A Linux Moment: Why It Matters to Non-Techies

Computing is too pervasive and too important to leave up to the professionals. Linux is one of the computing phenomena that ordinary folks should understand better—and one that might improve their own lives directly.

This article, aimed at people without technical computer knowledge, offers background about Linux, its relation to other aspects of computing, and its value. In a follow-up article you’ll see what Linux might offer you, and how to try it.

Different Levels at Which Computer Work

Linux is an operating system, as are Microsoft Windows and Apple’s macOS. Mobile devices, because of their smaller capacity and different needs, generally use other operating systems, notably Android (which is based on Linux) and iOS (for Apple devices).

And what is an operating system? I think of it like a power drill. The basic drill has the motor and rotating gears that make it possible to drill, but you can’t accomplish anything with just these. First you plug in the bit you want to use. This way, the drill has many possible uses—for instance, some bits drill holes whereas others put in or remove screws.

The basic motor and gears of a computer are its operating system. It handles the hardware, network, and other parts of the computer platform so that programmers don’t have to worry about them. The programmers write the equivalent of drill bits, which are applications.

Does it matter which operating system you use?

Although some people feel a strong attachment to one operating system or another, what you mostly interact with are the applications. And most popular applications are ported to multiple operating systems. Linux is still not widely adopted by ordinary desktop and laptop users, but a lot of popular programs are available on it. And because so many applications are web-based, all you need is a browser to do most of your work.

However, operating systems have subtler effects on your work. For instance, Apple controls very strictly which applications are offered in their Apple store. This protects consumers from malware and outdated software, but also makes it harder to install legitimate applications that Apple doesn’t recognize.

The most prominent effects of the choice of operating system come when Microsoft does a major upgrade to Windows. As covered in another article, the current upgrade to Windows 11 forces changes on users that benefit Microsoft’s business and tie them to Microsoft’s other products. But many users’ computers can’t even run the new Windows 11—and even so, Microsoft cuts off support and security updates for those computers in October 2025.

Linux is different from Windows and macOS in one crucial way: It’s free software. “Free” doesn’t refer to money but to the freedom to use and share the software. Because so much has been written about free software (and the related term, “open source”), I won’t delve into that concept here. But it will come up as I discuss the origins and development of the Linux operating system.

What Makes Linux Special?

You might have heard that Linux was invented by Linus Torvalds as a college student. That statement makes a cute origin story, but doesn’t adequately convey Linux’s status as an achievement of a large community of programmers and other contributors. We’ll review the history here, and then look at what it could mean for you.

Each computer manufacturer—IBM, etc.—used to have its own operating system. Because a program had to be substantially rewritten to work on a different operating system, the diversity of operating systems worked against the spread of good ideas. So when a portable operating system (one that could run on many different types of hardware) named Unix was developed in the 1970s, a lot of programmers adopted it eagerly. Wherever professional programming was in play—research, data centers, and so on—some version of Unix was dominant.

Torvalds was therefore building on decades of development by the most savvy computer users when he created a clone of Unix. Besides modeling his system on other open source code, he relied on a set of programming tools called GNU, which are inseparable from Linux. You can’t build a Linux system without GNU (easily, at least—there are technically ways to do it). Thus, some people call the operating system GNU/Linux.

Torwalds didn’t try to copyright and sell his system (which he considered too rudimentary to be marketable), but tossed the source code onto the internet and basically said to the Unix community, “Do whatever you want with it.”

Linux proved to have several appealing characteristics, and other people quickly started building on it. Torwalds did maintain some control. He applied a legal license called the GNU General Public License or GPL, which allowed anyone with the ability and desire to change the software to do—but if they wanted to distribute their changes to others, they had to share the changes with Torvalds. Both aspects of free software—the ability to make changes and the incentive to share them—formed a crucial difference between Linux and the proprietary operating systems such as Windows and macOS.

Today, Linux can run on everything from small embedded devices to the world’s biggest supercomputers thanks to the diversity of contributors. One recent version benefited from “1,970 developers, of whom 250 were first-time contributors.” Maybe it will run on your desktop next—we’ll explore that idea in the follow-up article.