Linux has turned 29 years today old and we are looking back at its incredible journey and how things started. It has now become world’s most famous project with millions of lines of code.
Back then, Linux creator Linus Torvalds sent out a message asking for help from fellow developers. He mentioned a new operating system that he was developing just as a hobby. He hoped that it won’t be big or professional link gnu. Interestingly, today, we can count Linux among one of the most professional software projects.
Here’s the complete message, which is also the first Linux announcement from Linus Torvalds:
https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.minix/c/dlNtH7RRrGA/m/SwRavCzVE7gJ
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 (torv…@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 :-(.