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It is always hard to tell what OS is the biggest since there is no precise way to measure it. In the server world Linux is the biggest but there is a diversity. Supercomputers are dominated by Linux. On the Desktop PC: Windows is the biggest. OS X and Linux are the contenders. But when we add smartphones to the equation there is no doubt because we can measure the sales. In 2013 Android phones sold more than iOS, OS X and Windows combined.

So Linux is the most widespread OS on the planet.

No wait a minute .....Android is not Linux you say?

To answer that with a question: Is Windows 7 Windows?

There are variations within the systems: Linux is a core and on top of that we have Android, RedHat, SUSE, Arch, Gentoo, Ubuntu, Debian,++++ ...but they are all Linux.

Just like XP Vista 7,10 and Windows Server 2016 are Windows.

There have been attempts to define anything that is a commercial success out of Linux but even if Android is a huge commercial success - it is still Linux.

The problem is that people often speak about different things when they say "Linux" (..well that goes for "Windows" too).

When I say Linux; I mean the kernel, as in the core part that must be present in any Linux distribution.

We often refer to Linux Distributions like Ubuntu and Fedora as "Linux" and this is not wrong because that is the common factor that unites them. Referring to them as Linux Distributions would maybe be more precise but we say Linux in short.

So if you have an Android phone or tab, just check out Android's settings there you will see the Linux Kernel version that Android is using.

The differences are that Google has not included other components like X-server (xorg) and the Gnu C library (glibc) so you cannot run standard graphical Linux applications.

Google uses Java applications that run with the Dalvik virtual machine. Those Apps are targeted at Android and not at Linux in general.

Theoretically: If the Linux community should decide to implement Dalvik virtual machine on traditional Linux distros then they could run Android apps.

Interesting post Viking... is all about how you want to look at it.

If I am not mistaken... Apple OSs is a spin off of a Linux version; what was it, BSD? Or that is consider UNIX....

BSD is considered UNIX.

UNIX is considered to be the for-father of Linux so they are related but not the same.

I have tried FreeBSD and it is a bit different. The license is different too.

I should have mentioned that Unix is a player in the server market. IBM uses it (AIX) and Solaris was Unix.

Have a look here

Oh yeah... forgot about AIX and Sun Solaris/Sparc systems... also HPUX from Hewlett Packard.

Yes in the old pre Linux days the biggest computers were all Unix driven. After Linux; Unix is almost gone on the supercomputer arena.
Unix is a specialist and does what it does very well, so it depends on the needs.