Lets learn history of Linux. How Linux actually came about well now you know Linux is an operating system from the article. But how exactly did he start to exist.
How Linux came about – History of Linux
Well it was created by a guy named Leno’s Torvalds in 1991, when he was still a computer science student at the University of Helsinki in Finland.
Before Linus Torvalds created Linux, there was UNIX operating system and Linux is literally a clone of Unix.
What was before Linux – UNIX History
UNIX was more of closed source, more difficult and expensive to use the commercial version.
Linux was created by Linus which suggested some improvements that guys behind UNIX which obviously was rejected.
That led him to embark on the Linux project and he made it open source which means free and anyone could take the source code and update the source code, do whatever they want to do.
Where they create their own distribution of it, but it’s basically free.
So let’s go back, I like to take things from the foundation so now we know that Linux itself is actually not the started point there was something before Linux.
How was UNIX created
We need to know more about what is UNIX, So how was UNIX created?
Unix was originally created at Bell Labs, it’s a laboratory where they do industrial research and scientific development. The company that owned the laboratory at the time was AT&T corporation.
They used to call them American telephone and telegraph company. The company’s business in the 70s they provided voice video data and internet telecommunications and professional services to business consumers and government agencies.
Those guys were big and during its long history AT&T was you know at that time the world’s largest telephone company. The world’s largest cable television operator and they’re more or less like a regulated monopoly.
Well this company was created over 130 years ago they still exist today you could check them out att.com.
by the way Bell Labs today they are owned by Nokia I think they took it over since 2016. Well the guys are 88 and then who owned Bell Labs they decided to create UNIX.
Which was originally intended to be a convenient platform for programmers to develop software.
At first UNIX was not designed to be portable or for multitasking it was at a later time that they started making it more multitasking.
Multi user using a time-sharing configuration because before then the computers that existed could not be used by more than one user.
The Mainframe Computers
So let’s think about what sort of computer was existing before UNIX. The mainframe computers, yes well I’m not gonna go into the history of mainframes.
But just what you should know before UNIX was, The mainframe computers which were those huge computers.
In 1964 MIT Bell Labs and General Electric started a project had to develop an OS for the mainframe computer.
Multics – Multiplexed Information & Computing Service
They wanted eight to handle more than one user at the time and at that time.
They called it Multics but what happened to Multics?
Many they argue that Multics was a failed project. Some people don’t think it’s a failed project.
Because most of the innovations we see today, actually based on Multics but Multics on its own didn’t really see the light of the day because it failed.
The reason it failed was because it was really complex. The architecture was complex.
People really struggled to use it and gradually the programmers start working on this project.
They started getting out of the project until it remained four guys.
- Ken Thompson
- Dennis Ritchie
- Douglas McCoy
- Joe Asana
Later even two of them dropped off, remaining Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. These two then decided to rethink the whole thing.
They decided to use their experience, developing the Multics. Begin a smaller and less complex operating system using different programming language altogether.
Which was C programming originally at that point “WIND” that weren’t backed by Bell Labs, General Electric, MIT or anyone.
UNICS – UNIplexed Information & Computing Service
They were just doing their own thing, developing it on the side at that point. They didn’t want to name it Multics. The whole idea started from Multics.
They decided to name it UNI not the next with the “X” this time around is UNIX but with the “CS” (UNICS). UNiplexed Information and computing service as Multics which was multiplexed. The design for UNICS is UNiplexed.
History of Linux a Clone of UNIX by Linus Torvalds
let’s now move forward to 1991 when Linus Torvalds decided to create a clone of the UNIX operating system. Why did he even decide to do that?.
Before UNIX was expensive and it was to some extent UNIX was available for the education sector or some NGOs but privately people couldn’t use it.
It was really very expensive no one couldn’t really afford it. For programmers who can’t afford to do things like that. How would they be able to become more creative and come up with innovation.
Where they can’t even afford to have such an amazing operating system so Lionel’s decided to make a clone of the UNIX operating system and he made it FREE.
Original name of LINUX – History of Linux
Originally he didn’t even named it Linux he originally named it Freax. Which was a way to combine both free and also an illusion for Unix.
He uploaded the files, the source code for the Linux operating system he has developed the kernel. He uploaded it to the FTP server of the university of Helsinki.
The administrator of the server just named the folder as “Linux” without consulting Linus himself but later on Linus consented to the name instead okay fine.
We won’t go with Freax anymore we just call it the Linux and he later uploaded an audio guide that demonstrated how the name should be pronounced.
Today we have the largest companies in the world that run the applications on Linux not a lot of people actually talk about UNIX these days.
History to Future
Google, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, IBM, NASA and New York Stock Exchange they’re all use Linux operating system even in my country all these major telecoms companies even banks they use Linux.
Even Android, it’s a modified version of the Linux kernel
Well today there are many distributions of Linux so there’s red hats, Ubuntu, CentOS, debian, fedora, Suse and Kubuntu all of these operating systems around.
It’s just a distribution of Linux. People take the source code Linus created and they create their own version of it, they make an enhancement, they make changes, they update things and they just give it a name.
