Can someone tell me where I can find the initial code, Linus Torvalds shared with hackers. I was thinking it will be a great place to learn about operating systems.
Thanks.
+3
A:
The very first kernels, starting with 0.01 are in http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/Historic/.
drhirsch
2009-11-23 21:42:51
Oh c'mon, you guys are just too tense ...
Nikolai N Fetissov
2009-11-23 21:51:25
+4
A:
It's discussed on KernelTrap. There's a good historical discussion, complete with release notes and mailing list discussions.
The linked article comes complete with this gem, which is undoubtedly what Linus looked like after release:
For the discussion, see here. For the complete Linux 0.01 release, download this and verify it with this signature.
Jed Smith
2009-11-23 21:44:26
A:
kernel.org is the repository for the Linux Kernel. Here is the "historic" section with really old code: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/Historic/
I'm not so sure old Linux code is the best way to learn about an OS. For starters, it's not an OS, it's just the kernel. Look into Minix, that would be more interesting, it was created from the ground up for educational purposes.
Matt Greer
2009-11-23 21:44:40
It's spelled "Minix". And you are right: Minix was *specifically* created so that the entire operating system could be taught in one semester in an introductory operating systems course. But make sure to get version 2, because this does no longer apply to the current version 3. Minix3 is much more complex than Minix2, as it is not designed for teaching but rather industrial real-world use.
Jörg W Mittag
2009-11-24 00:23:27
+2
A:
If you want to look at the history in a "nice" way, you could use Dave Jones's Linux-History Git repository, which includes all versions (at least all the versions that still exist, sadly some of the 0.99 versions have been lost forever) from 0.01 to 2.4.0. There is another history repository from Thomas Gleixner, which covers 2.4.0 to 2.6.12 and of course everything since 2.6.12 is available in Linus's Git repository. Linus also has a repository which contains an import of the CVS export of the BitKeeper repository from 2.5.0 to 2.6.12.
You can use Git's graft feature to glue these repositories together to get a unified view of the entire history. There are also various scripts floating around that try to make these repositories even more accurate, like this one for example.
Jörg W Mittag
2009-11-24 00:20:08
+1: That's really cool (the guy who grafted all three, at least). I'm sure the commit history of Linux lends itself to some interesting data analysis...
Jed Smith
2009-11-24 16:01:36
A:
Linux is not an OS, its a Kernel. To see the first OS you need to go back and look at GNU's OS. The GNU OS originally used the Hurd kernel but to strengthen the Open Source movement RMS and the rest chose the Linux kernel.
Recursion
2009-11-24 00:31:51
There were several linux distributions around long before GNU OS switched to the linux kernel. I recall buying slackware on 35 5 1/4" floppies back in the day.
Jeff Paquette
2009-11-24 16:05:28
Which is fine and the software package you used was of GNU. Linux is the Kernel and nothing more.As an exampleUbuntu is not Linux it is a flavour of GNU. Linux is simply the kernel and thats it. Linux is not a OS nor has it ever been. The GNU OS is the text editors, assemblers, compilers, linkers , loaders and all of the programs we use. A Human should never touch the kernel when using the OS.
Recursion
2009-11-24 17:05:41
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/Unix_history.svg/705px-Unix_history.svg.pngthis picture sums up the lineage nicely.
Recursion
2009-11-24 17:07:29