Linux was created by Finnish computer scientist Linus Torvalds in 1991 as a Unix clone. Previously all big computers used one or another version of UNIX as their operating system. UNIX was created by programmers of Bell Labs in early 1960 and proved to be really good. So good that it became a de facto standard OS for practically all computers before the PC era. Linus being unsatisfied that he could not run Unix on his PC with Intel 386 processor decided to rewrite Unix from scratch.

But ability to run on cheap PC clones was not the only thing that made Linux special. What really created revolution in OS world was that Linus gave away his work for free. Though it was not uncommon to write freeware at that time Linux really broke the ice of free software foundation. The ability to see the source code, to improve it and share it with others to gain satisfaction inspired many programmers to dedicate many sleepless nights to work on it. It was improved and improved, so that ultimately it became even better than many commercial Unix packages.

 

Later Linux was distributed on GPL license which allowed everyone even to sell one's work on Linux for profit with the condition that the full source code should be supplied without any restrictions to use it. That also threw Linux into heated discussions about freedom, responsibility and other politicized things we will not speak about here. The main thing is that Linux with all wonderful features is free but getting the installation disk, getting the support and maintenance will cost you something.