Linux

Is this a serious question?

Linux is an open source operating system with numerous distro's available. Most of the world's supercomputers run on Linux as do many enterprise class companies use Linux for their servers.

I use Linux at work for my desktop PC and I like it far better than Windows.

 

That's definitely not the case for web servers.

 

Right. CentOS is a pretty popular one for web servers as well as Debian.

 

Linux certainly doesn't have anywhere near the user base as Windows or macOS as far as your everyday users go, but it is pretty big in enterprise, and especially with web servers, supercomputers, and research, as @chrfr and @SandboxGeneral mention. It's often used for the security it provides as well as its capacity for customizability and extensibility. Those who use it on their personal computer are generally developers of some kind, or just the type who prefer a particular distribution or like tinkering with and customizing things. Linux can also be useful in reviving or keeping older machines running where there's not support from Microsoft or Apple, or just avoiding their license fees.

Other systems that gets a fair amount of use, but not much recognition, would be UNIX-like BSD systems such as FreeBSD and OpenBSD. FreeBSD in particular is used in a lot of situations, and is even the OS running on both the Nintendo Switch and Playstation 4. It is also what Darwin (the base system of macOS, iOS, etc.) is based on.

There's also a TON of miscellaneous devices around that use Linux or FreeBSD to function, though we may not realize it due to their application. Basically, just because we don't see these operating systems around your home or office everyday, they are pretty big and much of the tech industry still relies on them, and they're frequently used in environments where there are very specific needs to be met that closed-source operating systems may not easily be able to provide.

If you're interested, I'd definitely at least take a look at the Wikipedia articles for Linux and FreeBSD if you're interested! There's a long and pretty interesting history behind them.

 

Even the Android OS by Google is built on a modified Linux kernel. That's kind of a popular system, too.

 

For me personally... I spun up 2 web servers running Ubuntu Server in Azure for my work

I have another as a VM on my MBP that runs PHPServerMonitor to monitor over 100 servers and POS devices on our network

And I have another VM of Kali Linux to learn more about pen testing

But yeah, enterprise Linux solutions are strong and only getting stronger

 

Software development is another area where Linux is widely used. Ever wonder what the software engineers who write all those web apps and web servers you encounter on a daily basis use to do their job? It's almost always Linux or a Mac. I don't think I've ever met a web frontend or backend developer who prefers Windows although I'm sure they exist. As for why do some prefer Linux to using a Mac? The answer is very similar to why lots of people prefer Android phones to iPhones (e.g. Macs are expensive, some just don't like Apple, Linux allows for more customization, etc).

Lots of big data centers also use Linux. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple even uses Linux, instead of MacOS, for some of their data centers.

Linux is all over the place. It's pretty much what the internet runs on.

 

Facebook and Twitter both use Linux, and both contribute to open source projects themselves. I wasn't able to find what particular distributions they each use with a quick search, but I'm assuming they're both probably a custom build tailored more to their specific needs. There is likely some blend of operating systems across their networks, especially if you're wanting to include networking equipment in that count.

iOS (and macOS, tvOS, etc.) is built on Darwin, which is based on FreeBSD, as I mentioned in my post above. (Unless it's Cisco IOS, which is completely proprietary.)

 

Desktop Linux isn't nearly as common as Windows and macOS primarily because those ship on nearly all computers and have for ages, so those people would have to go out of their way to install and use it despite already having access to Win/mac. Software availability ultimately prevents even users who otherwise would switch to it from doing so, though there's an argument to be made that software would be available for it if people used it.

It certainly has more of a user-base in the science and engineering fields.

Ultimately, though, as other users have pointed out, variations of Linux are used for network infrastructure. It's also common to see it used in custom devices (such as embedded or supercomputers) due to it being open source and easily customized to specific hardware.

It's fairly common to use Linux for web development as well. Windows now includes a Subsystem for Linux (which is confusingly named, IMO) that lets you work with Linux shell commands from within Windows.

 

iOS was built on the kernel of OS X, which was also built from FreeBSD.

 

The classic Macintosh operating systems were completely made by Apple.

There were also some projects Apple was involved in during that era that involved bringing Linux and UNIX to the PowerPC platform, such as MkLinux (Linux) and A/UX (UNIX).

 

And if one wants to go back to the beginning, it all started with AT&T's Unix in the 1970's. That's where (Berkeley Software Distribution) BSD, or BSD Unix came from which violated AT&T's trademark on Unix. Which in turn was then called FreeBSD. That is where Apple took its start from and later on Linux distro's.

 

Technically, MSDOS 6.22 was the last version which ended 18 years ago, in 2000, with Windows Millennium.

I never saw more BSOD's before or since than I did with WindowsME.

 

Sort of. PowerPC and 68K were processors, Apple II was a computer, and ProDOS was an operating system. AppleDOS, ProDOS, and SOS were all operating systems developed by Apple around that time.

The switch in processor architecture between the two machines is likely the main reason that software didn't work on the newer computer, probably along with the operating system and other hardware differences.

 

Indeed, compatibility across various platforms (even within the same brand) could be a pretty complex issue back then, and a lot of great software has become extremely difficult to find and run as a result, along with various advancements and changes to computing since. Lack of archival of software and its source code is also another huge factor in software being lost in time.

Even if you have the software, it can be quite the challenge to get it working through emulation of those old systems. At least some of those classic PC games like Prince of Persia and Oregon Trail have survived in some way since then.