Slashdot Mirror
A Historical Look At The First Linux Kernel
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."
...than Gentoo using kernel 0.02 was made available.
Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. Calvin Coolidge
"When the first kernel pops, then toss in about 1/2 cup of open source developers and shake vigorously until the popping dies down. You don't want to leave it on until you hear nothing, because then it's sure to be burnt."
that that Torvalds guys project never amounted to anything useful.
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
I don't agree. There are plenty of people out there who may be interested, but just never really got around to actually looking it up. I was like that for a long time - I used Linux way before I knew anything about its beginnings. So I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who would find this interesting. And trust me, there are plenty of people out there who don't know squat about the Great War either.
To get an even deeper look into the beginnings of the Linux Kernel, I like the book that Linus wrote which is called Just for Fun - The story of an accidental revolutionary (ISBN 1-58799-080-6, google the rest).
;-)
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
I didn't know about this (that the first kernel was completely i386 specific) and consider the article interesting.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
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
My work here is dung.
He looks just like Bill Gates at that age!
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Task Mangler
This is my list of 5 most important open source software figures in the world.
.asf format, but it was in no time MPlayer supported .asf files on Linux. I can still remember what it felt like. It felt amazing - almost better than sex.
Linus Torvalds - Thanks for giving me Linux when I just couldn't live with Windows (my roots are in MS-DOS world). Computing became fun again when I loaded Suse Linux on my Pentium 200MHz 32MB computer in 1998. It was as much fun as it was back in the late 80s when I run my own BBS on my first PC.
Richard Stallman - You opened up my eyes and I was thrilled with your ideology and I found you a charismatic leader. 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.
Jordan Hubbard - Cool guy, not nerdy at all, take a look at pictures of him - you would never guess he's one of the world's leading kernel gurus. Thanks for giving us FreeBSD! Very cool OS back then when you were leading the project. You showed us all how one can become one of the world's leading gurus just by self studying hard.
Eric Raymond - Your dedication to OSS is amazing and inspiring! Your novel "Cathedral and the bazaar" is nowadays considered a legendary book and it deserves to be. It is just so amazing book! Nobody else could probably describe hackers better than Eric does in his Jargon File.
Arpad Gereoffy a.k.a. Arpi - Thanks for giving us MPlayer when there was no decent way to watch videos on Linux in 1999. Microsoft tried to dominate the video format market by introducing Windows only
So, here are my heroes, how about yours?
I have a poster in my office with all the lines of code for kernel 0.0.1. It's uber-geek. A must have for most slashdotters!
The game.
Why are there so many trolls on slashdot, I see so many negative posts lately that it's becoming a drag to even read the comments. I for one enjoyed the article.
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 it weren't for people pointing out that this is a worthwhile bit of history to read up on.
(In this particular instance, I knew already, but only because I came across an article on the same topic some time ago. Nevertheless I'm appreciating the reminder.)
Nothing to compile here. Move along.
In all seriousness, this article is one of the better linux history pieces I've seen as well. Personally, the first picture of Linus bears a striking resemblence to a young Jerry Lewis - the second one of a slumped over Dean Martin after a martini.
I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
Uhm, depends on how long you've been frequenting slashdot...
Not only that, I knew the story even before knowing slashdot. In days long gone, it was pretty much included in every Linux book you could buy. This is pretty much "required general knowledge" for anyone being in Computer Sience or IT.
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 do still read stuff about WWI, archduke included, even after so many years. In fact, your mentionaing of it just caused me to read what Wikipedia says about Franz Ferdinand.
Linux user since early January 1992.
Besides, for those too lazy to read up the history of Open Source and Linux, just watch Revolution OS. Features Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond and many more.
Richard Stallman doesn't agree with being called an "open source software figure" or with being considered part of the "open source movement". The "open source" movement is a fork of the "free software" movement started by Richard Stallman. Although "open source software" is practically identical to "free software" for just about all practical purposes, the fundamental philosophy of the Open Source Initiative differs significantly enough from the viewpoint of Stallman's Free Software Foundation (FSF) that the FSF will, if participating at all at "open source" events, put up a big "we're not part of the open source movement!" banner. A good discussion of the difference between "open source" and "free software" from the FSF's perspective is here.
How would one build this kernel? What else did Linus need to have this kernel running on his system? It would be fun to build and boot this in a VM. It's so small I can almost understand it. :)
Yup, GNU Mach was well into development BEFORE Linux was even written. This is an example why open source projects are more effective when they're driven by pragmatism and not politics.
I had no idea it was Benedict. I've not seen that elsewhere, must not be something he likes ;)
"From: Linus Benedict Torvalds [email blocked]"
"Oh, Linux will *never* have a fan base. Never. Ever. Period."
- Bill Gates
This sig left intentionally blank.
Hell, even Dennis Miller somehow became a cranky old right wing blowhard when I wasn't looking. The world has moved on.
"I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones."
...and so the userbase of said operation system remained small and unprofessional and everybody lived happily ever after.*
*to be added to "famous last words posted on Slashdot"
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.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
Ob. 'You must be new around here'
Seriously, half the time the trolls are the entertainment.
I mean, do you really give a shit about 15+ year old kernels and a goofy looking European?
Seriously.
The opposite of progress is congress
That book that Torvalds co-wrote is pretty good. I think it's called "Just for fun". Great read.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Am I the only one twisted enough to have fixed for a moment on the once perfectly innocent sentence : "Could someone please try to finger me from overseas?"... :)
never let it be said that Linus is never wrong. good thing too ;-)
...and it was almost ready for the desktop.
Hate to tell you this but GCC wasn't the first free compiler. It wasn't even the first c compile.
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.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Because I was a computer-room assistant back in college I got a couple of Unix accounts (that's what they were called) to learn and possibly help the grad students who were doing all the "cool" stuff on them (as opposed to showing a freshman how to print from WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS (F7 baby!)). The problem with the Unix machines (a SunOS and an Ultrix box) was that they both had accounting turned on and so I had $5000 of computer time to use until I had to go back and ask for more, which they actually gave only begrudgingly. I guess some departments really paid some $$$ for access.
.01 but some very pre-1.0 version) and somebody else put it on a Gateway2000 486 machine) and all of a sudden I had, along with all the other assistants, a Unix-like machine we could call our own, do whatever we want and not worry about screwing up the "real" work being done. So when it came to learning how the Unix-world worked, I learned far more on that early Linux box than either SunOS or Ultrix if only because I didn't have to deal all the accounting stuff.
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).
No, I'm not gay. I'm 100% heterosexual. I'm just a person who has the courage to show emotions and write emotionally. There's nothing sexual about it. I wish other people would have the courage to write more emotionally, even as anonymous cowards - I'm sure this world would be a better place.
Another poster already commented that if a Free C compiler did not exist, Linus would have used a proprietary one.
If the GNU toolset did not exist, Linus would have used different tools. Even today, the toolset can disappear, and the kernel can change to use something else.
Without Linux, the GNU toolset would not have the popularity it does today. It would not receive the code contributions it receives today. It would not be in quite as good of a state as it is today.
Without Linux, RMS doesn't have a Free software "poster child". With the reluctance to move to GPLv3, RMS is losing his poster child anyway, and that's the biggest cause for concern for the FSF and GPLv3.
GNU needs Linux more than Linux needs GNU.
-M
(and, appropriately, the captcha for this is "irksome", which is my impression of the "GNU/Linux" garbage)
Maybe not, but your examples don't seem to totally support that
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 PC's (for the times), on which I ran Linux...). The source code has been made available (http://www.obviously.com/dice/) but that was in 1997, so quite recently comparing with GCC. I'm not even going into the DICE licence. if RMS hadn't written GCC frankly I think Somebody would have like Matt Dillon maybe.
Sure. That can be said of anything ever done by anyone I think...
I started using it around kernel version 0.9 something, I even did some programming on the kernel and I have used Linux on at least one of my desktops since 1995, both for work and for hobby.
The first distro I actually tried (other than bootstrapping systems myself) was a Slackware found in a computer magazine.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
I got into Linux around kernel version 0.11 or so...and what a wild, strange trip it has been! I would have been even more fun to have caught the original posting by Linus...but I only had access to the newsgroups around the kernel version I mentioned.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Funny....no one in the IT dept where I work (besides me) knows shit about Linux...much less its history. No wonder nothing here works properly...
There is more to science than physics!
www.iomalfunction.blogspot.com
The same could be said in reverse. GNU could have used the BSD kernel instead of the Linux kernel, and then what? Would Linux the kernel ever have been more than a hobby toy? I guess the world will never know...
I forgot that DICE was shareware. It was a nice little compiler.
Small c wasn't for embedded systems. In 1980 an 8080 with 16k of ram was a powerful desktop!
Maybe you should look more at the history of the GCC compiler.
"GCC was started by Richard Stallman in 1985. He extended an existing compiler to compile C. The compiler originally compiled Pastel, an extended, nonportable dialect of Pascal, and was written in Pastel. It was rewritten in C by Len Tower and Stallman,[3] and released in 1987[4] as the compiler for the GNU Project, in order to have a compiler available that was free software. Its development was supervised by the Free Software Foundation.[5]"
So Stallman based his work on another free compiler. Of course the story doesn't end there.
"In 1997, a group of developers, dissatisfied with the slow pace and closed nature of official GCC development, formed a project called EGCS (Experimental/Enhanced GNU Compiler System), which merged several experimental forks into a single project forked from GCC. EGCS development subsequently proved more vigorous than GCC development, and EGCS was eventually "blessed" as the official version of GCC in April 1999."
So what we know and love as GCC is really based on EGCS because GCC was moving way too slow. Kind of like HURD. The statement that I often here that RMS wrote GCC is an exaggeration. Hie is one of the authors of GCC. If he hadn't of done it someone else would have.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
because they were the companies that made a low-cost Linux-capable machine economically feasible.
You have it backwards -- nobody really gives a crap about the kernel. They care about "Linux", but what that actually means to them is the userspace programs. Most distributions are GNU/Linux because the linux kernel is just a little bit nicer in a lot of ways such as /proc and the way devices are named, and it is slightly more efficient. You can easily build a GNU/FreeBSD distro that only experts can tell from anything else.
People use Linux for the toolchain and apps not for the kernel. People stuck on Windows install Cygwin so they have bash and all those other tools. They install OO.o, inkscape, firefox, etc. They don't install qemu in order to 'run linux'.
...only problem is all their correspondance was written in an proprietary format and theres no app to read it anymore....
That, that really grinds my gears!
Don't mind the trolls. Soldier on and keep at it. The art of writing is something that is sadly becoming lost in this age.
One of the best books I've ever read is from my wife's collection. It's a collection of love letters from World War One. Probably some of the best writing I've ever seen. Very moving stuff, and it makes us "modern" folk look like absolute idiots when it comes to the basics, like expressing yourself.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
does this Linux program run on Windows yet?
Anyone else notice the two pics of a young Linus were are linus1.gif and linus3.gif?
http://kerneltrap.org/files/linus2.gif
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...
You know, it really is a shame Lunis couldn't have been bothered to write it properly in the first place.
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.
Strictly speaking, he didn't just "sit down" and write his own compiler from scratch. He spent a lot of time searching for a free compiler that was already complete, and finally he found one. It wasn't a C compiler, so he made the necessary modifications to get it going. Also, he didn't do it by himself--Leonard Tower was working on it full time, and there were other assistants.
The Hurd debacle has a number of causes. First, it started from Mach. Mach was an attempt to build a microkernel by adding stuff to an early BSD kernel. This was a bad idea to begin with, and the end result was disappointing.
Microkernel architecture is quite hard, and if any of the initial design decisions are botched, you get a slow, ugly system. The better microkernels are commercial and proprietary, and don't have many papers on how the internals were designed. Mach has the published papers, because it was an academic system, and this results in a tendency to emulate Mach, which is generally considered to have been a botch.
UNIX-like kernels are straightforward to write. There have been many clones of UNIX, most of them forgotten.
Open source projects have trouble with difficult architectural decisions. There's a tendency in the open source world to focus on "features", and microkernels aren't about "features". They're about doing message passing, protection, and CPU dispatching really well, making it possible to do everything else outside the kernel.
It is indeed called "Just for Fun", and yes, I have it in my bookshelf. It's a great read.
Well, I still have to work in an IT department where they haven't at least heard of Linux. Actually, I've never met an IT guy that didn't at least try Linux once. Most of them have at least one Linux box.
That said, I've mostly only worked with people that have a computer science background, so my view is probably tainted.
Now I'm dreaming of OpenSolaris under the GPLv3. Goodbye Linux, Redhat, Novell and their err... strange deals.
And Linus' wisdom has been weak those last years (lots of strange, 'politic' choices). We need another benevolent dictator. This one is used up.
Gentoo GNU/OpenSolaris will make my day.
Instant Karma's gonna get you, Gonna knock you right on the head (John Lennon, 1970)
I have been an avid user of linux since 1994. i cannot remember the exact version but 1.1.13 was the one i spent most of the early days using.
The thing that will suprise most newer users is the incentive that started moving linux from a silly fun project was not its current anti M$ following. Most of that crowd at the time were supporting OS2.
The folks that used and loved Linux in those days were poor students who needed to learn UNIX for university projects but could not spend all their days in the labs on ultra expensive machines.
Being able to develop on a relativly cheep home 3 or 486 take it in to the labs and be reasonably confident it would compile and run was a godsend.
A generatipn of software engineering students came out of university feeling they at least in part owed their degrees to Linus and GNU.
I know I am one. Thank you Linus. I have never met you but owe you much beer. Yeah the free kind.
In days long gone, it was pretty much included in every Linux book you could buy.
In days longer gone, there weren't any Linux books. I bought the first one I heard of, which was published by Yggdrasil and turned out to be a huge bound volume of FAQs and Howtos. And then the Matt Welsch book came out, which helped a lot.
Them where the days when you scraped up whatever books on Unix that you could find from O'Reilly and adapted it over. 'Essential System Administration' and the X Books.
Why don't one of you old geezers tell us about the episode of RMS trying to get the compiler kit from Free Universtity (of Netherland, don't rememeber the exact name) for his use, but got pissed on instead, and he resorted to writing his own GCC.
Its true, GCC is THE MOST important component of GNU suite, even more than Emacs/LISP. Where would we be without it? Commercial UNICES stopped distributing CC as part of the basic OS long ago. On one project, I used GCC on Solaris because we didn't want to pay for SUN SDK.
I don't recall ever seeing so many 3 and 4 digit /. IDs post. Kind of an odd feeling in a geeky way.
In http://www.oldlinux.org/book.html there is a book where they comment linux 0.01 source code. The pity about it is that it's only in Chinese. Does anybody know about anything similar in english?
Yes, I used DICE in the Amiga, it was nice, no doubt about it. It's sometimes hard to tell if something that I used back in that time was "free" since the concept of free most used was generally used to refer to freeware and shareware.
:).
As for the GCC history, I do know it. One interesting thing that I aways found funny was when RMS found a " Free University Compiler" (can't remember the name of the Uni) and wrote to them to use it; the thing is, it was the University that was Free, not the compiler
Having said that, RMS *and* the FSF were instrumental in the the development of GCC as the first truely free (i.e. something GPL/BSD/MIT/ISC licenced, not neesseraly copyleft) ANSI C compiler. EGCS was a recent event (I remember it well), GCC was already widely used and loved before it, and doesn't really change the previous history of GCC or its importance... furthermore EGCS became the main GCC and its still developed as a GNU project.
As for the actual input of RMS in GCC or in other things, you are of course right in that he is one of many authors (fortunately!), and nowadays RMS doesn't really code much to my knowledge. One thing is important though: RMS *and others* did it at a time when few people were doing it, and as such bootstraped a process of common sharing and development. Hence his importance, even if he deosn't have a line of code in the current GCC. It's generally easier for people to join an already ongoing project than to start it by themselves.
You see that is what gets me. Code shareing was going on long before RMS and the GPL. Public domain software often included source code. I released source for a Virus checker and Arexx bindings for TDI Modula-2 long before I ever saw the GPL.
I even fixed a few bugs in PD software that I had the source for and sent them to the author. It was by snail mail but I did it.
Then internet is what really pushed FOSS forward. Frankly I wish RMS would do more talking and less preaching. But then I am not one of the RMS faithful. If not for RMS we would still have BSD if not GCC we would have a different free compiler. Just like if the Wright brothers hadn't built the first airplane Santos Dumont would have "and some day he did but they are full of it". If Frank Whittle hadn't built the first jet engine some one else would have. Very few people are key players in history. The real driver in FOSS development was and still is the Internet and not RMS.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
1) You are dreaming
2) It's lacking a huge (I mean HUGE) number of device drivers.
3) I don't think it's got ports to all the architectures Linux runs on.
Each of those things could change of course, but it would take time. I think it would be nice if there was a viable kernel under GPLv3. One correction: Redhat hasn't signed one of those strange deals like Novell.
while (tmp != free_list || (tmp=NULL));
/* Kids, don't try THIS at home ^^^^^. Magic */
- "I say the whole world must learn of our peaceful ways...by force!!" Bender B. Rodriguez