As you may have read in the first part, we made you a short introduction in the Linux universe. Things that I think any Linux user should know.

Now, in this part we are going to teach you some more about linux. We are talking here about Linux – so I’m not gonna make a comparison with other operating systems, I will only resume to Linux as this article is for persons wishing to switch to this OS. So we are gonna talk today about distributions and how they rose.

What is a distribution?

A distribution, is a specifically designed and/or packaged version of an operating system, targeted to a market or a group of individuals.
As other operating systems nowadays have “Home”, “Enterprise” and “Server” editions, that way the distributions are. But unlike some other operating systems, which share almost the same interface and support, Linux distros have only one thing in common – the kernel – which is the same Linux Kernel for every distribution. On the other hand, the package-driven installation system gives developers as well as users a very high state of flexibility. So different applications, on Linux may share the same librairies whithout the need to install specific ones.

What is the User Interface?

First of the linux distributions, were much like the MS-DOS, with a bit more functions embedded.  And the user interface… well this term was not invented yet. Let me shortly explain you what it that supposed to be: You are driving your $100,000 convertible car, on a highway. Then you notice it’s too warm inside so you decide to open it’s roof. You push a button, and the roof opens and reveals the shiny sun.
Well, that magical button is an element, a part of the “user interface” of your car. And all the buttons and automatic commands together are called “the user interface” – shortly UI.
Now it’s easier to understand when using the command line it’s like you are opening the hood manually, you need to know all the steps to do so: stop the engine, get out of the car, put your both hand on the roof’s handle, make sure it’s not blocked and so on. But when using the button, you don’t need to know them at all, an automatic system will take care of them, and maybe you won’t even need to stop the engine. In the computers world the things are pretty much the same – the user interface makes things easier and intuitive with graphical elements and messages on the screen. It’s true that the commercial OS systems got first a graphical user interface, and Linux got it too a bit later, but nowadays any linux distro  has a graphical UI.

Well, if it was not so “powerful” – how comes Linux has so many users?

The keyword here is FREE. Yep, even at the beginning,  it was not the best of it’s time, because it was free it got adopted and used in the academic medium, mostly by college teachers and their students. Can you imagine in 1993 experiencing on a free OS, in times when other companies were charging  hundreds dollars for their proprietary os. It was like a dream came true over night.
Now let’s take a moment to think. From the start, the users and developers contributing to the Linux project were some of the best people in the industry – teachers and talented students from universities around the world. That’s why it got better and better over the years, growing communities and a plethora of distributions to choose from.