Section 1.11. Linux Packaging

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1.11. Linux Packaging

Linus and his group of volunteer programmers developed a kernel, which is the core part of the operating system. But if you installed a kernel on a machine without the hundreds of tools, utilities, and applications that users require, it would not be of much use to most people. To complement the Linux kernel, the UNIX-like tools developed by the Free Software Foundation can be added to the kernel code and packaged as a distribution of open source software.

The distinction between the Linux kernel and the GNU utilities is an important one. While most people refer to a complete system as Linux, this is strictly not correct. Linux is technically only the kernel itself; most of the command utilities and applications come from the GNU Project.

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Many companies and organizations have created their own distributions of Linux and the GNU utilities, as we will see in Chapter 2, "Installing Your Linux System." When you receive a Linux distribution from a vendor, it was packaged and perhaps modified or added to by that vendor, but contains code from Linus and his kernel team and the FSF GNU Project. Because it is all covered by the GNU GPL, you are free to use and modify all of the code in any way you wish, as long as, if you redistribute it, you do so also under the terms of the GNU GPL (thus allowing anyone else to use and modify any code you might have added).

More information on Linux, Linux distributions, download locations, and documentation, can be found on the following web site:

http://www.linux.org