What is GNU not?
GNU is a ‘recursive acronym’ which stands for Gnu’s Not Unix. What is it, then?
As you have learned in What is a Kernel?, there are many parts in a computer-system. While Linux as the Kernel provides core-functionality, there are many other pieces of software needed to make a PC workable.
Such basic programs are a commandline interpreter (such as bash), editors (vi, emacs, …), compiler (gcc), text-processing (groff, tex, …). These classic parts of the UNIX operating system are needed to run the system.
The GNU-Project was founded in order to build a free unix-like operating-system step-by-step. The reasoning was: “If we replace all those UNIX-commands and programs by our free version, and each of ours runs well on an original system, then they also run well together. If we have a complete replacement for all (or at least most) of those programs, all we need is a kernel of our own and the system is complete.”
While the user-space tools mentioned above where created quite fast and ported to many operating system, the actual Kernel of the GNU project (Hurd) is still not ready for production. Linux Torvalds filled the gap by writing a kernel. Thus the complete system is often referred to as GNU/Linux, meaning “The GNU-tools running on the Linux kernel” in contrast to GNU/Hurd, meaning “The GNU-tools running on the Hurd kernel”.
So, GNU is not Unix. It is a free replacement of Unix. It is an “unix-like” OS.
For more information, go to the GNU website
Created by stw
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Welcome to LinuxBasics.org - The online community that helps people to get Linux installed and running.
During this tour, we will guide you through our website, which has many facets which wait to be explored
The biggest project we are running is our Linux course, based on the LBook.
The book is stored in wiki-format, which enables us to update and correct it as we go.
Discussion for the course is on our Forum
Our Forum is used for discussion of Linux and for questions and answers.
Search the mailing-list that was used prior to the Forum.
The questions and answers from the list are stored in the list's archives in order to help others with the same problems.
Every weekend, we meet to chat in IRC. These meetings are NOT mandatory, but are a nice chance to get to know each other better.
IRC is also a great tool to solve many problems, since it is very quick and easy to ask for more details if you need them.
The tutorials are one of the oldest sections on the LBo-website.
Here you find explanations on how to do specific tasks in Linux. Many of the tutorials were created after a certain problem
has been discussed (and usually solved :) on the mailing-list.
The tutorials are categorized in
In the links section, you find outbound links to other valuable resources.
One of our later additions to the site. We maintain a mirror of the Linux Documentation Project. This is our contribution to the "home of the HOWTOs"
Another later addition is the LBlog which focuses on how to do stuff on the Linux Desktop. It begins with the basics on installing Ubuntu.
Using the integrated site-search, you can search the tutorials, the LBook and all other wiki-pages
Simply type the search term into the box in the upper-right corner of our webpages
As a community, we depend on your feedback and collaboration. So, if you have something to share with others, please contact us. If you have a suggestion for a topic you would like to see covered here, please add it on the Wishlist.
There are many ways to contribute: You can answer questions on the Forum, you can write a complete tutorial or just a step-by-step documentation on how you completed a specific task using linux. Ask questions if the information on this site is not clear, tell us if we got something wrong, spell-check our writings, whatever.
We are looking forward to meeting you at LinuxBasics.org
Anita, Jisao, Sam and Stefan