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BUT before anything else, what's the deal with the Penguin?

There came a time when the popularity of Linux was rising, and people started discussing what Linux's mascot should be. Believe it or not, the creator of the Linux operating system, Linus Torvalds, has a thing for penguins. A guy named Larry Ewing, not to be confused with the New York Knicks' Larry Johnson and Patrick Ewing, drew ''Tux the Penguin" for Torvalds, and the bird has been the mascot ever since.

Torvalds of Finland, the father of Linux, was still a university student in 1991 when he realized how unhappy he was with Microsoft Corp.'s DOS and Windows 3.1 operating systems. Torvalds, however, liked the multitasking, multiuser Unix system he used in school, but since the operating system didn't come cheap and was used mainly in big, expensive workstations and not in smaller, cheaper personal computers, Torvalds decided to write his own, free version of Unix. Thus, Linux (named after him, of course) was born. He spread the source code over the Internet, and has since grown amazingly.

To complete the operating system, Torvalds and other team members made use of system components developed by members of the Free Software Foundation for the GNU project. GNU is the first Unix-like operating system that comes with source code that can be copied, modified and redistributed. The GNU project was started in 1983 by Richard Stallman and others who formed the Free Software Foundation.

Although copyrights are held by various creators of Linux's components, Linux is distributed using the Free Software Foundation's copyleft stipulations that mean any copy is in turn freely available to others.

An open source software comes with it a kind of free license agreement. Linux and many applications you can use with Linux are open source products. The most important aspects of open source software are:

Anyone may freely sell or redistribute the program

The source code must be made available

Derived works or enhancements to the original code may be made

Linux is a remarkably complete operating system, including a graphical user interface, X Window System, TCP/IP, the Emacs editor and other components usually found in a comprehensive Unix version.

Unlike Windows and other proprietary systems, Linux is publicly open and extendible by contributors. Because it conforms to the Posix standard user and programming interfaces, developers can write programs that can be ported to other operating systems.

What is remarkable about Linux is that it can run on different hardware platforms. Linux comes in versions for all the major microprocessor platforms including the Intel, PowerPC, Sparc and Alpha platforms.

Linux is sometimes suggested as a possible publicly developed alternative to the desktop predominance of Microsoft Windows. Although Linux is popular among users already familiar with Unix, it remains far behind Windows in terms of number of users (about 90 percent of PC owners use Windows).

When it comes to stability and price, Linux is an excellent choice for running a server. A server is a computer that makes resources (such as webpages, a shared printer, shared files, etc.) available to users on other computers in a network (like the Internet, or a small network or LAN in an office).

Linux has many advantages over Windows. It doesn't crash as often, is more customizable, it's faster, it's free (with access to applications which are also free) and it works well even on old hardware. You can even use Linux on an Apple Macintosh.

You don't have to get rid of Windows if you don't want to. You can use both of them in one computer by making your PC "dual-boot," which means every time you turn on your computer (called "booting it up"), you will be asked whether you want to start Windows or Linux (or any other operating systems you may have). You can also run Windows from inside Linux, using special software.

If you simply wish to get to your Windows files, that's easy, too. Many Linux programs can read and write standard Windows files.

Still, Linux isn't for everyone. It's not the end-all and be-all of the PC operating system industry, especially at a time when the United States Justice Department is trying to break up Microsoft. Linux still has a way to go before it becomes useful for everyone.

First, it may be difficult to use for novice users, although it's getting easier and easier to use. Yes, Linux has a graphical user interface (meaning you can use your mouse to drag and drop objects across the monitor) and can also be used via the traditional character-based or text-based operations.

Second, many popular applications which are available for Windows and the Mac are not yet available for Linux. However, there are many alternative programs on the Internet, most of which are free, too. Also, more and more companies are beginning to make their applications available for Linux.

Third, user support for Linux is not yet as wide as that of other operating systems. This could be minus factors for big, mission-critical companies which want accountability for the free software they are using.

There are many different distributions, or versions, of Linux. A distribution is the compiled Linux source code, usually combined with extra features and software.