embedded devices. It's under intensive development, and has been since its creation in 1991. It is a great developmental environment, including many libraries and dev utilities. Linux is not connected to any corporation. While there are companies which package Linux up for consumers (they make "distros"), and other companies which profit from the OS and its software, Linux is a grass-roots community effort. Personally, I have been using Linux since around 1996. My first distribution was Red Hat (4.0, I think), but I now use Debian. You can take a look at some screenshots of my various Linux systems here. Some people prefer to use the term "GNU/Linux" instead of Linux. This is because Linux is really only an OS kernel, whereas much of the remainder of the OS that is typically bundled with Linux consists of GNU software. While I do understand the argument, and I respect and use the GNU software and utils, and I am even a Free-Software developer (who prefers the Free-Software licenses over others), I do not agree with the practice of calling it "GNU/Linux". I personally think that the fact that a Linux OS includes so much GNU software speaks volumes in and of itself, and that there's no need to confuse newbies or wannabes with a reference to a software licensing ideology that is so difficult to understand.