Linux is a free, open-source, customizable operating system (OS) developed by thousands of developers and used by millions of people, companies, and governments around the world. It is an alternative solution to other OS's such as Windows and Mac OSX and has many different "flavors" (or distributions) to choose from (i.e. Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, CentOS, RHEL, Debian). It includes software found in other OS's for common tasks such as running office applications, multimedia, graphics, and gaming. It also provides powerful tools for programming and web development. Linux is built to run on desktops, servers and mobile devices (Android).

• Origins of Linux and the Free Software Movement
• Who runs Linux?
• Why run Linux?
• How to get Linux