A short history of Linux

Tumbling_Tux

CONTENTS Back: UNIXES WHICH WILL RUN ON A PC Next: IS IT REALLY THAT GOOD?	Linux started out in 1991 as a hobby project for a young Finnish university student called Linus Torvalds. Linus wanted to create a free UNIX like operating system which would run on a 386. A few years earlier, the Free Software Federation had been set up by Richard Stallman to produce tools for the GNU project. Its ultimate goal was to develop an extremely advanced kernel called the Hurd, but, in the meantime, it created a vast array of the tools necessary for that ultimate aim. Crucially, it produced an range of free and stable compilers and a set of open source versions of all the Unix tools. Torvalds' Linux proceeded apace, while the Hurd's development stalled. (It's currently in beta). The result was a re-combination of the GNU tools with the Linux kernel which they had been used to create as an operating system which is generally called Linux, but should really be called GNU Linux. Sometimes I try to call it Glinux..... Glinux is a written from scratch UNIX clone. It combines all of the features of a modern enterprise class UNIX with the ease of use (but not quite the ease of installation -- although your mileage may vary: I find Windows 98 an absolute swine to install) of Windows. It is, by comparison with Microsoft's best efforts, a ridiculously stable, free, multi-user, multi-tasking operating system, and one inherently so secure that America's National Security Agency are actually financing further development work on it. (The idea is to combine finely graduated permissions, a la NT, with the Unix permission method and Open Source and thus to eliminate the possibility of someone putting or leaving a security hole in the code). By comparison with last generation Unices like HP_UX and AIX, Glinux offers enhanced ease of use and much lower cost. Furthermore, while popular for its Intel support, Linux will run on virtually every platform from an Atari Falcon up to an IBM mainframe. It will debut on the new Cray supercomputer in 2001. Pundits suggest that soon, the only surviving Unices will be Linux, the FreeBSD family, Solaris, and, just maybe, HP_UX. But, if not quite pyric, this will be an empty victory. The next real battle will be to remove NT from the small server market and banish it to Hell, from whence it came.....

CONTENTS

Linux started out in 1991 as a hobby project for a young Finnish university student called Linus Torvalds. Linus wanted to create a free UNIX like operating system which would run on a 386.

A few years earlier, the Free Software Federation had been set up by Richard Stallman to produce tools for the GNU project. Its ultimate goal was to develop an extremely advanced kernel called the Hurd, but, in the meantime, it created a vast array of the tools necessary for that ultimate aim. Crucially, it produced an range of free and stable compilers and a set of open source versions of all the Unix tools.

Torvalds' Linux proceeded apace, while the Hurd's development stalled. (It's currently in beta). The result was a re-combination of the GNU tools with the Linux kernel which they had been used to create as an operating system which is generally called Linux, but should really be called GNU Linux. Sometimes I try to call it Glinux.....

Glinux is a written from scratch UNIX clone. It combines all of the features of a modern enterprise class UNIX with the ease of use (but not quite the ease of installation -- although your mileage may vary: I find Windows 98 an absolute swine to install) of Windows. It is, by comparison with Microsoft's best efforts, a ridiculously stable, free, multi-user, multi-tasking operating system, and one inherently so secure that America's National Security Agency are actually financing further development work on it. (The idea is to combine finely graduated permissions, a la NT, with the Unix permission method and Open Source and thus to eliminate the possibility of someone putting or leaving a security hole in the code).

By comparison with last generation Unices like HP_UX and AIX, Glinux offers enhanced ease of use and much lower cost. Furthermore, while popular for its Intel support, Linux will run on virtually every platform from an Atari Falcon up to an IBM mainframe. It will debut on the new Cray supercomputer in 2001.

Pundits suggest that soon, the only surviving Unices will be Linux, the FreeBSD family, Solaris, and, just maybe, HP_UX. But, if not quite pyric, this will be an empty victory.

The next real battle will be to remove NT from the small server market and banish it to Hell, from whence it came.....