Talk:History of Linux

A note
This page is a partial derivative of this translation effort. So if you know some German you can help this article by helping to translate that one.Mike92591 02:14, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Some copy editing
I have made some changes including quite a few links, and also changed some of the wording, which might have come through the translation process in the German word order. Maybe the copyedit tag can be removed now, but I'll leave it for someone with a bit more of an eye for detail to do. Peashy 13:25, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I made a few more changes, hope you all like them. FWIW IMO that tag can come off.Tanaats 21:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Per WP:LoCE I'm removing the copyedit tag and placing the article on the proofreading queue. Tanaats 22:40, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Proofread complete
I did the proofread, added the badge, and will take this article off the "to be proofread" list. I think some questions about the article remain, including a need for better referencing. For example, the quote at the end of the "The name Linux" section has no reference, though I assume it's from Torvalds's book.

This is my first attempt knocking off an article from the proofread list; please make additional changes as necessary, and please contact me (my talk page, etc.) with any feedback. Thanks. —Beverson 21:59, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Name
I was thinking it would be helpful to change the title of this to "History of the Linux kernel" to make it more clear, because it's only a history of the kernel, and not the whole Linux (or GNU/Linux) operating system. Guyjohnston 13:45, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Linux is the correct name for this subject. Let's don't irritate the masses more than they already are. -- mms 01:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

It's supposed to be about the whole operating system (that is if we are to translate it) therefor "History of the Linux" is the correct name.Mike92591 20:23, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Errr, huh? No, it's not. What gave you that idea? Back it goes. Chris Cunningham 20:55, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Look at the first topic (the word "this" is a link). Mike92591 01:04, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

From above "It's supposed to be about the whole operating system", but the lead suggests otherwise. Does anyone know what this article is supposed to be about? And following on, what would be needed to get it to GA status? 87.114.8.169 (talk) 18:00, 1 August 2009 (UTC)


 * The "GNU/Linux naming controversy" section states, "The designation "Linux" was initially used by Torvalds only for the Linux kernel." This is clearly incorrect if you read the early messages Linus posted to comp.os.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"
 * "Linux is still in beta (although available for brave souls by ftp), and has reached the version 0.11. It's still not as comprehensive as 386-minix, but better in some respects."
 * Linus used the name 'Linux' to refer to the entire OS from the start. MFNickster (talk) 17:56, 1 January 2020 (UTC)


 * That is a good point. - Ahunt (talk) 14:44, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Duplication, and future work
The GNU stuff is irrelevant to the kernel history. Let's keep this kernel-specific.

Things I'd like to see added as the article progresses:


 * Initial external contributions
 * Minix fallout
 * First industry patches

I'd also like to see this cover the complete kernel history. As this was originally split out from another article it really only covers the early history of the kernel. By expanding it we could remove a lot of listcruft from Linux kernel. Chris Cunningham 12:20, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Copy Editing
I put the copy-edit tag back on -- there are still some German(?) words and funny word orders. I think several people should read the article and try to correct it as much as possible; especially, any person who knows enough German(?) to translate the words which are left. Goldsmitharmy 08:26, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Confusion
There seems to be quite a lot of confusion between the kernel 'Linux' and the complete operating system 'Linux' or 'GNU/Linux' on this page. It seems that it's supposed to be about the whole operating system, judging from the German article. I don't speak German, so I can't help with the translation, but I'll start doing some copy editing, and try to get rid of some of the confusion. It also looks like quite a lot of this history is repeated on the main Linux page, so a lot of that should probably be removed and just appear on this page. Guyjohnston 18:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Linux is obsolete
The first para of this section under the heading Criticism is gobbelajook. Don't know enough to fix it.--Shtove 20:21, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Through some looking around I found that gobbelajook means the excessive use of jargon to make others seem inferior. I can see what your saying although, I don't think it was done to make anyone seem inferior. I'll try to fix it up a little. Mike92591 20:44, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I was thinking of Baldrick in the TV show Blackadder - the way he used to pronounce gobbledegook (however you spell it). I didn't mean to say the wording of this article is jargon, or that it makes 'others seem inferior' - the words as translated just don't read with a clear meaning. This para is not the only one with this problem. I understand that WP editors in English are trying their best with a German article when they don't have a great grasp of German. But isn't there an issue about piecemeal (half-arsed) translation in this way? The German should be put in for Requests for translation, especially since the history of Linux is so important for an understanding of how Wikipedia etc have flourished.--Shtove 23:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

It has actually been in Requests for translation for a while now. You are certainly right about the quality of the translation, it's bad.Mike92591 00:30, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

German text in the timeline
Someone who can properly translate the German(?) towards the end of the timeline should probably do so. Thanks :) Lavid 21:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)lavid

Version history?
Needs the version history. I only found out today that Linux had gone straight from 0.03 to 0.10 - David Gerard 18:33, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Pre-history
The pre-history section is good. The environment that the kernel was born into, and the situations that lead to it being launched (and it being possible i.e. gcc) are absolutely worth a mention. I'll re-add it and review the content. --Gronky 21:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)


 * No actual justification there. The "filled a niche" angle is pure FSF propaganda; Linux wasn't meant to "fill a gap in GNU", as clearly indicated by Torvalds's distinction between Linux and GNU in his release mail. BSD is no more relevant to the discussion than the music scene of the time is. Discussion of those FSF products that Torvalds used (GCC, bash, whatever) is pertinent, as is discussion of Minix, as is discussion of the emergence of the 386/486 as a cheap, ubiquitous 32-bit workstation platform. All of these things would be great additions. Minor copyedits to Stallman essays are not. Chris Cunningham 00:53, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I sick of your stupid disregard. Before you claim that I'm some propagandist for the FSF why don't you put your stupid thought against what you know rather than just shitting stuff out of your head. Don't act as thought an agreement has been reached just because you wrote something and you think you're right. Also, I really don't give 2 shits about the FSF and, if anything those paragraph make the GNU project and Berkeley look like crap because they failed to provide a useful free kernel. All it is saying is why Linux became popular. It never says(or means) "it filled a gap in GNU" it means there wasn't anything like it and it was something people wanted. Mike92591 13:15, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The "critical gap" thing is straight off the GNU website. I'm going to work on this anyway, only because I've been swayed by this most mature of all hissy-fits. Chris Cunningham 11:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Where? And you still screwed this up! Mike92591 12:18, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I mean in spirit, not literally. Anyway, I've added some more neutral text now; will work on this more later. Chris Cunningham 12:29, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Then why didn't you say that you twit. And stop screwing this up. Mike92591 19:35, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm not arguing with that. Suffice to say it hasn't convinced me that the contentious sections need to be reverted, and if the page needs to be fully protected until some mature debate emerges on the issue then so be it. Chris Cunningham 19:45, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thumperward, when you don't listen to anyone and just repeatedly impose your view on articles by spending more time on Wikipedia than anyone else, you can't expect anyone to have any faith in the community process. You have rendered "mature debate" pointless. --Gronky 21:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * This "thumperward is a Wikipedia despot because he edits more than most" argument might work if there were reasonable belief that my editing opportunities short-circuited debate, but seeing as I myself just had this article locked for five days for the purpose of having a discussion about it I'd say that it's more likely that it's just another excuse to attempt to discredit me. Put up a reasonable argument and we'll see what happens. Chris Cunningham 22:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * You had it locked to your version. I don't know why you think that proves your good faith.  I've explained already why it's a waste of time to "put up a reasonable argument" - you don't listen.  You just use your weight of contributions to impose your preference. --Gronky 22:18, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh noes! The Wrong Version! You've been a substantial editor to WP's free software articles for far too long for this innocent ignorance schtick to work. I'm tired of it, and I'm going to publicise your tactics every time you try it. Use real arguments. Chris Cunningham 22:53, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I really don't understand Thumperward's reasoning. He doesn't think that BSD's failures have an important impacted on Linux. He thinks that certain things are just "rubbish" or "POV"(using it as an adjective) when they aren't. He just decided to move this from "History of Linux" to "History of the Linux kernel" for what ever reason. He thinks I'm some propagandist (because it apparently wasn't enough to say he disagrees and it's okay for him to make up stuff when it benefits him). He doesn't even understand his own comments and definitely doesn't understand others. He is just stupid. Also, don't give Gronky this BS about real arguments you retard. Mike92591 22:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Sticks and stones. I'm about a thousand times less likely to have permanently lost any goodwill on the project than you after this. Take it to another section and we can talk. For nwo, I imagine articles will keep getting protected at The Wrong Version while you try to circumvent policy. Chris Cunningham 23:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * That doesn't have much to do with the page so I'll assume you're done. Mike92591 20:59, 26 October 2007 (UTC)


 * (unindenting) So this was reverted again. Points of obvious contention:
 * The comment about future additions was removed.
 * There's stuff about BSD, which is only relevant to Linux insofar as Torvalds's quote that he wouldn't have bothered if GNU had been finished and at one time there was a plan for GNU to use the BSD kernel. This is a pretty weak link, all things considered.
 * The last paragraph of the added material has some problems. Firstly, "in the early 1990" isn't grammatical. The "even" in "Linux Torvalds has even said" is unnecessary and amateurish. And coming as it is after the Minix section, it looks misplaced. If we're going to use the quote, we should attach it to the GNU bit.
 * The criticism sections are unnecessary. Samizdat is given undue weight because it's bunk which didn't gain any particular media traction, and Microsoft's problem was with the OS as a whole and not the kernel. The relevant bits would be better on Linux than in here.
 * Going to start changing this in a bit. Chris Cunningham 07:52, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

History/data Bettyjolly24 (talk) 05:33, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Messed up page move
This should be fixed shortly. I don't actually disagree with the move, though of course it would have been nice if it had been discussed recently. Chris Cunningham 10:59, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Argh. We've lost the page history. Left a message for the offending janitor to restore it. Chris Cunningham 08:16, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I performed a history merge. Is everything ok now? Kusma (talk) 12:06, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Competition of Microsoft
I've just posted a message to Mike29591, asking him to fix the following errors that slipped into the "Competition of Microsoft" paragraph he seems to have added last October 18th: - Redeyed Treefrog (talk) 18:34, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Most members of the Linux Community took however left [incomprehensible] and stichelten [foreign word] the topic with jokes...
 * Among other things the magazine [which magazine?] did not publish LinuxUser, a completely seriously meant review of Windows XP under the points of criticism of a typical Linux distribution [unclear passage].
 * In the context of the Virtualisierung [foreign word] was agreed upon to improve the exchange from Office documents and to simplify the Virtualisierung [foreign word] of the Enterprise solutions in each case under the competition product as well as the integration of Linux and Windows machines into a common directory structure to simplify [incomprehensible sentence].
 * The patent protection planned at the same time that customers of an offerer for the use its software of in each case different the offerer may not be sued because of infringement of a patent. This patent protection was expanded also since non-commercial free software developers. The straight last step harvested also criticism, since it included only non-commercial developers with.[This entire passage seems to have been produced by automatic translation software: the syntax is faulty and the sentences are incomprehensible].

The following sentence from the last paragraph of "Competition from Microsoft" doesn't make any sense to me.

"In the context of the virtualization was agreed upon to improve the exchange from Office documents and to simplify the Virtualization of the Enterprise solutions in each case under the competition product as well as the integration of Linux and Windows machines into a common directory structure to simplify."

Could someone figure out what it means and fix it? PhoenixofMT (talk) 01:26, 8 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Besides competition, is it possible yet to have an objective NPOV discourse on what was learned from Microsoft? How was kernel feature parity with NT sought as Linux moved into the server market?  What ideas in Linux desktop shells were borrowed from MSFT (or Apple)?  I think this would be an interesting challenge, given the strong emotions about the topic. DonPMitchell (talk) 19:30, 23 July 2008 (UTC)


 * What ideas in desktop shells? I'm pretty sure this article is just about the kernel. Remember that aside from a few device drivers that hook into the kernel, there really is no linux software. Rather, there is UNIX software that will compile and run on any compliant system including Linux.70.198.129.193 (talk) 03:28, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I came here just because of the sentence quoted above ("In the context of the..."). The sentence is unconscionable; I'm deleting it. GrouchyDan (talk) 18:46, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Technical Development of Kernel
Is there a place where snapshots of previous Linux releases can be inspected? I assume so. I was looking for the history of technical developments in the Linux kernel and didn't find much information here. For example, when did these features appear in Linux? 1. Device driver interface 2. Dynamic linked libraries 3. Multiprocessor support 4. Virtual memory (and I recall quite a while later a big bug in VM was realized, it had never really been working because of too rapid page aging. That's worth mentioning.) 5. kernel threads (I mean preemptively scheduled threads, not user-mode coroutines) 6. asynchronous disk I/O 7. a journaling file system 8. events 9. syncrhonizatino primitives (interesting because UNIX didn't really have any at first, so how did Linux evolve some set, like semiphores appeared eventually in BSD). DonPMitchell (talk) 17:14, 23 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree there isn't enough on this subject. I was looking for, say, a list of the different release versions. In particular, I can't find much information anywhere about the pre-2.6 versions. I understand that it was considered a landmark release that changed a great deal of things, and laid the groundwork for much of the architecture that it still uses today, but beyond that vague fact I don't know much about what exactly the difference was. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.198.129.193 (talk) 03:20, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion for a minor change
I noticed couple sentences at the end of the "Events leading to creation" section that seem a litte out of place: "These factors of a 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."

I don't think Linus started with 386BSD, as per the interview with Linus when he started the Linux 386BSD was not available. Refer http://gondwanaland.com/meta/history/interview.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dhanaraj0 (talk • contribs) 13:15, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

My reasoning is that neither Torlvalds nor the Linux Project are mentioned in the article to up to that point. It's not a huge problem because Linus and Linux are introduce in the following paragraph, but it still seems kinda out of place to me. Perhaps it could be written along the lines of "These factors of a lack of a widely-adopted, free kernel provided the impetus for the creation of the Linux project." Kabukiman (talk) 17:11, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

POSIX
In "Events leading to creation" section Stallman is mentioned starting the GNU project with goal of creating POSIX-compatible system in 1983. POSIX itself was stndardized in 1988, so the goal of creating POSIX-compatible system couldn't be set in 1983. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.128.165.184 (talk) 09:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, good point. Mike92591 (talk) 22:01, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Should something be added to one of these articles about Google chrome OS?
I'm not sure which article (Linux distros, Linux history...) it belongs on but probably someone could do this.

The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. Marlasdad (talk) 17:57, 9 July 2009 (UTC)


 * There is already an article at Google Chrome OS. Keep in mind that the company has just announced that they intend to develop this new distro, they haven't done so yet. I think it could be mentioned in the higher level articles Linux, Linux distribution, once they actually do something. - Ahunt (talk) 18:38, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Compiling on Minix?
I read the line Development was done on Minix using the GNU C compiler, which is still the main choice for compiling Linux today as meaning that the main choice for compiling the Linux kernel is still GCC on Minix. I'm pretty sure that's no longer the case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.56.43.141 (talk) 07:11, 5 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Good catch - that is just poor sentence structure, as that compiler is used to compile on Linux, not on Minux. I have fixed it. - Ahunt (talk) 12:59, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Linus a student of Tanenbaum?
As far as I know Linus was never a student of Tanenbaum like the Controversy section claims. I could find no sources to back that up and in fact Tanenbaum said this in the famous comp.os.minix debate: 'Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a high grade for such a design :-)': http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.minix/msg/625c4a78723eeef5

I'll remove that claim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.78.167.76 (talk) 19:12, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

LINIX
There is a missing step in the name section. LINIX was the original version of Linus' Minix. Linux was a play on Linus' name. CD-Host (talk) 16:29, 26 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Do you have a reference that shows this? If so it can be included. - Ahunt (talk) 16:42, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

arl here
Please remove this chapter after fixing the main article.

Ari Lemmke (that's me, later on arl) has never been worker (or even co-working for Linus Torvalds) in University of Helsinki - even though one project promised couple of hours consulting payment for me as a worker in University of Helsinki, but never got any pay ... arl was working in Helsinki University of Technology (HUT).

Personally think Linux was released when Linus downloaded Linux to Funet FTP server. And that date is its birthday. After that everyone could download and read the source. That date is around 2011-09-11 ;-)

Please notice also that it was through email exchange (arl<->linus) Linus thought GPL would suit for him and not to do closed source commercial OS. That was through he realized he does not want to do commercial business - lot's of work and quite minimal market - there was quite a many unices around one could buy.

//arl

Please remove this chapter after fixing the main article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.183.132.2 (talk) 14:29, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

There seems to be very little about linux's development. The contents of this article seem to mostly about the things surrounding linux
There doesn't seem to be much in this article about the development of linux itself. When wax x windows ported? How has linux evolved? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.60.130.68 (talk) 23:42, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
 * If you have reliable sources that can be cited, then it can be added! - Ahunt (talk) 00:09, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Nils Torvalds and NSA
I've removed that claim. Whether he got the memo from Linus that NSA didn't really ask him to do anything is besides the point as Nils Torvalds is a politician and thus not a reliable source for this article. Nils claims go into his biography if necessary, but don't belong here when they are clearly contradicted by the later/non-joking statement of Linus. Someone not using his real name (talk) 01:42, 10 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree with the deletion, as the provided sources were dubious anyway. &mdash; Dsimic (talk | contribs) 02:03, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
 * If someone really finds this level of "he said he said" coverage necessary, Linus' later words are found in Mashable also cited (but not quoted) by the OMG! Ubuntu! story that was cited as source in the Wikipedia article, and also cited/quoted by Salon.com . Someone not using his real name (talk) 02:14, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Amount of Time Needed to Write First Linux
This article states that it took 8 months to write the "first Linux." Is this correct?--78.170.189.26 (talk) 12:46, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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The correct date for Linux's birthday / release day / anniversary
Over the past few years, I've increasingly noticed people announcing the anniversary of Linux on the wrong date. The confusion seems to come from the other emails and newsgroup announcements that Linus made about how he was in the process of working on Linux or that he had released it already. These are the June, July, August and October dates that have been frequently referenced recently. However, the correct date for the actual source code being released to the public on the funet.fi FTP server is September 17th, 1991. Unfortunately it seems that since that time the timestamps on the tar.gz files themselves have not been preserved on that site. You can however see the original dates by looking at the preserved dates inside the tar file itself. Running the following command will show that the most recent dates in the file are 1991-09-17: ''wget -O- ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/linux/kernel/Historic/linux-0.01.tar.gz | tar ztv | sort -k4 '' While this isn't definitive proof that he put it on the FTP site at that time, it shows that no further development from after September 17th went into the initial release, making an October release date less likely. -- Deltaray3 (talk) 14:49, 17 September 2016 (UTC)


 * The birthday of Linux was celebrated globally in 25th August, and it was widely noticed in the international news press. Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:31, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
 * In the past its birthday has been celebrated on September 17th as shown on this Slashdot article and this article to cite a few. This 2012 interview with Linus talks about the confusion. I know that some of the official celebrations took place on August 25th, but that's just one of the days that he made a pre-release announcement. Kinda like having a baby shower. Its always seemed odd to me when an article mentions Linux's anniversary and then points to an article where Linus talks about working on Linux, but its not ready yet. I don't understand why for Linux the birthday is not on the day of release like it is for other software and other things, like humans. I would think a bunch of geeks would care more about getting the correct date as pedantic as we are about everything else. I guess it could be because its harder to prove since the original timestamps in the FTP directory listing have been lost. But they are still in the signed tarball. -- Deltaray3 (talk) 12:40, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

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Off target
Much of the content on this article is arguably _not_ history :(

IMO most if not all of this info should be integrated into Linux kernel Stevebroshar (talk) 00:03, 29 May 2024 (UTC)