Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

A Historical Look At The First Linux Kernel

Posted by CowboyNeal on 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."

1 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Linus even wrote a book about it by bomanbot · · Score: 5, Informative

    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 ;-)