Linux OS (Operating System)

Mahesh Bhat M
Jun 21, 2017
2 min read

Reference books

The Linux open source operating system, or Linux OS, is a freely distributable, cross-platform operating system based on Unix that can be installed on PCs, laptops, netbooks, mobile and tablet devices, video game consoles, servers, supercomputers and more.

Components of Linux System :-

Linux Operating System has primarily three components

Kernel − Kernel is the core part of Linux. It is responsible for all major activities of this operating system. It consists of various modules and it interacts directly with the underlying hardware. Kernel provides the required abstraction to hide low level hardware details to system or application programs.
System Library − System libraries are special functions or programs using which application programs or system utilities accesses Kernel's features. These libraries implement most of the functionalities of the operating system and do not requires kernel module's code access rights.
System Utility − System Utility programs are responsible to do specialized, individual level tasks.

Basic Features

Following are some of the important features of Linux Operating System.

Portable − Portability means software can works on different types of hardware in same way. Linux kernel and application programs supports their installation on any kind of hardware platform.
Open Source − Linux source code is freely available and it is community based development project. Multiple teams work in collaboration to enhance the capability of Linux operating system and it is continuously evolving.
Multi-User − Linux is a multiuser system means multiple users can access system resources like memory/ ram/ application programs at same time.
Multiprogramming − Linux is a multiprogramming system means multiple applications can run at same time.
Hierarchical File System − Linux provides a standard file structure in which system files/ user files are arranged.
Shell − Linux provides a special interpreter program which can be used to execute commands of the operating system. It can be used to do various types of operations, call application programs. etc.
Security − Linux provides user security using authentication features like password protection/ controlled access to specific files/ encryption of data.