Linus' First Linux Post, 20 Years Ago Today

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Linus' First Linux Post, 20 Years Ago Today

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday August 25, 2011 @04:08AM from the know-the-score dept.

jrepin writes "One midsummer's night, a student at the University of Helsinki posted a query to the newsgroup comp.os.minix asking, 'What would you like to see most in minix?' The student's name was Linus Torvalds, and that Usenet post was the beginning of the Linux operating system. The date was 25 August 1991, exactly 20 years ago today. In 1991 Unix had existed for about 20 years, Apple had come out with its Mac OS in 1984, and Microsoft had been flogging Windows since 1985. Torvalds' ambitions for his 'new (free) operating system' were modest. It was to be 'just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu' for IBM PC '386(486) AT clones.' He wanted to call his OS kernel 'Freax,' but a friend who ran the FTP server that hosted the software named Torvalds' source code download directory 'linux' and the name stuck."

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FIRST POST! by ilsaloving · 2011-08-25 04:13 · Score: 5, Informative

From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
Summary: small poll for my new operating system
Message-ID:
Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
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 protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never
will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have :-(.
Re:My first post by jhoegl · 2011-08-25 04:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

The influence will most likely come from outside the US, EU, China, India, or other large tech countries.
Reason being? Restrictive policies that hamper innovation, such as copyright, "method patents", and large companies afraid of competition.
It was 20 years ago today... by TeknoHog · 2011-08-25 04:29 · Score: 5, Interesting

It was twenty years ago today Col. Torvalds gave the source away. We've been going in and out of drives but we guarantee to raise uptimes. So may I introduce to you the hack you've known for all these years Col. Torvalds' Linux slash GNU Band! We're Col. Torvalds' Linux slash GNU Band, we hope you will enjoy the code. Col. Torvalds' Linux slash GNU Band, just hack and let the evening go! Col. Torvalds' Linux Col. Torvalds' Linux Col. Torvalds' Linux slash GNU Band! It's wonderful to post here, it's certainly no troll. You're such a loyal userbase, we'd like to merge your code with ours, we'd love to grep your /home. I don't really want to freeze the code, but I thought you might like to know this release is going to fix the root and we want you all to patch for good. So let me introduce to you the one and only Billy's fear Col. Torvalds' Linux slash GNU Band!

--
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