Events leading to creation
Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie
After AT&T had dropped out
of the Multics project, the Unix operating system was
conceived and implemented by Ken Thompson andDennis Ritchie (both
of AT&T Bell Laboratories) in 1969 and first released in 1970. Later
they rewrote it in a new programming language,C, to make it portable. The
availability and portability of Unix caused it to be widely
adopted, copied and modified by academic institutions and businesses.
In 1983, Richard Stallman started
the GNU project with the goal of creating a free UNIX-like operating
system.[2] As part of this work, he wrote the GNU General Public
License (GPL). By the early 1990s there was almost enough available
software to create a full operating system. However, the GNU kernel,
called Hurd, failed to attract enough attention from developers, leaving
GNU incomplete.
Another free operating system project,
initially released in 1977, was the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD).
This was developed by UC Berkeley from the 6th edition of Unix from
AT&T. Since BSD contained Unix code that AT&T owned, AT&T filed a
lawsuit (USL v. BSDi) in the early 1990s against the University of California.
This strongly limited the development and adoption of BSD.[3][4]
In 1985, Intel released
the 80386, the first x86 microprocessor with 32-bit instruction
set and MMU with paging.[5]
MINIX, a Unix-like system intended for
academic use, was released by Andrew S. Tanenbaum to exemplify the
principles conveyed in his textbook, Operating Systems: Design and
Implementation in 1987. While source code for the system was available,
modification and redistribution were restricted. In addition, MINIX's 16-bit design
was not well adapted to the 32-bit features of the increasingly cheap
and popular Intel 386 architecture for personal computers. In the
early nineties a commercial UNIX operating system for Intel 386 PCs
was too expensive for private users.[7]
These factors and the lack of a widely
adopted, free kernel provided the impetus for Torvalds's starting his
project. He has stated that if either the GNU or 386BSD kernels
were available at the time, he likely would not have written his own.
The creation of Linux
Linus Torvalds in 2002
In 1991, in Helsinki, Linus Torvalds
began a project that later became the Linux kernel. He wrote the program
specifically for the hardware he was using and independent of an operating
system because he wanted to use the functions of his new PC with an 80386
processor. Development was done on MINIX using the GNU C
compiler. The GNU C Compiler is still the main choice for compiling Linux
today. The code however, can be built with other compilers, such as the Intel
C Compiler.
As Torvalds wrote in his book Just
for Fun,[10] he eventually ended up writing an operating system kernel. On
25 August 1991, he announced this system in a Usenet posting to
the newsgroup "comp.os.minix.":[11]
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 portable (uses 386 task switching etc),
and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's
all I have :-(.
—Linus Torvalds[12]
Naming[edit]
Floppy discs holding a very early
version of Linux
Linus Torvalds had wanted to call his
invention Freax, a portmanteau of "free",
"freak", and "x" (as an allusion to Unix). During the start
of his work on the system, he stored the files under the name "Freax"
for about half of a year. Torvalds had already considered the name "Linux,"
but initially dismissed it as too egotistical.[10]
In order to facilitate development, the
files were uploaded to the FTP server (ftp.funet.fi) of FUNET in
September 1991. Ari Lemmke, Torvald's coworker at the Helsinki
University of Technology (HUT) who was one of the volunteer administrators
for the FTP server at the time, did not think that "Freax" was a good
name. So, he named the project "Linux" on the server without
consulting Torvalds.[10] Later, however, Torvalds consented to
"Linux".
To demonstrate how the word
"Linux" should be pronounced ([ˈliːnɵks]), Torvalds included an audio
guide (
listen (help·info)) with the
kernel source code.[13]
listen (help·info)) with the
kernel source code.[13]
Linux under the GNU GPL[edit]
Torvalds first published the Linux kernel
under its own licence, which had a restriction on commercial activity.
The software to use with the kernel was
software developed as part of the GNU project licensed under
the GNU General Public License, a free software license. The
first release of the Linux kernel, Linux 0.01, included a binary of GNU's Bash
shell.[14]
In the "Notes for linux release
0.01", Torvalds lists the GNU software that is required to run Linux:[14]
Sadly, a kernel by itself gets you
nowhere. To get a working system you need a shell, compilers, a library etc.
These are separate parts and may be under a stricter (or even looser)
copyright. Most of the tools used with linux are GNU software and are
under the GNU copyleft. These tools aren't in the distribution - ask me
(or GNU) for more info.[14]
In 1992, he suggested releasing the kernel
under the GNU General Public License. He first announced this decision in
the release notes of version 0.12.[15] In the middle of December 1992 he
published version 0.99 using the GNU GPL.[16]
Linux and GNU developers worked to
integrate GNU components with Linux to make a fully functional and free
operating system.[17]
Torvalds has stated, “making Linux GPL'd
was definitely the best thing I ever did.”[18]
GNU/Linux naming controversy
For more details on this topic, see GNU/Linux
naming controversy.
The designation "Linux" was
initially used by Torvalds only for the Linux kernel. The kernel was, however,
frequently used together with other software, especially that of the GNU
project. This quickly became the most popular adoption of GNU software. In June
1994 in GNU's bulletin, Linux was referred to as a "free UNIX clone",
and the Debian project began calling its product Debian
GNU/Linux. In May 1996, Richard Stallman published the editor Emacs 19.31,
in which the type of system was renamed from Linux to Lignux. This spelling was
intended to refer specifically to the combination of GNU and Linux, but this
was soon abandoned in favor of "GNU/Linux".[19]
This name garnered varying reactions. The
GNU and Debian projects use the name, although most people simply use the term
"Linux" to refer to the combination.[20]
Official mascot[edit]
Main article: Tux
Tux
Torvalds announced in 1996 that there
would be a mascot for Linux, a penguin. This was due to the fact when they were
about to select the mascot, Torvalds did mention he was bitten by a Little
Penguin (Eudyptula minor, J. R. Forster 1781) on a visit to the National
Zoo & Aquarium, Canberra, Australia. Larry Ewingprovided the original
draft of today's well known mascot based on this description. The name Tux was
suggested by James Hughes as derivative of Torvalds' UniX.[10]
New development
Kernel
There are many other well-known
maintainers for the Linux kernel beside Torvalds such as Alan Cox and Marcelo
Tosatti. Cox maintained version 2.2 of the kernel until it was discontinued at
the end of 2003. Likewise, Tosatti maintained version 2.4 of the kernel until
the middle of 2006. Andrew Morton steers the development and
administration of the 2.6 kernel, which was released on 18 December 2003 in its
first stable incarnation. Also the older branches are still constantly improved.
Community
The largest part of the work on Linux is
performed by the community: the thousands of programmers around the world that
use Linux and send their suggested improvements to the maintainers. Various
companies have also helped not only with the development of the Kernels, but
also with the writing of the body of auxiliary software, which is distributed
with Linux.
It is released both by organized projects
such as Debian, and by projects connected directly with companies such
as Fedora and openSUSE. The members of the respective projects
meet at various conferences and fairs, in order to exchange ideas. One of the
largest of these fairs is the LinuxTag in Germany (currently
in Berlin), where about 10,000 people assemble annually, in order to
discuss Linux and the projects associated with it.
Open Source Development Lab and Linux
Foundation[edit]
The Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) was
created in the year 2000, and is an independent nonprofit organization which
pursues the goal of optimizing Linux for employment in data centers and in the
carrier range. It served as sponsored working premises for Linus Torvalds and
also for Andrew Morton (until the middle of 2006 when Morton transferred to
Google). Torvalds works full-time on behalf of OSDL, developing the Linux
Kernels.
On 22 January 2007, OSDL and the Free
Standards Group merged to form The Linux Foundation, narrowing their
respective focuses to that of promoting GNU/Linux in competition
with Microsoft Windows.[21]
Companies
Despite being open-source, a few companies
profit from Linux. These companies, most of which are also members of the Open
Source Development Lab, invest substantial resources into the advancement and
development of Linux, in order to make it suited for various application areas.
This includes hardware donations for driver developers, cash donations for
people who develop Linux software, and the employment of Linux programmers at
the company. Some examples are Dell, IBM and HP, which use Linux on their own servers,
and Red Hat, which maintains its own distribution. Likewise Digia supports
Linux by the development and LGPL licensing of Qt, which makes the development
of KDEpossible, and by employing some of the X and KDE developers.
Desktop environments
KDE was the first advanced desktop
environment, but it was controversial due to the then-proprietary Qt toolkit
used.[22] GNOME was developed as an alternative due to licensing
questions.[22] The two use a different underlying toolkit and thus involve
different programming, and are sponsored by two different groups, German
nonprofit KDE e.V. and the United States nonprofit GNOME
Foundation.
As of April 2007, one journalist estimated
that KDE had 65% of market share versus 26% for GNOME.[22] In January
2008, KDE 4 was released prematurely with bugs, driving users to GNOME.[23] GNOME
3, released in April 2011, was called an "unholy mess" by Linus
Torvalds due to its controversial design changes.[24]
Dissatisfaction with GNOME 3 led to a
fork, Cinnamon, which is developed primarily by Linux Mint developer
Clement LeFebvre. This restores the more traditional desktop environment with
marginal improvements.
The relatively well-funded distribution
Ubuntu designed (and released in June 2011) another user interface called Unity which
is radically different from the conventional desktop environment and has been
criticized as having various flaws[25] and lacking configurability.[26] The
motivation was a single desktop environment for desktops and tablets,[citation
needed] although as of November 2012 Unity has yet to be used widely in
tablets. However, the smartphone and tablet version of Ubuntu and its
Unity interface was unveiled by Canonical Ltd in January 2013.
