The creation of Linux

In 1991, in Helsinki, Linus Torvalds began a project that later became the Linux kernel. It was initially a terminal emulator, which Torvalds used to access the large UNIX servers of the university. He wrote the program specifically for the hardware he was using and independent of an operating system because he wanted to use the functions of his new PC with an 80386 processor. Development was done on MINIX using the GNU C compiler, which is still the main choice for compiling Linux today (although the code can be built with other compilers, such as the Intel C Compiler).[citation needed]

As Torvalds wrote in his book Just for Fun,[9] he eventually realized that he had written an operating system kernel. On 25 August 1991, he announced this system in a Usenet posting to the newsgroup"comp.os.minix."

Hello everybody out there using minix -

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them.Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes – it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have.

—Linus Torvalds

1957Bell Labs found they needed an operating system for their computer center that at the time was running various batch jobs. The BESYS operating system was created at Bell Labs to deal with these needs.

1965Bell Labs was adopting third generation computer equipment and decided to join forces with General Electric and MIT to create Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service).

1969By April 1969, AT&T made a decision to withdraw Multics and go with GECOS. When Multics was withdrawn Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie needed to rewrite an operating system in order to play space travel on another smaller machine (a DEC PDP-7 [Programmed Data Processor 4K memory for user programs). The result was a system that a punning colleague called UNICS (UNiplexed Information and Computing Service)--an 'emasculated Multics'.

1969Summer 1969 Unix was developed.

1969Linus Torvalds is born.

1971First edition of Unix released 11/03/1971. The first edition of the "Unix PROGRAMMER'S MANUAL [by] K. Thompson [and] D. M. Ritchie." It includes over 60 commands like: b (compile B program); boot (reboot system); cat (concatenate files); chdir (change working directory);chmod (change access mode); chown (change owner); cp (copy file); ls (list directory contents); mv (move or rename file); roff (run off text); wc (get word count); who (who is one the system). The main thing missing was pipes.

1972Second edition of Unix released December 06, 1972.

1972Ritchie rewrote B and called the new language C.

1973Unix had been installed on 16 sites (all within AT&T/Western Electric); it was publically unveiled at a conference in October.

1973Third edition of Unix released February 1973

1973Forth edition of Unix released November 1973

1974Fifth edition of Unix released June 1974

1974Thompson went to UC Berkeley to teach for a year, Bill Joy arrived as a new graduate student. Frustrated with ed, Joy developed a more featured editor em.

1975Sixth edition of Unix released May 1975

1975Bourne shell is introduced begins being added onto.

19771BSD released late 1977

19782BSD released mid 1978

1979Seventh edition of Unix released January 1979

19793BSD released late 1979

1979SCO founded by Doug and Larry Michels as Unix porting and consulting company.

19804.0BSD released October 1980

1982SGI introduces IRIX.

1983SCO delivers its first packaged Unix system called SCO XENIX System V for Intel 8086 and 8088 processor-based PCs.

1983The GNU operating system is first announced by Richard Stallman September 27, 1983.

1984Ultrix 1.0 was released.

1985Eighth edition of Unix released February 1985

1985The GNU manifesto is published in the March 1985 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal. The GNU project starts a year and a half later.

1986HP-UX 1.0 released.

1986Ninth edition of Unix released September 1986

1987Sun and AT&T lay the groundwork for business computing in the next decade with an alliance to develop Unix System V Release 4.

1988HP-UX 2.0 released.

1988HP-UX 3.0 released.

1989SCO ships SCO Unix System V/386, the first volume commercial product licensed by AT&T to use the Unix System trademark.

1989HP-UX 7.0 released.

1989Tenth edition of Unix released October 1989

1990AIX short for Advanced Interactive eXecutive was first entered into the market by IBMFebruary 1990.

1991Sun unveils Solaris 2 operating environment, specially tuned for symetric multiprocessing.

1991Linux is introduced by Linus Torvalds, a student in Finland.

1991HP-UX 8.0 released.

1991BSD/386 ALPHA First code released to people outside BSDI 12/xx/1991

1992HP-UX 9.0 released.

1993NetBSD 0.8 released 04/20/1993

1993FreeBSD 1.0 released December of 1993

1994Red Hat Linux is introduced.

1994Caldera, Inc was founded in 1994 by Ransom Love and Bryan Sparks.

1994NetBSD 1.0 released 10/26/1994

1995FreeBSD 2.0 released 01/xx/1995

1995SCO acquires Unix Systems source technology business from Novell Corporation (which had acquired it from AT&T's Unix System Laboratories). SCO also acquires UnixWare 2 operating system from Novell.

1995HP-UX 10.0 released.

19954.4 BSD Lite Release 2 the true final distribution from the CSRG 06/xx/1995

1996KDE is started to be developed by Matthias Ettrich

1997HP-UX 11.0 released.

1997Caldera ships OpenLinux Standard 1.1 May 5, 1997, the second offering in Caldera's OpenLinux product line

1998IRIX 6.5 the fifth generation of SGI Unix is released July 6, 1998.

1998SCO delivers UnixWare 7 operating system.

1998Sun Solaris 7 operating system released.

1998FreeBSD 3.0 released 10/16/1998

2000FreeBSD 4.0 released 03/13/2000

2000Caldera Systems Inc. announces that Caldera Systems has entered into agreement to acquire the SCO Server Software Division and the Professional Services Division.

2001Linus Torvalds releases version 2.4 of the Linux Kernel source code on January 4th.

2001Microsoft files a trademark suit against Lindows.com in December.

2004Lindows changes it's name to Linspire April 14, 2004.

2004The first release of Ubuntu is released October 20, 2004.

• 1983: Richard Stallman creates the GNU project with the goal of creating a free operating system.

• 1989: Richard Stallman writes the first version of the GNU General Public License.

• 1991: The Linux kernel is publicly announced on 25 August by the 21 year old Finnish student Linus Benedict Torvalds.

• 1992: The Linux kernel is relicensed under the GNU GPL. The first so called “Linux distributions” are created.

• 1993: Over 100 developers work on the Linux kernel. With their assistance the kernel is adapted to the GNU environment, which creates a large spectrum of application types for Linux. The oldest currently existing Linux distribution, Slackware, is released for the first time. Later in the same year, the Debian project is established. Today it is the largest community distribution.

• 1994: In March Torvalds judges all components of the kernel to be fully matured: he releases version 1.0 of Linux. The XFree86 project contributes a graphic user interface (GUI). In this year the companies Red Hat and SUSE publish version 1.0 of their Linux distributions.

• 1995: Linux is ported to the DEC Alpha and to the Sun SPARC. Over the following years it is ported to an ever greater number of platforms.

• 1996: Version 2.0 of the Linux kernel is released. The kernel can now serve several processors at the same time, and thereby becomes a serious alternative for many companies.

• 1998: Many major companies such as IBM, Compaq and Oracle announce their support for Linux. In addition a group of programmers begins developing the graphic user interface KDE.

• 1999: A group of developers begin work on the graphic environment GNOME, which should become a free replacement for KDE, which depended on the then proprietary Qt toolkit. During the year IBM announces an extensive project for the support of Linux.

• 2004: The XFree86 team splits up and joins with the existing X Window standards body to form the X.Org Foundation, which results in a substantially faster development of theX Window Server for Linux.

• 2005: The project openSUSE begins a free distribution from Novell's community. Also the project OpenOffice.org introduces version 2.0 that now supports OASIS OpenDocument standards in October.

• 2006: Oracle releases its own distribution of Red Hat. Novell and Microsoft announce a cooperation for a better interoperability.

• 2007: Dell starts distributing laptops with Ubuntu pre-installed in them.

• 2011: Version 3.0 of the Linux kernel is released.