FAQ gally2: What is linux?

[Janina Sajka]

I think we need to add this question. Here are some unpolished sentences
that I think inform the eventual answer:

Linux is a computer operating system. Other operating systems you probably
already know about include Windows and DOS. Linux is different from these
in many ways, but the most important difference is that it's very powerful
and it's absolutely free. If you ever had a dialup shell account in the
past where you used programs like pine and lynx, that's what you'll get
with linux right on your very own computer. How hard it is to use will
depend on what kinds of things you're comfortable with, and how much you
want to do. If you don't mind typing commands to get a program that works
fast and doesn't crash, you'll love linux. And, the sky's the limit for
what you can do with it.