Linux

American

[lin-uhks, lin-ooks] / ˈlɪn əks, ˈlɪn ʊks /

Computers, Trademark.

an operating system, based on UNIX, that runs on many different hardware platforms and whose source code is available to the public.

linux British

/ ˈlaɪnʌks /

noun

a nonproprietary computer operating system suitable for use on personal computers

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of Linux

First recorded in 1990–95; named after Linu(s) Benedict Torvalds (born 1969), Finnish software engineer + x as in UNIX ( def. )

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

From Linux to Netscape Navigator, important software products were written by crowds of volunteers and distributed free to users.

From The Wall Street Journal

Previously, he was a writer at Wired, the IDG News Service and Linux Magazine, where he covered cloud computing, business technology, bitcoin, artificial intelligence and open-source software.

From The Wall Street Journal

Essex said a reacceleration in software growth was encouraging, even as the government shutdown weighed on bookings and growth at Red Hat, the Linux software provider, which IBM acquired in 2019.

From MarketWatch

Chromium was created by Google, but it accepts technical contributions from other companies and has support from Meta Platforms Inc., Microsoft Corp. and the Linux Foundation, among others.

From Los Angeles Times

Even Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, the operating system which kick-started the open source revolution in the early 1990s, noted at the Open Source Summit Europe in September that the “kernel maintainers are aging”.

From BBC

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023