Old School Linux Remembered, Parts 0.02 & 0.03

eldavojohn writes "Following our last history lesson of Linux 0.01, the Kernel Trap is talking about the following announcements that would lead to one of the greatest operating systems today. A great Linus quote on release 0.02 (just 19 days after 0.01): 'I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've already got minix. This is a program for hackers by a hacker. I've enjoyed [sic] doing it, and somebody might enjoy looking at it and even modifying it for their own needs. It is still small enough to understand, use and modify, and I'm looking forward to any comments you might have.'"

Comments

15 years later...

[Anonymous Coward]

and the Hurd is still just around the corner. :(

Re:15 years later...

[Penguinisto]

and the Hurd is still just around the corner. :(

Yes, but will they port Duke Nukem' Forever to it?

/P

Preservation

[Enderandrew]

I'm glad simply for the sake of history and preservation they're making these articles. I read the LKML frequently even if I don't fully understand the mechanics for the how and why the kernel operate, but I like to pretend that I do. I find this stuff rather fascinating. It is also interesting to wonder how Linux became what it is today considering its roots.

Linux today is a child of countless contributers, but it is still tied in name and perception very much to one man. I wonder if people think this is a good thing. I've often maintained that Linus is terse, but I've enjoyed that about him. If he rips into someone, I chuckle. But after this latest fiasco with Con and the schedulers, I'm wondering if this is a bad thing.

Great quote by Linus

[schmiddy]

I really enjoyed seeing the quote by Linus (this is a program for hackers by a hacker). He clearly never, ever, expected his little hobby project to catch on the way it did. Hope this gives hope and inspiration to all the OSS developers out there, scratching their own itches. Just looking back on the history of the software industry, it seems like so many tremendous ideas and businesses got started around a small hobby project by one or two smart guys: Google, Perl, Python, Linux, GNU, and so on. Remember that one man change history.

A post by Bill Gates

[kbob88]

Ran across this old post from some of my newsgroup archives:

From: William Gates [email blocked]
Subject: Costly kernel for IBM PC
Newsgroups: comp.os.cpm
Date: 5 Oct 81 05:41:06 GMT

William Henry Gates III

Do you pine for the nice days of CP/M-1.1, when men were men and wrote
their own device drivers? Do you have too much money in your pocket? Are
you much too free to do what you want with your computer? Are you
finding it frustrating when everything works on CP/M? No more rebooting your
computer every 10 minutes? Then this post might be just
for you :-)

As I mentioned a month(?) ago, I've purchased a version of QDOS for a song
and I'm busy cocking it up and I'm going to sell it to IBM (suckers) for their
new PC. It has finally reached the stage where it's completely unstable and
most of the cooler things in CP/M have been removed.
I am willing to put out the binaries, for a price, for wider distribution. It is
just version 0.02 (+1 (very small) patch already), but I've successfully
run BASIC/lunar-lander/COMMAND.COM etc under it (oh boy!).

Sources for this pet project of mine are all mine mine mine! Unless you talk
to Tim Paterson from SCP. Full kernel source is most definitely not provided, as
I have swiped a lot of code from CP/M and QDOS, and anywhere else I could find it.
The system is able to compile "as-is" on alternating Tuesdays and when the moon is
full or on a spring tide, and has been known to work. At least once. Heh.
Sources are locked away in my underground lair, I mean a shack I just bought in a
small town in Washington called Redmond.

I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". The Amiga will be
out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've already got
CP/M and the Apple ][. Well, this is a program for business people by a businessman.
It's been real work and I expect to get paid for it!
Plus hackers and students can't really create anything worthwhile.
I'm going to hire really smart kids who don't know jack about computers
and give them a lot of stock options. It won't matter if they create shit.
We'll market the crap out of this thing! Once I get the hardware vendors to bundle it,
we're golden! It is the beginning of my plan to dominate the world!
Muwhahahaha! If you have any comments, please direct them to the guy
over there holding the chair in a threatening manner.

I'm also interested in hearing from anybody who has written any of the
utilities/library functions for CP/M. I'd like to steal them, I mean embrace/extend/extinguish,
I mean purchase them for a song, so I can add them to the system. If you
send it me, it becomes mine! And I'll patent it! Drop me
a line if you are willing to let me use your code.

                                Bill

PS. to STEVE BALLMER! I'm unable to get through to you, and keep getting
"forward error - hermanmiller unknown domain" or something. I think I've got
a job for you.

PPS. to the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto -- I'm going to bury you guys!

OK, be honest... how many of you tried it?

[iroll]

You can mail me for more info. "finger torvalds at kruuna.helsinki.fi"
might tell you something too.

computer:~ iroll$ finger torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi
[kruuna.helsinki.fi]
  [Your machine computer.ph.ph.cox.net does not run identd]
[(retval = -1, errno = 145). Please ask your manager to set it up.]
Login name: torvalds In real life: Linus Torvalds
Directory: /h/9/tkol/torvalds Shell: /bin/tcsh
Never logged in.
Mail last read Sat Feb 1 15:12:10 2003
No Plan.
 
Login name: Xtorvald In real life: Linus Benedict Torvalds
Directory: /h/3/tkol/torvalds Shell: /bin/tcsh
Never logged in.
No unread mail
No Plan.
computer:~ iroll$

All it tells me is that he hasn't checked his email in 4 and a half years :P