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Linux /lee'nuhks/ or /li'nuks/, not /li:'nuhks/
n.
The free Unix workalike created by Linus Torvalds and
friends starting about 1991 (the pronunciation /lee'nuhks/ is
preferred because the name `Linus' has an /ee/ sound in Swedish).
This may be the most remarkable hacker project in history -- an
entire clone of Unix for 386, 486 and Pentium micros, distributed
for free with sources over the net (ports to Alpha and Sparc and
many other machines are also in use).
Linux is what GNU aimed to be, and it relies on the GNU toolset.
But the Free Software Foundation didn't produce the kernel to go with
that toolset until 1999, which was too late. Other, similar efforts
like FreeBSD and NetBSD have been technically successful but never
caught fire the way Linux has; as this is written in 1999, Linux is
seriously challenging Microsoft's OS dominance.
An earlier version of this entry opined "The secret of Linux's
success seems to be that Linus worked much harder early on to keep
the development process open and recruit other hackers, creating a
snowball effect." Truer than we knew. See bazaar.
(A few people object that the name `Linux' should be used to
refer only to the kernel, not the entire operating system. This is
at best pedantry and at worst axe-grinding; the agenda behind it is
usually to claim that the FSF should get most of the credit
for Linux because RMS and friends wrote many of its user-level
tools.)
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