If one morning you wake up with the inspiration to discover something new and you click the Random Article button on Wikipedia, with a probability of 1/1,233,000 you will land on the article about Linux. If you want to wait for that event, you can keep trying; if not, you can keep reading this article about the penguin operating system.
Linux is an open-source kernel based on the Unix architecture developed by IBM.
After reading the previous paragraph, you could answer a multiple-choice question for "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", but there is a lot of hidden information in it.
First of all, the Unix architecture is the one used today by OSX, Linux, and Unix. Originally, Unix was called Multics and aimed to serve all purposes, but eventually they narrowed down the project and decided to keep a part of it, renaming it Unix, which in 1991 was imitated by Linus Torvalds and has since been gaining contributors who collaborate on this project.
On the other hand, a kernel is an intermediary layer between your computer’s applications and the hardware (the physical components of your computer), so that work can be done on a standard base, thus allowing the development of a single system that supports all computers sharing the kernel.
When you package many applications made for a kernel, achieving basic functionality, we talk about an operating system, which is basically what we refer to when we talk about, for example: Windows, OSX, or Android.
Given the open-source nature of Linux, it comes in many flavors. This means that many teams have built operating systems, called distributions, with different levels of functionality, the most famous being: Ubuntu, Fedora, RedHat, and even Android. (You can see the full list on DistroWatch).
Broadly speaking, what most differentiates one distribution from another is: the community that supports it, the package manager, the default graphical environment, and hardware support.
Community: The community is important because they are the people who help create the distribution, and the larger it is, the more applications and hardware your distribution will support. Also, if you have a problem or a question, there will surely be someone who has already asked it or someone willing to help you. In general, it is said that Ubuntu has the largest community.
Package Manager: A great thing about Linux distributions is the existence of the package manager. A package is an application, and for many years now, package managers allow you to install applications in the same way you do on the Android Play Store or iPhone’s App Store: you simply say what you want to install, and the manager will download and install everything necessary for it to work. In general, we want a good package manager; the best are those of Suse/OpenSuse and Fedora/RedHat. A bit behind are those of Ubuntu/Debian, and the rest have never satisfied me.
Graphical Environment: This is what your screen looks like when you work. For example, to explain myself, an iPhone and a Mac have the same kernel called Darwin, but it’s the graphical environment that makes them look different. In the case of Linux, we have everything from the most complete ones like KDE, Gnome, and Unity (exclusive to Ubuntu) to the most basic ones like XFCE or LXDE. If you have a sufficiently powerful PC, I would stick with one of the first three, where KDE is an interface for people who like to customize everything, while Gnome and Unity are more rigid. The important thing is that applications can generally work in any graphical environment.
Hardware Support: This point is fairly equivalent for all major distributions, although Ubuntu and OpenSuse stand out here. In general, this is Linux’s weakness. The best strategy is to try distributions and search forums, but I can only wish that open source be with you.
If you want to try Linux, all you need is a USB drive and download the desired distribution. All modern distributions can be run in "live" mode from a USB drive without touching your current operating system, and if you like it, you can install it alongside Windows without any problem; the installer will make space on the hard drive for Linux, and when you turn on the PC, it will ask you which one you want to run.
If you are not bold enough to try the above, you can watch videos of how Linux works on YouTube. I recommend searching for words like OpenSuse, Ubuntu, Fedora, KDE, and Gnome.
And long live open source, damn it!
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