What's in a Name?
What is 'GLUG'?
While GLUG stands for GNU+Linux Users Group, the scope of the support and discussion of the Hampshire GLUG goes beyond merely GNU+Linux to include all Free Software operating systems and applications. Any operating system which guarantees the user the Four Freedoms is welcomed, including but not limited to: GNU+Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris, and ReactOS. GNU+Linux is chosen and singled out because it is by far the most popular, complete, and easy to use Free operating system with more software available to it than other. As such, the primary focus of the Hampshire GLUG is, as the name implies, on the GNU+Linux operating system.
But what is GNU+Linux?
What is GNU?
GNU is where it all started. In 1983, a computer hacker (for those who've relied too heavily on the American news media's perception of reality: hacker means a particularly clever programmer) named Richard Matthew Stallman began noticing that with the commoditisation of microcomputing hardware, the corporations in control of the source code for operating systems found it to their advantage to take away freedoms from end users in order to create an artifical scarcity to maximise profits. Having worked with computers at M.I.T. in the days of mainframes, Stallman was accustomed to always receiving the source code for the software that ran on computers: and indeed that is how mainframes were operated. Users of mainframes tweaked the source code of the software on the computers in order to instruct them to perform the programmer's will.
Having lived through this unique era at the dawn of modern computing, Stallman had the vision to realise the harm and social dangers caused by the seemingly omnipresent trend to systematically deny freedoms to users of computers by making software proprietary. Faced with multi-billion dollar media conglomerates lobbying Congress to continuously extend legal default copyright terms and software vendors seeking to exploit the previously unforseen technological ramifications of software as a copyrightable work of culture, Stallman discarded the concept of reforming a truly broken system and decided to invent another in its place. He pioneered the concept of copyleft in writing the GNU General Public License, or GPL, which is a software license that guaratees the Four Freedoms and ensures that they will perpetually be upheld through clever use of existing copyright law.
Armed with a Free Software license under which to release the terms of his software, Stallman got to work at creating the first entirely Free Software operating system. The system was intended to be a rewrite of the proprietary UNIX operating system; because it was to be Freely licensed and because of the trademark issues with the 'UNIX' name, the operating system was called GNU (rhymes with canoe), a recursive acronym standing for GNU's Not UNIX. GNU was started in 1984 with a small amount of programmers, whose ranks and collective skill quickly began increasing with time. Primarily communicating over the Internet, a global community now referred to as the Free Software Movement was born based on the philosophies of Freedom and Copyleft that Stallman laid the groundwork for when founding GNU.
What is Linux?
Only six years after its inception in 1984, the GNU project had produced a completely Free software operating system with only one component missing: the kernel. The kernel is only one small part of the overall size and scope of a modern operating system, but it's an extremely important one: it controls the rest of the operating system software's access to all the hardware in the computer. The GNU project has had a kernel planned for years called GNU Hurd, but the problem is that it's not finished quite yet.
Even though the GPL was created for the GNU project, anyone can use it to license their own code as well. In 1991 a Finnish hacker by the name of Linus Torvalds created and released a UNIX-like kernel to the world under the terms of the GPL. This kernel is called Linux, and ever since its inception it has been paired with the GNU operating system in order for it to function. It is one of the more popular Free Software projects of all time, and it arrived at a crucial point in time in order to provide users with a complete Free Software operating system in the early 1990's. Since that time, GNU, Linux, and a plethora of other Free Software projects unrelated to either have grown and expanded in functionality, stability, and ease of use exponentially quickly due to the inherent efficiencies in using the Internet as a tool for social networking and collaboration.
I've Heard the Operating System called 'Linux' before. Why add the GNU?
The question is not why to add 'GNU' to the name, it is if it's appropriate to even include 'Linux'. As soon as the GNU project finishes Hurd, it's own kernel, then one could replace Linux with that and claim to run the operating system "GNU" with no Linux in sight. You can even now couple other kernels with GNU and have a working system, such as the OpenSolaris kernel (see Nexenta OS) or the FreeBSD kernel (see Debian GNU/kFreeBSD). As long as the kernel supports the hardware it is running on, the user should not be required to interact directly with it, and in fact ultimately should not even need to know of its existence (although why choose ignorance after considering the rewards of the alternative?).
Linus Torvalds himself stated in his inital announcement of the Linux kernel that the project was "just a hobby" and that it "[wouldn't] be big and professional like gnu". GNU is the bulk of the operating system, it was developed first, and it has strong ties with the entire rest of the Free Software world through its roots in the drafting of the GPL and the inception of copyleft. As if these weren't sufficient reasons, no one calls other popular operating systems by the names of their kernels. When have you ever heard someone called Mac OS X by the name of 'XNU' or refer to Windows XP as 'KERNEL32.DLL'? The kernel is not the operating system, it is but one part of it, and as such the entire operating system should not be referred to by the name of just the kernel.
What is a 'distribution'?
Because GNU+Linux is Free Software, anyone can take the source code and package it up in different ways to suite different needs and purposes. Each specific packaging is called a distribution of GNU+Linux, and there exists many different distributions to choose from based on your preference. The key is choice: there are general desktop distributions, ones geared specifically towards audio and video editing or graphic design, distributions designed to be installed to act as a firewall or router, ones whose purpose is to exist entirely on a live CD or DVD to boot from and use without having to install, even ones to do accomplish unique feats just because we are free to do so, like putting an entire distribution on a single floppy disk!
The site DistroWatch serves as a repository full of rough popularity statistics and information on the many different distributions available. Distributions of GNU+Linux are so diverse that the only characteristic true of them all is that each contains a good portion of the GNU system in addition to the Linux kernel. Some distributions are based of others, as evidenced in this timeline.
What is Debian?
Started in 1993, Debian GNU/Linux one of the oldest, largest, and most unique distributions around. It is an operating system which makes the GNU system, the Linux kernel, and thousands of other Free/Libre applications and libraries available for automatic download and installation at the click of a mouse. Debian organises software into so-called 'packages' which are organised into catagories such as World Wide Web, Graphics, Office, Multimedia, Games, Science, Network, etc. Each package in Debian can be searched for by functionality (audio editor, web browser, IRC client, etc.) or name, and can be downloaded from an online package repository at any time you like. Software called the package manager handles all the complicated downloading, installing, and configuration in the background, so installing new software is as simple as a couple of clicks.
The unique and wonderful thing about Debian (besides being entirely community run with no overall corporate ownership) is that it is guided by the terms of a social contract: in order to make it into Debian, the entire contents of a given package must permit the Four essential Freedoms. Debian has its own Free Software Guidlines, the DFSG, and has over 18,773 packages available on demand containing Freely license software, libraries, and documentation. Debian is a mothership project: many other distributions base themselves on Debian's core package management system and are referred to as Debian-based distributions. The most popular of these is called Ubuntu.
What is Ubuntu?
Ubuntu Linux is a distribution of GNU+Linux that is based on Debian, but much newer. The first release was in 2004, and it was created in an attempt to release a new distribution focusing on ease of use for desktop and laptop users. The motto for Ubuntu is "Linux for Human Beings", and indeed a main focus of the project is to bring an easy-to-use Free Software operating system to computer users across the world, available in many different languages. A new version of Ubuntu is released every six months (not half a decade like Windows), constantly breathing fresh life into the software available and abilities of your computer. Like Debian, tens of thousands of software packages are available to automatically download and install or update to a newer version at the click of a button.
Ubuntu is by far the most successful distribution of many built on top of the formidible technological base that is Debian, has an extremely large community willing to help new users for no cost, and has corporate support and backing by Canonical Ltd. Because of the sharp increase in its popularity and emphasis on ease of use, Ubuntu has caught the attention of major OEM retailers such as Dell Inc. which now ships desktops and laptops with Ubuntu preinstalled which you can purchase here.