Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION

Table of Contents

What is Linux ?
Free Software and Linux
Definition
General Definition of "Software"
Presentation of free software
Zenwalk Linux

To master any Linux distribution, documentation is necessary, and Zenwalk is no exception. This manual is heavily based upon the excellent Slackbook. These pages contain information about:

Good luck, and happy Zenwalking !

What is Linux ?

Linux was born in 1991. Initially, it was just a kernel, developed by Linus Torvalds. Nowadays people commonly refer to a GNU/Linux system as just "Linux". As the full name of the OS says, GNU/Linux is a combination of the Linux software and GNU software components. GNU, an acronym for GNU’s not Unix, started out as a project in the early nineties to develop a free Unix-like OS. Now, lots of the applications on a Linux system are provided by the GNU project. Examples are the GNU C compiler (GCC) and the bash shell on your Linux box. More info on GNU/Linux can be found on Wikipedia.