Linux history and Linux important people

Introduction to Linux History

The operating system started in the 1950s, when the operating system was able to run the batch program. The batch program does not require user interaction, it reads data from a file or punch card, and then outputs it to another file or printer.

The interactive operating system became popular in the early 1960s. It can not only interact, but also enable multiple users to operate the host from different terminals simultaneously. Such an operating system, known as the time-sharing operating system, is a huge challenge for batch-processing operating systems. Many people try to develop time-sharing operating systems, including some university research projects and commercial projects. There was a project called Multics, and its technology was very innovative at the time. The development of the Multics project did not go well, it spent far more than expected, but did not share much of the operating system market. Bell Labs, a development group that participated in the project, withdrew from the project. They developed their own operating system--unix after exiting.

UNIX was initially released free of charge and therefore popular in universities. Later, UNIX implemented the TCP/IP protocol stack and became a popular choice for the operating system of the earlier workstations.

In the 1990, Unix became the mainstream operating system in the server market, especially on university campuses, with UNIX hosts on many campuses and, of course, students who studied its computer systems. These students are eager to run UNIX on their computers. Unfortunately, from that point on, UNIX began to become commercialized and its prices became very expensive. The only inexpensive option is MINIX, a UNIX-like operating system with limited functionality, and the author Andrew Tanenbaum is developing it for teaching purposes.

In October 1991, Linus Torvalds (the father of Linux) approached UNIX at the University of Helsinki, hoping to run a similar operating system on his own computer. But the commercial version of UNIX was very expensive, so he started with MINIX and planned to develop a better operating system than MINIX. Soon he started his own development work. His first version of the release quickly attracted some hackers. Although the initial Linux is of little use, the addition of some hackers makes it quick to have many attractive features, and even people who are not interested in operating system development are beginning to pay attention to it.

Linux itself is just the kernel of the operating system. The kernel is the foundation on which other programs can run. It implements multitasking and hardware management, and all of the programs that users or system administrators run interactively are actually running on top of the kernel. Some of these programs are required, such as the command-line interpreter (shell), which is used for user interaction and for writing shell scripts. Linux does not develop these applications on its own, but instead uses existing free software. This reduces the amount of work required to build the development environment. In fact, he often rewrites the kernel, making it easier for those programs to run on Linux. Many important software, including the C compiler, comes from the Free Software Fund GNU project. The GNU project began in 1984 to develop a free operating system that is completely similar to UNIX. In recognition of GNU's contribution to Linux, many people refer to Linux as Gnu/linux (GNU has its own kernel).

In the 1992-1993, the Linux kernel was able to challenge all the essential features of UNIX, including TCP/IP networks, graphical interface systems (X window), and Linux also attracted many industry concerns. Some small companies started to develop and distribute Linux, with dozens of Linux user communities set up. In the 1994, Linux magazine also began to release.

Linux Kernel 1.0 was released in March 1994, and the release of the kernel goes through many development cycles until a stable version is reached.

Here are some of the big events of Linux birth:

• In 1965, Bell Labs, MIT, GE (General Electric) prepared to develop the Multics system, in order to support 300 terminal access to the host, but 1969 failed;

At that time there was no mouse, keyboard, input devices, only the card machine. Therefore, if you want to test a program, you need to insert a read paper jam into the card machine, if there is an error, you need to restart; multics:multiplexed information and Computing Service;

• In 1969, Ken Thompson (father of the C language) developed the File Server System (UNICs, the prototype of UNIX) using assembly language;

Because assembly language is dependent on hardware, it can only be used for specific hardware;

Just to transplant a "space travel" game;

• In 1973, Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson invented the C language and then wrote the UNIX kernel;

Change B language to C language, resulting in C language of the father, 90% of the code is written in C, 10% of the code is written in assembly language, so as long as the transplant to modify the 10% code can be;

• In 1977, Bill Joy of Berkeley University modified the UNIX source for his machine, called BSD (Berkeley software distribution);

Bill Joy is the founder of Sun's company;

• In 1979, UNIX released System V for personal computers;

• 1984, because the UNIX provisions "can not provide the source of students," Tanenbaum teachers to write their own compatible with the Unix Minix, for teaching;

• In 1984, Stallman started the GNU (GNU's not Unix) project and founded the FSF (Free Software Foundation).

Products: GCC, Emacs, Bash Shell, GLIBC, advocate "Free software"; GNU Software lacks an open platform to run only on UNIX; free software means that users can make any changes to the software, or even redistribute it, but always hang on to the GPL's copyright Free software can be sold, but not only to sell software, but to sell services, manuals, etc.;

• In 1985, in order to avoid the GNU developed free software by others as patent software, so create the GPL (general public License) copyright notice;

• In 1988, MIT established a research and development organization for the GUI XFree86;

• In 1991, Linus Torvalds, a graduate student at the University of Helsinki in Finland, developed a Linux kernel for 386 machines based on GCC and bash.

• 1994, Torvalds released linux-v1.0;

• In 1996, Torvalds released linux-v2.0, which identified the Linux mascot: Penguins.

The History of Unix Evolution (big family of Unix genealogy 1969-2013):

Linux Important People 1. Ken Thompson:c The father of language and the father of UNIX

2. Dennis Ritchie:c The father of language and the father of UNIX

3. Stallman: The famous hacker, the GNU founder, developed Emacs, GCC, bash shell

4. Bill JOY:BSD Developer

5. Tanenbaum:minix Developer

6. Father of Linus Torvalds:linux, University of Helsinki, Finland

Linux history and Linux important people