CHAPTER 1 Introduction Linux was first released into an unsuspecting world in the summer of 1991. Initially the spare-time hobby of a Finnish computer scientist by the name of Linus Torvalds, Linux was at first accessible only in software source code form to those with enough expertise to build and install it. Early enthusiasts (most also developers themselves by necessity) exploited the growth of the Internet in the early 1990s as a means to build online communities and drive development forward. These communities helped to build the first Linux software distributions, containing all the software components needed to install and use a Linux system without requiring users to be technical experts. Over the next decade, Linux grew into the mature Unix-like operating system it is today. Linux now powers anything and everything from the smallest handheld gadget to the largest supercomputing cluster, and a nearly infinite range of different devices
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