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A Historical Look At The First Linux Kernel
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Fri Jul 27, 2007 06:49 AM
from the to-configure-simply-recompile dept.
from the to-configure-simply-recompile dept.
LinuxFan writes "KernelTrap has a fascinating article about the first Linux kernel, version 0.01, complete with source code and photos of Linus Torvalds as a young man attending the University of Helsinki. Torvalds originally planned to call the kernel "Freax," and in his first announcement noted, "I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones." He also stressed that the kernel was very much tied to the i386 processor, "simply, I'd say that porting is impossible." Humble beginnings."
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Old School Linux Remembered, Parts 0.02 & 0.03 163 comments
eldavojohn writes "Following our last history lesson of Linux 0.01, the Kernel Trap is talking about the following announcements that would lead to one of the greatest operating systems today. A great Linus quote on release 0.02 (just 19 days after 0.01): 'I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've already got minix. This is a program for hackers by a hacker. I've enjoyed [sic] doing it, and somebody might enjoy looking at it and even modifying it for their own needs. It is still small enough to understand, use and modify, and I'm looking forward to any comments you might have.'"
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No sooner had I finished compiling... (Score:5, Funny)
Too bad (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Official kernel development strategy (Score:5, Funny)
That's it! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Linus even wrote a book about it (Score:5, Informative)
It contains the entire back history how Linux began as a side project and of course the famous spat with Andrew Tanenbaum over Minix and Linux and I found it to be a good (if very nerdy) read.
But the pictures in the article? Just sad, he reminds me so much of myself
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Erm, what, an average looking white male? So sad.
Oh No! (Score:5, Funny)
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At least two people agree on 640kB (Score:5, Funny)
uh huh (Score:5, Interesting)
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http://www.itsjustcrap.com/penguin.html [itsjustcrap.com]
Not sure what kernel version it is... there are other peoples names in it, so it certainly isn't 0.01
Note the mention of GNU (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Note the mention of GNU (Score:5, Insightful)
The mention of GNU should merely point out how important the GNU is in GNU/Linux. As Linus said in the post: Sadly, a kernel by itself gets you nowhere. To get a working system you need a shell, compilers, a library etc. These are separate parts and may be under a stricter (or even looser) copyright. Most of the tools used with linux are GNU software and are under the GNU copyleft.
Parent
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Maybe if the GNU folks had only been working on a kernel instead of also doing the hundreds of other programs as well, they would have made more headway with HURD. And if Linus had been trying to do a whole OS and not just the kernel, Linux the kernel would still be early in development.
Very doubtful.
First off, keep in mind that originally, Linux was aimed at being more on-par with Minix than Hurd. Linus would have written it even if the Gnu folks didn't exist, though it would have been written with pcc instead of gcc. Early on, he didn't have or even target creating a "whole OS", just a terminal server.
The mention of GNU should merely point out how important the GNU is in GNU/Linux.
Every time I hear "GNU/Linux", I have to chuckle. It's a bit like Pittsburgh demanding that Ford vehicles be called Steel/Ford. It's the ultimate example of RMS's hubris, and frankly I fi
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Saying Stallman insisting on calling it GNU is hubris is funny, when you consider that its not Stallman who named it after his first name.
Its reasonable to request distributions that are heavily based on Linux and GNU to mention GNU in their name.
I would also think it is reasonable for a huge codebase such as KDE to request that, too. For example, "Kubuntu" for short, and "A KDE frontend to a GNU/Linux system" for long.
Calling it
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The purpose of the GNU work is to make people aware of Freedom-related issues.
Ah... look, young'un... GNU was founded to create a system that wouldn't restrict people's ability to use it to its fullest, which many of the people involved early on, including Stallman, felt needed to involve the ability to read, modify and distribute source code. It was not some sort of "sowing the seeds of freedom among the heathens," effort.
Saying Stallman insisting on calling it GNU is hubris is funny, when you consider that its not Stallman who named it after his first name.
Wherein my example is quite apt... We could say that it's horrible hubris of Ford to have named his company after himself... really, the so-called "Ford" was a r
Re:Note the mention of GNU (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that politics is interested in you even if you're not interested in it. The pragmatic approach involves taking politics into account even if you're personally bored to tears by the subject.
Parent
Linus's middle name.... (Score:2)
"From: Linus Benedict Torvalds [email blocked]"
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I went by my middle name for the first 18 years of my life, but chose to go with my first name instead for various reasons. Hardly anyone except my family knows my middle name, and it's not because I don't like it. It's just not important enough to announce to everyone I meet, let alone the entire world.
Well (Score:5, Funny)
- Bill Gates
More than just a kernel (Score:5, Informative)
Embarassing change of context (Score:5, Funny)
Ready? (Score:4, Funny)
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At the time, it sort of was. Remember, this was the age of DOS. I don't know how much you could actually do with Linux at the time, but GNU was already a vastly more featureful system than DOS. When the first Linux distribution came out (Slackware, 1993), it sported all the glory of the GNU system, a GUI (XFree86), the ability to run DOS, and, if I recall correctly, even some support for running win16 (remember, Windows 95 wasn't out yet) programs.
Ah, the good old days...accounting (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, along comes Linux (not
The funny thing is that I remember feeling that the Linux box responded better than the Sun machine or the VAX in that it seemed to handle more users better (though I suppose on the Linux box we were just mucking about with standard commands instead of doing heavy-duty work).
IBM, Intel, and MS say "you're welcome" (Score:3, Insightful)
More like Phoenix and AMD (Score:3, Informative)
Remember, back around 1990, IBM and Compaq system prices were pretty close to what was being asked for low end HP/Apollo, Sun and MIPS boxes. Now if DEC had been more agressive with the pricing for Alpha and Ultrix...
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What made the business case for the
Linus gone wild (Score:3, Funny)
http://kerneltrap.org/files/linus2.gif [kerneltrap.org]
you insensitive clod (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
It's Also a Great Story (Score:5, Interesting)
But that's not what happened and I think that's important for people to recognize. This was not unlike Frodo starting off on a quest thinking he wasn't going to get anywhere (though the motivation and implications are not so huge). It's the classic hero-by-accident story and since it's a true story, I love it all the more.
You know, I always thought about writing to Paul Harvey (if he's still alive) and asking him to do a "And that's the rest of the story" on Linus. That would be some classic stuff. Although most the listeners, probably not even sure what Linux is let alone know its creator Linus, would probably think he's suffering from some form of dementia set on by age
Parent
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All the meaty goodness you could want, along with links to everything mentioned in the article (including the news groups, and all that other random crap).
As well, if you do a Search for "linux history" (with or without the "), you get Linux the big picture [liw.iki.fi], Linux History [xplinux.biz] and a much better history then the one in the article, History of Linux [uiuc.edu] (though not the first from the search result).
Basically, the article is rehashing stuff that is very easily found, presenting it in a format that isn't even very
Re:History of GCC (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, there is much discussion about GCC transitioning to GPLv3 license. Apparently once the 4.3 branch is released, 4.2 will no longer be maintained under GPLv2. I believe this is because the FSF knows the compiler is fundamental and the license change is so important they don't really want patches contributing to the version under the old license.
Parent
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There was the Small c compiler that dates back all the way to 1980. There was also the DICE compiler for the Amiga written by Matt Dillon of FireflyBSD fame that was from around the same time frame.
Now GCC is leaps and bounds ahead of those compilers today but without if RMS hadn't written GCC frankly I think Somebody would have like Matt Dillon maybe.
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Hate to tell you this but GCC wasn't the first free compiler. It wasn't even the first c compile.
Maybe not, but your examples don't seem to totally support that :)
There was the Small c compiler that dates back all the way to 1980.
That's correct, but the scope of Small C and GCC are, I think, a bit different... Small C was made for embeded systems and supports a subset of the C language. It was there, true, but GCC was the first ANSI C free compiler.
There was also the DICE compiler for the Amiga written by Matt Dillon of FireflyBSD fame that was from around the same time frame.
DICE was shareware (... I sold DICE as shareware and it quite unexpectedly generated a fair chunk of income. This allowed me to expand into later Amiga models (A3000) as well as put together some fairly souped up P [kerneltrap.org]
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I'm not interested in learning the history of everything -- I'm just interested in learning the history of events that can teach me significant lessons, e.g. by inspiring me (starting humble can work out really well if there is significant demand and an empowering license like the GPL is used) or by warning of dangers.
Therefore, articles like this are important to me. I wouldn't know to look for this particular bit of history if
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, I was there back then (read my sig) and yet even so I enjoyed the trip down Linux memory lane while going through this article. Sure, this is not top-quality journalism, but if you don't want to read it, then don't.
Slashdot is not anymore what to used to be when I joined (look at my /. id to see what I mean), but even so I still use it as my home page on my home boxen. If there's stuff that I don't want to read, I simply don't.
PS: I happen to be interested in military history as well. So yes, I
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Besides, for those too lazy to read up the history of Open Source and Linux, just watch Revolution OS [google.com]. Features Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond and many more.
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Be nice if
Re:How would one build this? (Score:5, Insightful)
It got quiet a bit of interest, but was hampered by two major issues initially.
First, it wasn't free software. It was shared source, you could obtain the source after buying a copy and share that source with others who had also bought a copy, but you couldn't just modify it and pass on your modifications to anyone who wanted. That extra step of "Receiver must already have a license" was an issue, and reduced the number of experimenters and tinkerers drastically. GNU/Linux has achieved much of its popularity through the ability of virtually anyone who has a copy to pass on that copy to others, with freely downloadable LiveCDs and other ways to be exposed to it with little commitment on your part.
The other was that it was (usually, at least in x86) 16 bit. Applications generally ran in 64k memory spaces (albeit different spaces for code and data.) This severely limited the available functionality.
Linus, in part, wrote the first Linux kernel to try to overcome the second issue. By using Linux + the GNU toolchain instead of Minix, you had a full blown 32 bit operating system. Things like the X11 Windowing System suddenly became possible. His eventual adoption of the GPL also gave Linux users the freedom needed to ensure they could build a much bigger community around that kernel than Minix was able to achieve.
Today, Minix version 3 is available as free software, and in 32 bit form, but it happened too late to stop the GNU/Linux juggernaut from rolling right over it.
Parent
Re:How would one build this? (Score:5, Informative)
Minix and Linux where different proposes in mind from the start. I would consider them be both be highly successful.
Minix was included with a text book. Minix was written to teach students how a Unix like OS worked so they could learn how write operating system code! Minix was very portable, clearly written, and would even run on an 8088 and 68000. It's technical limitations where just a logical trade off.
Requiring people to own the book to have the OS was probably a mistake but My guess is that the author wanted to prevent people from reselling Minix. Plus he really wanted people to buy his book.
Linux was some guy that wanted to write a free Unix Kernel for his 386 and he didn't care if it worked on anything but a 386 or frankly anything but his own computer.
Frankly at that time I and everybody else was waiting for the real free UNIX that the GNU project was going to write. The future was going to be GNU Unix and it was going to be a state of the art micro kernel based UNIX like OS. Of course the future doesn't really feel obligated to follow our plans.
Minix was a brilliant success. How many of the early Linux Kernel developers read Operating Systems: Design and Implementation by Andrew S. Tanenbaum?
I would say that Minix it did it's job very well.
Now Minix3 is a very new project. Frankly I find it very interesting. It is micro kernel and it runs drivers in user space. The goal is to create self healing OS. AKA a driver crashing will not take out the OS.
It uses BSD instead of the GPL which I am beginning to favor because of what I consider the bad spirited anti-Tivo clauses in GPLV3.
I really hope that Minix3 does get the attention that it deserves. Just as I hope the OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD, and Linux continue to grow and thrive.
Parent
Re:How would one build this? (Score:4, Informative)
He, or the publisher. IIRC, it took quite some convincing on Andy's part to actually allow Minix to be distributed by third parties at all.
Parent
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Richard Stallman - ... I couldn't believe it when I noticed you actually bothered to reply to my e-mail when I asked you something about X window system.
Spamming for a donation to the League for Programming Freedom doesn't count.
You have a strange list. You left out the most important kernel programmer ever - Ken Thompson, you also left out Dennis Ritchie (first C compiler, designer of the first Unix file system), and for promoting excellent modern programming practices and teaching us all how to program the right way - Brian Kernighan and PJ Plauger.
And what about Larry Wall for Perl? John McCarthy for Lisp (say what you want about Lisp, but it's the on
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It's too bad about teh Lunix, really (Score:3, Funny)
All these years later, and he's still trying to cludge it together and keep it working. And let's not even talk about security- naming the problems with that would cause a buffer overflow on the forum.
Had Lunis and company written it properly at the start, maybe he wouldn't still be chasing Windows 95's tail lights.