GNU/Linux-GNU is a free software foundation founded by Richard stallsman and Linux is a free opensource operating system founded by Linus torvalds.
Complete Unix-compatible software system was the aim GNU ,Richard stalls man, he founded the free software foundation and wrote GNU GPL many of the programs required for an operating system were completed
Minix was cheap minimal operating system,torvalds began to work on a non-commercial replacement of minix,Later Linux matured and it became possible for Linux to be developed under itself.Also GNU applications replaced all Minix ones because, with code from the GNU system freely available, it was advantageous if this could be used with the fledgling OS. Code licensed under the GNU GPL can be used in other projects, so long as they also are released under the same or a compatible license. In order to make the Linux kernel compatible with the components from the GNU Project, Torvalds initiated a switch from his original license (which prohibited commercial redistribution) to the GNU GPL.Developers worked to integrate GNU components with Linux to make a fully functional and free operating system.
So the Linux is a free open source operating system founded by Linus torvalds, Under Linux Kernel it handled networking,process control and peripherals
User Interface:Users can control a Linux-based system through a command line interface (or CLI), a graphical user interface(or GUI), or through controls attached to the associated hardware (this is common for embedded systems)
KDE, GNOME and xfc are the most common user interfaces, Most top of the user interfaces run on the top of the X-windows system
The primary difference between Linux and many other popular contemporary operating systems is that the Linux kernel and other components are free and open source software. Linux is not the only such operating system, although it is by far the most widely used. Some free and open source software licenses are based on the principle of copyleft, a kind of reciprocity: any work derived from a copyleft piece of software must also be copyleft itself. The most common free software license, the GNU GPL, is a form of copyleft, and is used for the Linux kernel and many of the components from the GNU Project.
A distribution is largely driven by its developer and user communities. Some vendors develop and fund their distributions on a volunteer basis, Debian being a well-known example. Others maintain a community version of their commercial distributions, as Red Hat does with Fedora.
Most Linux distributions support dozens of programming languages like PHP,Perl,Python,Ruby and other dynamic languages.
Many types of applications available for windows and Mac OS X are also available for Linux. Commonly, either a free software application will exist which does the functions of an application found on another operating systems, or that application will have a version that works on Linux (such as Skype) (Eg:Wine tool,Openoffice.org,mozilla firefox etc:)
Many applications are initially developed for Linux later it had come the windows also (such as Pidgin, and GIMP)
Linux distributions have long been used as server operating systems
The Linux market is growing rapidly, and the revenue of servers, desktops, and packaged software running Linux was expected to exceed $35.7 billion by 2008
The Linux kernel and most GNU software are licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GPL requires that anyone who distributes the Linux kernel must make the source code (and any modifications) available to the recipient under the same terms. In 1997, Linus Torvalds stated, “Making Linux GPL’d was definitely the best thing I ever did.” Other key components of a Linux system may use other licenses; many libraries use the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), a more permissive variant of the GPL, and the X Window System uses the MIT License.
Remember:In the United States, the name Linux is a trademark registered to Linus Torvalds.
Interesting topic
The Free s/w Foundation views Linux distributions which use GNU software as GNU variants and they ask that such operating systems be referred to as GNU/Linux or a Linux-based GNU system The media and common usage, however, refers to this family of operating systems simply as Linux, as do many large Linux distributions (e.g. Ubuntu and SuSE Linux). Some distributions use GNU/Linux (particularly notable is Debian GNU/Linux, on which Ubuntu is based), but the term’s use outside of the enthusiast community is limited. The naming issue remains controversial. Linus Torvalds does not support the use of the term GNU/Linux
