Linux - Revision history

Jnc: /* External links */ +Understanding the Linux Kernel

2024-02-29T16:01:20Z

‎External links: +Understanding the Linux Kernel

Jnc: /* External links */ +The Linux Edge

2024-02-19T15:52:16Z

‎External links: +The Linux Edge

Jnc: Add See also/External links

2023-05-20T11:55:39Z

Add See also/External links

Jnc: new cat

2018-12-19T23:22:42Z

new cat

Jnc: split cat

2018-12-16T14:18:28Z

split cat

Jnc: sub-cat

2018-06-17T16:19:12Z

sub-cat

Tor: Fixed typo: wen -> Owen

2012-07-04T09:47:37Z

Fixed typo: wen -> Owen

Neozeed: /* Early Versions */

2010-08-17T20:55:44Z

‎Early Versions

Neozeed: fix some bullet points

2010-08-15T12:44:52Z

fix some bullet points

Neozeed: fix some of that formatting

2010-08-15T12:40:24Z

fix some of that formatting

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 * [http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/appa.html The Tanenbaum-Torvalds Debate]
 * [https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/opensources/book/linus.html The Linux Edge] - from Linus himself
 [[Category: Linux]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 15:52, 19 February 2024
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	* [http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/appa.html The Tanenbaum-Torvalds Debate]		* [http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/appa.html The Tanenbaum-Torvalds Debate]
		+	* [https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/opensources/book/linus.html The Linux Edge] - from Linus himself

	[[Category: Linux]]		[[Category: Linux]]

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 == Minix days ==
-The first public version of Linux (0.01) was originally bootstrapped from within [[Minix]].  The first versions required that you have a minix filesystem, and it booted from floppies ONLY.  The only way to determine where the root filesystem was located, was to hex edit the boot floppy.  Once Linux started to gain in popularity, it prompted one of the more famous flamewars between [[Linus Torvalds]] and [[Andy Tanenbaum]].  You can read about it [http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/appa.html here].
+The first public version of Linux (0.01) was originally bootstrapped from within [[Minix]].  The first versions required that you have a minix [[file system]], and it booted from floppies ONLY.  The only way to determine where the root filesystem was located, was to hex edit the boot floppy.  Once Linux started to gain in popularity, it prompted one of the more famous flamewars between [[Linus Torvalds]] and [[Andy Tanenbaum]].
 The [http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/Historic/old-versions/RELNOTES-0.01 notes file] from back then goes into the details.
@@ Line 49: / Line 49: @@
 == Linux History ==
 This is just a sentimental journey into some of the first posts concerning linux, so you can happily press Control-D now if you actually thought you'd get anything technical.
 <pre>
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 The project was obviously linux, so by July 3rd I had started to think about actual user-level things: some of the device drivers were ready, and the harddisk actually worked. Not too much else.
 As an aside for all using gcc on minix - [ deleted ]
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 As you can see, 0.11 had already a small following. It wasn't much, but it did work.
 * still no init/login: you get into bash as root upon bootup.
 That was still standard in the next release.
 * although I have a somewhat working VM (paging to disk), it's not ready yet. Thus linux needs at least 4M to be able to run the GNU binaries (especially gcc). It boots up in 2M, but you cannot compile.
 I actually released a 0.11+VM version just before Christmas -91: I didn't need it myself, but people were trying to compile the kernel in 2MB and failing, so I had to implement it. The 0.11+VM version was available only to a small number of people that wanted to test it out: I'm still surprised it worked as well as it did.
 * minix still has a lot more users: better support.
@@ Line 293: / Line 288: @@
 The early copyright was in fact much more restrictive than the GNU copyleft: I didn't allow any money at all to change hands due to linux. That changed with 0.12.
 * it's fun to hack on.
@@ Line 343: / Line 337: @@
 As you can see: 0.11 was actually stand-alone: I wrote the first mkfs/fsck/fdisk programs for it, so that you didn't need minix any more to set it up. Also, serial lines had been hard-coded to 2400bps, as that was all I had.
 Still lacking:
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 Note: The version number went directly from 0.12 to 0.95, as the follow-on to 0.12 was getting feature-full enough to deserve a number in the 0.90's
 .12 will probably be out in January (15th or so), and will have:
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 of thing (on the other hand, your studies suffer in other respects :)
 Linus
-</pre>
+* [http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/appa.html The Tanenbaum-Torvalds Debate]
 [[Category: Linux]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 23:22, 19 December 2018
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	</pre>		</pre>

−	[[Category: ~~UNIX Clones‎~~]]	+	[[Category: Linux]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:18, 16 December 2018
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	</pre>		</pre>

−	[[Category: ~~Unix-based OS's‎~~]]	+	[[Category: UNIX Clones‎]]

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 Versions of relevance for hobbyists include ports to the [[Amiga]], early [[Macintosh|Macs]], a partial port to the [[VAX]] and a port to [[System/390]] as well as various [[SGI]] and [[Sun Microsystems]] workstations and servers.
-Linux gained in popularity because it was a 'fresh' implementation, not incumbered by the AT&T vs BSDI/CSRG legal wars, and was not sidelined because of it.  While the BSD world stalled during this lawsuit, Linux was able to thrive, and pick up users.
+Linux gained in popularity because it was a 'fresh' implementation of [[UNIX]], not incumbered by the AT&T vs BSDI/CSRG legal wars, and was not sidelined because of it.  While the BSD world stalled during this lawsuit, Linux was able to thrive, and pick up users.
 == Minix days ==
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 </pre>
-[[category:Operating Systems]]
+[[Category: Unix-based OS's‎]]

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 == Early distros ==
-MCC Interim Linux, from wen Le Blanc of the Manchester Computing Centre, was the first distro to be installable without the need of another operating system to partition, and format the hard disk.  With the ease of installing from MCC, it gave rise to more comprehensive distros, namely SLS.  MCC started out with Linux 0.12.
+MCC Interim Linux, from Owen Le Blanc of the Manchester Computing Centre, was the first distro to be installable without the need of another operating system to partition, and format the hard disk.  With the ease of installing from MCC, it gave rise to more comprehensive distros, namely SLS.  MCC started out with Linux 0.12.
 [[SLS]], released some time in 1992.  You can find some of the old SLS installs [http://www.oldlinux.org/Linux.old/distributions/SLS/?C=S;O=A here].  [[Qemu]] is capable of running some of them, keep in mind hard disks need to be small, and of course you'll need to force an ISA bus install (-M isa).

@@ Line 45: / Line 45: @@
 *0.97 Adds MS-DOS filesystem.
 *0.98 Introduction of TCP/IP mainly from Ross Biro
 == Linux History ==

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-- still no init/login: you get into bash as root upon bootup.
+* still no init/login: you get into bash as root upon bootup.
 That was still standard in the next release.
-- although I have a somewhat working VM (paging to disk), it's not
+* although I have a somewhat working VM (paging to disk), it's not ready yet. Thus linux needs at least 4M to be able to run the GNU binaries (especially gcc). It boots up in 2M, but you cannot compile.
 I actually released a 0.11+VM version just before Christmas -91: I didn't need it myself, but people were trying to compile the kernel in 2MB and failing, so I had to implement it. The 0.11+VM version was available only to a small number of people that wanted to test it out: I'm still surprised it worked as well as it did.
-- minix still has a lot more users: better support.
+* minix still has a lot more users: better support.
-- it hasn't got years of testing by thousands of people, so there
+* it hasn't got years of testing by thousands of people, so there are probably quite a few bugs yet.
 are probably quite a few bugs yet.
 Then for the good things..
-- It's free (copyright by me, but freely distributable under a
+* It's free (copyright by me, but freely distributable under a
 very lenient copyright)
@@ Line 297: / Line 294: @@
-- it's fun to hack on.
+* it's fun to hack on.
-- /real/ multithreading filesystem.
+* /real/ multithreading filesystem.
-- uses the 386-features. Thus locked into the 386/486 family, but
+* uses the 386-features. Thus locked into the 386/486 family, but
 it makes things clearer when you don't have to cater to other
 chips.
-- a lot more... read my .plan.
+* a lot more... read my .plan.
-/I/ think it's better than minix, but I'm a bit prejudiced. It will
+'''I''' think it's better than minix, but I'm a bit prejudiced. It will never be the kind of professional OS that Hurd will be (in the next century or so :), but it's a nice learning tool (even more so than minix, IMHO), and it was/is fun working on it.
 <pre>
@@ Line 351: / Line 345: @@
 Still lacking:
-- init/login
+* init/login
-- rename system call
+* rename system call
-- named pipes
+* named pipes
-- symbolic links
+* symbolic links
 Well, they are all there now: init/login didn't quite make it to 0.12, and rename() was implemented as a patch somewhere between 0.12 and 0.95. Symlinks were in 0.95, but named pipes didn't make it until 0.96.
@@ Line 362: / Line 356: @@
 .12 will probably be out in January (15th or so), and will have:
-- POSIX job control (by tytso)
+* POSIX job control (by tytso)
-- VM (paging to disk)
+* VM (paging to disk)
-- Minor corrections
+* Minor corrections
 Actually, 0.12 was out January 5th, and contained major corrections. It was in fact a very stable kernel: it worked on a lot of new hardware, and there was no need for patches for a long time. 0.12 was also the kernel that "made it": that's when linux started to spread a lot faster. Earlier kernel releases were very much only for hackers: 0.12 actually worked quite well.