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A brief introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to introduce you to the Ubuntu operating system, and the philosophy that underpins it. The fact you’re reading this book might mean you already know about Ubuntu, but one or two readers might have bought the Print Edition of this book (or downloaded the PDF) on a whim to see what the fuss is all about. These people might lack specifics, and remain unconvinced of the benefits of Ubuntu. So, I’m going to burn through some precious pages of this slim volume to evangelize and explain just a little.
What is Ubuntu?
Ubuntu is a version of the Linux operating system. An operating system
is the software that “runs your computer”. Microsoft Windows is the
world’s most popular operating system, at least for desktop computers,
but Linux is a completely separate endeavor.
GNU
The ball started rolling back in the 1980s, when a hugely talented computer scientist called Richard Stallman decided to create a clone of a venerable operating system called Unix. At the time, Unix ran many of the world’s industrial and academic computer systems. Stallman did this because Unix was becoming increasingly proprietary—it was no longer permitted to share its source code (the listings created by programmers), as had happened since the inception of Unix in 1969.
This was anathema to Stallman, who believed sharing software was natural and healthy. He decided his version of Unix would always be freely available, and invented the legal and ethical concept of Free Software to ensure this happened. Put simply, Free Software says users should always have the freedom to share software, without restrictions. On a technical level, Free Software guarantees the right to view and also modify source code, or even use it as a basis to make a new program. However, any additions or changes must be released as Free Software too, so others can continue to benefit. NOTE The Free Software ideal is enshrined in a software license applied to all Free Software projects. It’s called the GNU Public License, or GPL. This is like Microsoft’s End User License Agreement that comes with Windows (and you see whenever you install Windows from scratch), except whereas the Microsoft EULA prohibits sharing Windows under any circumstances, the GPL says exactly the opposite—that you can always share the software! Stallman called his version of Unix “GNU” (pronounced G-noo). This is a recursive acronym, standing for GNU’s Not Unix. In other words, the acronym refers to itself—a joke of a type favored by programmers.
