Since there’s already a bunch of people explaining it I’ll explain why it’s so loved by the users and the hype around it.

Linux has a copy left license meaning no one person or entity owns Linux. It’s open-source which allows any company to modify how it works or just a random person can change the code or fix it. The only restriction on this license is that anyone that makes changes have to share those changes if asked, this why everyone benefits. Anyone can submit those changes willingly to be approved and help contribute. This means that Linux is built and maintained by thousands of companies and 10s of thousands of people all across the world, not for a profit or bottom line (well for the companies like Google it’s probably for profit). But to make something that works the best they can make it out of their passion.

I personally love Linux because I’m sick and tired of fighting my computer and phone to do what I want when all it does is force ads and pop ups down my throat and track my every move. Linux doesn’t have any of that because the people that make it use it and don’t want that, no one does. Since there’s no profit motive we don’t have shit like that.

Every desktop computer has an operating system. Most of them run Windows. Some run MacOS, this is why the software on Macs and other PCs is different.

Linux is another operating system, its free and anyone can see the code its written in.

Linux is popular with nerds and programmers since its easier to do some advanced stuff in. Its popular as an alternative to windows since Windows is progressively getting more annoying to use (updates, popups etc).

Linux is used by servers (computers that run websites, like lemmy), and other stuff like smart appliances.
The android Operating System (used by android phones, like Samsung phones) is based on linux.

Your computer is a bunch of parts that need software to make them work. The “operating system” handles talking to the hardware directly, while the programs you run only talk to the operating system. Talking to the operating system is easy, talking to the hardware is difficult, since you may need to speak a hundred different languages to work with every possible network card, sound card, graphics card, etc.

The operating systems you have probably heard of are windows and macOS. Linux is a 3rd one.

Windows is owned by Microsoft, macOS is owned by Apple, and Linux is developed by the community and (typically) released for free. Since anyone can work on Linux, there are tons of different versions of it floating around, that are all slightly different from one another.