Linux is getting famous among techies. And even the year 2022 is considered as Linux on Desktop.

However there is a debate on what is Linux. Is it a kernel? Or is it an operating system(OS). Let's find out.

The simplest Answers

Linux is a kernel, and not an operating system

How? and why? let's break it down. But wait... before going any further, let's clear the idea of a kernel and an operating system

Kernel

According to wikipedia

In an operating system with a layered architecture, the kernel is the lowest level, has complete control of the hardware and is always in memory

In a nutshell kernel is the mediator between the hardware and the software. It is loaded into the memory on the startup and runs in the memory all the time, doing memory management, hardware utilization, etc.

OS

In sum an OS is a combination of a kernel, a shell and other system software. It provides an interface between the user and the hardware. The kernel is the core component of an OS.

What is Linux?

Linux is a free and opensource(FOSS), multitasking, Unix-like kernel. Linus Torvalds, who is the creator of Linux, made Linux in 1992 as a kernel for his i386 based computer. And later it was adopted into the GNU project.

Linux runs with a lot of GNU applications, system software and tools. Basically Linux depends on the GNU project. Thus, it's called as GNU/Linux, though many uses the term Linux. The term GNU/Linux emphasizes the indispensability of the GNU applications in Linux.

Linux distributions

Although we have the kernel we still need an OS to interact with the computer. That's where Linux distributions come into the picture. A Linux distribution is a combination of Linux kernel, a shell (bash, zsh, fish, etc.) and other system software and libraries, that are provided by GNU project. In a nutshell it's an OS with Linux kernel on it.

Let's make it obvious with a real world example. Consider ice-cream. We have ice-cream on different flavors. Chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, etc. But at the end they all are ice-cream and all have the same core component, milk(there are other kind of ice-cream, but let's get it as milk for a better understanding.). It's similar to the world of Linux. Milk can be get as Linux kernel and, different flavors are the Linux distributions.

Following are few popular distributions

Ubuntu -Oone of the most popular distributions. It has a user friendly learning environment. (It's my first Linux flavor)

Arch - A lightweight, flexible distribution. Not that much beginner friendly. Highly recommended if you want to dive deep in Linux. (This is the my favorite distribution.)

Gentoo - This is also made for advanced Linux users, as Arch. Gentoo can be defined as a unique distribution as it uses its own tools(init, package manager, etc.).