History of Linux

Anand vasudevanwww.kbfs.org

• Linux evolved from a project started by a university student to the robust OS it is now

• In June 1971, Richard Matthew Stallman joined MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory as a programmer where he gained popularity with the hacker community and came to be known by his now popular name RMS.

• At that time, all the programmers used to share their code freely among each other cutting across various institutions

Richard Matthew Stallman

• In 1980, with the advent of portable software - ie software that can be compiled to run on different computers, a business model emerged.

• So the companies developing the code refused to share the code with their clients and began restricting copying and redistribution of their software by copyrighting it.

• In response to this trend, Stallman, who believed in the principle that software has to be free always, founded the Free Software Foundation and in 1985, published the GNU Manifesto.

• This manifesto outlined his motivation for creating a free OS called GNU, which would be compatible with Unix.

• He along with a group of like minded programmers started work in developing the tools needed to make a complete OS

• In the same year (1985), a professor by name Andy Tanenbaum wrote a Unix like Operating system from scratch for the Intel i386 platform.

• He named it Minix.

Andy Tanenbaum

• In 1989, Stallman released the first program independent GNU General Public Licence now popularly known as GPL or copyleft.

• Now the only thing that GNU lacked was a completely free OS kernel

• In 1990, A finnish student by name Linus Torvalds studying in the University of Helsinki came into contact with Andy Tanenbaum's OS, Minix.

• Linus wanted to upgrade Minix by putting in more features and improvements.

• But he was prohibited by Tanenbaum to do so. • Then Linus decided to write his own kernel and

released it under GPL. • This kernel is now popularly known as Linux

Linus Torvalds

Tux the penguin: Linux’s Dear Logo

• The logo of Linux is a penguin• His cute logo has a very interesting history• Initially no logo was selected for Linux.

• Once Linus went to the southern hemisphere on a vacation

• There he encountered a penguin• As he tried to pat it, the penguin bit his hand. • This amusing incident led to the selection of a

penguin as the logo of Linux sometime later.

Linus Speak

• “If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at a lot of different places, just write a Unix operating system”

Thank you!