A Bit of Background on Linux

Where is Linux Used?

It's fair to say that Linux is a lot more intimidating to approach than Operating System's (OSs) such as Windows. Both variants have their own advantages and disadvantages. For example, Linux is considerably much more lightweight and you'd be surprised to know that there's a good chance you've used Linux in some form or another every day! Linux powers things such as:

• Websites that you visit
• Car entertainment/control panels
• Point of Sale (PoS) systems such as checkout tills and registers in shops
• Critical infrastructures such as traffic light controllers or industrial sensors

Flavours of Linux

The name "Linux" is actually an umbrella term for multiple OS's that are based on UNIX (another operating system). Thanks to UNIX being open-source, variants of Linux comes in all shapes and sizes - suited best for what the system is being used for.

For example, Ubuntu & Debian are some of the more commonplace distributions of Linux because it is so extensible. I.e. you can run Ubuntu as a server (such as websites & web applications) or as a fully-fledged desktop. For this series, we're going to be using Ubuntu.

Ubuntu Server can run on systems with only 512MB of RAM

Similar to how you have different versions Windows (7, 8 and 10), there are many different versions/distributions of Linux.