In 1991 Linus Torvalds, who was student in the Univerity of Helsinki in Finland, created the very first version of Linux for his own needs. This very rudimentary program was intended to run on the PC 80386 of the age. But Linus Torvalds had the good idea of making it "free" and to involve all those who wanted it. Thanks to the support of the emerging Internet network and the new born community of developers, but also thanks to the preexistance of the GNU project (http://www.gnu.org) started some years earlier by Richard Stallman, GNU/Linux went on to become some years later a full operating system. Its power is unrivalled, its stability is now legendary and it improves with every day!

2 Free Software/Open Source Software

It is important to know that GNU/Linux is only the tip of an iceberg called "Free Software" (http://www.fsf.org) or Open Source (http://www.opensource.org/osd.html).

The particular characteristics of Open Source Software are as follows: they are redistributable at will and without cost, their source code is available, and it is modifiable by anyone sufficiently experienced in programming. This concept is used principally by GPL license systems (General Public License) although these are not the only ones. Apart from GNU/Linux, a gem of Open Source Software is called "Apache" (http://www.apache.org) , which is a web server program for the Internet and represents 50% of the market share in its sector. The majority of software which serves to make the Internet work (at all levels) is Open Source Software.

3 How to start with GNU/Linux?

It's not so hard: just find a GNU/Linux CD (the single Linux-Mandrake GPL Edition CD or the PowerPack Edition for example) and install it on your PC! You can of course keep your old operating system: GNU/Linux will install a dual-boot loader and you can choose which OS you want to run each time you switch on your computer! Usually, an experienced GNU/Linux user can install and configure Mandrake in less than half an hour...