linus
The kernel.
Linus
Linux does not technically stand for anything. It's name was originally created as a shortened form of "Linus's Minix." As this is not really technically accurate, and Linux has grown far beyond Minix in popularity, the name stands as a word in its own right.
Linux was named by Ari Lemmke, who ran the FTP server where Linux was originally published. Linus Torvalds originally wanted to call the project "Freax", a combination of "free", "freak", and "Unix", but Lemmke's name stuck.
The Linux kernel is named for its creator, Linus Torvalds. The practice of appending an X was for Unix and Unix-like systems.
First of all, it's GNU/Linux not just Linux(which is the name of the kernel). Second, most versions of GNU/Linux are free. Lastly, the most popular version is Ubuntu.
The LUnix kernel and most of the userland was written by Daniel Dollman.
Linux is the kernel.
It is actually, Linux. Linux is the kernel created by Linus Benedict Torvalds (a Finnish American software engineer), who (with the help of others) developed the kernel on which many distros (operating systems) have radiated out: Linux Mint, Ubuntu, to name only two.
The very first one, period. The first shell for Unix didn't originally have a name but has since been referred to as the Thompson shell. The first shell ported to Linux was bash.
There are no "joined" Linux and Windows operating systems, so there is no name for them.
No. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is simply a commercial Linux distribution primarily used for servers. It was never a nickname for Linux itself.