27 ms·

Linus Torvalds announces Linux (1991)

248 points by yurisagalov 8y ago

ulkesh 8y ago
Is there something special about today that this is being posted again?
mabbo 8y ago
> Summary: small poll for my new operating system I'm intrigued. Does the email standard actually include a 'summary' field? If so, why doesn't that still exist?
- zerohp 8y ago
  This is a usenet post, not an email. RFC 1036 includes 'Summary' as an optional field.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- macintux 8y ago
  As zerohp said, Usenet. Here's an RFC link I just chased down: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5536#section-3.2.11 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5536#section-3.2.11
- kilo_bravo_3 8y ago
  Not email, USENET. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1036 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1036 2.2.10. Summary This line should contain a brief summary of the message. It is usually used as part of a follow-up to another message. Again, it is very useful to the reader in determining whether to read the message.
myth_buster 8y ago
> I'm doing a (free) operating system (__just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu__) for 386(486) AT clones. [...] and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(. __just a hobby, won't be big and professional like X__ probably is how most of the startups get started.
- nikanj 8y ago
  Based on the pitches I’ve seen, it’s very much the opposite. ”We are about to completely upend the X industry, with a market potential of hundreds of billions”
  - LeoNatan25 8y ago
    When I hear this, My instinct is to roll my eyes. So much hyperbole in startups, it’s one of the large reasons I don’t see myself working for a startup.
    - andyana 8y ago
      Exactly. It makes me cringe. A majority of the firms looking to hire in the "Who's Hiring" thread have inflated self-worth.
      - ohithereyou 8y ago
        As a developer the company can have whatever view of itself it cares to have as long as my paycheck clears.
        andyana 8y ago
        I'm sure you can set whatever standard or lack thereof you'd like.
        Hydraulix989 8y ago
        Most engineers care about equity potential. You don't make it in the Valley on base salary alone.
        ohithereyou 8y ago
        This is why I don't work in the Valley and am only listed in entries in the Who's Hiring list that are full time remote or outside of the Valley.
empath75 8y ago
I can only imagine the first comment was someone telling him it would never work.
- tyingq 8y ago
  Nope: https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/comp.os.minix/dlNtH7RRrGA https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/comp.os.minix/dlNt... Though Usenet could get toxic at times.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    I like how the first comment muses about porting it to Amiga, and Linus reiterates that no, sorry, it's completely impossible to port. Just way too hardware-dependent, don't even bother trying.
  - znaji 8y ago
    Saying something is unfeasible or hard to do doesn't make your comment toxic.
- usefulcat 8y ago
  Actually much of usenet was still civil and quite usable in the early 90s.
  - jimjimjim 8y ago
    before the Eternal September
- coldacid 8y ago
  This was before AOL.
chiefalchemist 8y ago
<sidebar> I just finished reading the book "Here Comes Everybody" by Clay Shirky (circa 2008). In the book he mentions this very "announcement." What's fascinating, per the book, is Linux was one of the first significant byproducts (if you will) of (internet) connectivity and how that enabled easy group / team formation. In the case of Linux, its growth helped to further connectivity, etc. That is, in creating Linux, it helped spread Linux. Great problem to have ;) </sidebar> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_Everybody https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_Everybody
- tytso 8y ago
  I don't know that I would call Linux "one of the first". Usenet had been around for a long time, and there were plenty of projects that were enabled via Usenet and mailing lists. For example, perl predates Linux by four years.
  - acheron 8y ago
    It's also why NetHack (from 1987) was called "Net"Hack.
    - bch 8y ago
      And “Net”BSD. Collaborating over the Internet was novel at the time.
  - cuspycode 8y ago
    I distinctly remember when I became aware of NNTP, the new protocol that allowed Usenet to be distributed almost in real-time, using TCP/IP instead of UUCP. Electronic mail, file transfers, and remote terminals already existed using various other protocols, but seeing Usenet over the Internet made me realize that something new and exciting was about to happen (and a few years later that turned out to be Tim Berners-Lee).
  - chiefalchemist 8y ago
    Pardon me for mis-paraphrasing a 300 page book. The key I left out was that Linux went on to compete with the likes of Microsoft, and is used on a significant number of internet servers. I'm pretty sure it was one of the first to start so small and acheive so much.
tmountain 8y ago
"BTW, I'm an abusive asshole who talks down to everybody. Anybody want to join the team?" https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/06/linix_kernel_dev_who_asked_linus_torvalds_to_stop_swearing_quits_over_swearing/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/06/linix_kernel_dev_wh... https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/16/torvalds_potty_mouty_fight_back/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/16/torvalds_potty_mout... https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/11/linus_torvalds_threatens_developers_pets/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/11/linus_torvalds_thre... https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/04/torvalds_kernel_bug_rage/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/04/torvalds_kernel_bug... https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/04/linux_desktop_failure_flames/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/04/linux_desktop_failu... https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/24/linus_torvalds_rant/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/24/linus_torvalds_rant...
- bsagdiyev 8y ago
  How is that relevant/what does it add?
- RandomTisk 8y ago
  I like the guy just the way he is. Say what you feel.
jchw 8y ago
Wow, fascinating. I love the detail about probably never supporting anything other than AT hard disks and 386; isn't it funny now that Linux supports more hardware than just about damn near any operating system, free or otherwise?
- caf 8y ago
  ...and it doesn't support 386 anymore!
codeulike 8y ago
Debate Question: would Linux have done so well without the wintel monopoly/monoculture on which it spread?
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  You mean “IBM PC clone”. “Wintel” wasn't really a thing until Microsoft’s dominant consumer and business OSs were Windows, starting with Windows 95, by which point Linux had already done a lot of spreading.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    Windows 3.0 and especially 3.1 were where it took over from DOS in the business world.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      Windows 3.x required DOS 3+, it didn't replace DOS. NT and, on the consumer side 95, replaced DOS as the base OS.
      - mixmastamyk 8y ago
        That's not really an important distinction. 3.x was the first mainstream Windows.
      - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
        Win95 still booted from a modified DOS.
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        True, but that DOS and Win95 weren't separate products.
  - rwmj 8y ago
    It's because MS-DOS and to a lesser extent Windows 3 was so bad at isolating you from the hardware that all the hardware had to be identical. If MS-DOS had been more like, say, CP/M then we would have had loads of weird machines from different manufacturers isolated from the software by proprietary BIOS[1] blobs. This would have made it harder to provide a useful Linux that worked across multiple machines. [1] I mean "BIOS" in the CP/M sense of a layer that completely abstracted the hardware to the BDOS.
antpls 8y ago
Shameless plug of my related submission of yesterday : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18345058 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18345058 If someone can explain it, I'm open to new hypothesis.
- red-tea 8y ago
  Strange, why hasn't it doubled now that women can contribute to Linux?
drinchev 8y ago
Although I’ve read this probably a dozen times. What I think about this today, as I’m about to reviel my next project is that it’s so crazy how things evolved for open source. Nowadays people compete with companies and having an announcment like this usually includes : - website explaining as a pitch what is better about your software - ready to use examples and templates to support your claim - branding with a logo that makes you look more professional - issue tracker - github repository ( even mirror of yours ) - bugfree software ready for production from day one. And many more which I probably miss. Writing something “cool” nowadays is not enough to be taken from the folks seriously.
- duxup 8y ago
  And yet with all that ... I likely still won't understand what exactly the product or thing is or does. Meanwhile I understand Linus's email well enough.
  - flyrain 8y ago
    That's probably due to OS is much more well known than some random open source software.
    - HippoBaro 8y ago
      Probably more because Linus is pretty much bs-free (for the better and worse).
  - simonh 8y ago
    I can't count the number of times I've read an announcement of some OSS project, gone to the project home page, read it all and still had absolutely no idea what it was, what it did or why it might be important. It is impressive how much Linus had working at that point though. Getting bash and gcc working and a multithreaded FS is no mean feat, and is enough for other people to actually make useful contributions without excessive pain.
    - 8y ago
bluedino 8y ago
Didn’t people on usenet pay his computer off?
lolive 8y ago
One question: Being noob at OS stuff, I feel quite impressed that bash and GCC could work on the Linux that Linus built on his own. But everybody says that Linux really was something interesting as soon as a proper memory management was added to it. And that was done, but not by Linus. So, which achievement sounds to you the most impressive? Building the first Linux? Or adding that (afaiu, critical) memory management feature?
- taeric 8y ago
  I don't think there is a total ordering on impressive achievements. Both are impressive in their own ways. So, in large, it depends on what perspective you have in looking at it.
- kyberias 8y ago
  What do you think that "proper memory management" was? Linus himself implemented virtual memory support with paging to disc in Linux version 0.12 (Jan 1992). This made people to switch from Minix to Linux. Maybe you mix it up with some other important feature? X was ported to Linux by Orest Zborowski in 92. Or networking? That was not a one-man show.
- pjc50 8y ago
  That story sounds odd to me, as I've never heard it. Looking for history I found https://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/962/CS-TR-3929.pdf https://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/962/CS-TR-392... which describes the history of memory management as "unclear". I would say it really took off with userland package management - Debian in 1993 https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=comp.os.linux.development/Md3Modzg5TU/xty88y5OLaMJ https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=comp.os.linu... following SLS in 1992. To me it feels that kernel debugging is the hard part; if you're lucky you get a nice clean panic with stacktrace, but if not the machine just locks up. Or overwrites critical parts of its filesystem. Or, in some extreme cases, is bricked and will never boot again.
gjmacd 8y ago
people give Jobs and Gates a lot of credit because they focused on commercial products that were marketed to the public -- Linus, for me, is probably the single most important person to technology (software) in the last 35 years. With Linux and Git alone, it as impactful and game changing in this industry that I can think of. I cannot think of any person that's been this important to my career and my income.
- dr_teh 8y ago
  Somewhere in a cavern full of sandals, a Stallmanu is quietly weeping.
  - keketi 8y ago
    It's still GNU/Linux to me dammit!
    - mitchtbaum 8y ago
      and to me.. 'Its Still Real To Me Damn It!' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvd3aEsThbc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvd3aEsThbc
  - crazysim 8y ago
    Would there have been a GPL without Stallman?
  - mikekchar 8y ago
    I really dislike this snarky comment, but rather than down vote it, I thought I'd give an alternate view. I was around at the time that Linux was born. I remember the HURD. I had done some work on Mach while I was in university and I was hugely interested in working on the HURD. I sent email to MIB and essentially received a reply "We don't need you kid". But this is the way it was at the time. People working on GNU were used to doing things in a Cathedral fashion (to put it in ESR's terms). They had small teams where only a few trusted people had input. The rest were users, not collaborators. The internet was not common at that point and we didn't have things like distributed source repositories. Development was usually done using CVS and you had to be a core contributor to have access. You got access to source code from releases only. And while some projects had fairly regular releases, some did not. For the HURD, I think the idea was that there was no point to having regular releases because it wasn't even self hosting yet. Linus showed up and changed the world. He said, "Here's this thing I've been working on" and he didn't care who you were. If you sent him a patch, he looked at it. This was completely different from how things used to work for most projects. Linus didn't make you sign over your copyright. He didn't vet you as a core or non-core developer. He just took your patch and evaluated it on its technical merits. The whole Bazaar approach that is common today, stems from how Linus ran kernel development right from the start. It changed everything in free software development because it was just 100x better. No friction. Welcoming. Not discriminatory. But if you think RMS is sad about this state of affairs, I think you are terribly mistaken. The HURD was a failure because the world changed under them. Linus came around and showed everybody how software freedom is supposed to work in practice. This took a powerful but small group and expanded its reach to the everyday programmer. RMS's dream of a world where normal developers valued free software over proprietary software came about because of this shift -- and he's smart enough to realise it. RMS was clumsy about the whole GNU/Linux thing, but Linux only existed because GNU existed. Back in the day, the first thing I would do when I got a new Unix box was to install GNU -- because it was massively better than whatever crap came with the Unix system. Even now, despite the advances of BSD systems, I would still install GNU on top of a BSD kernel if I was running BSD. Occasionally I hear people asking the question, "If Android is running Linux, why can't I run my Linux apps on my phone?" It drives me crazy. It's because you've got an Android/Linux box instead of a GNU/Linux box. The bit you want is GNU, not Linux. This is precisely why people like RMS wanted to stress the importance of GNU in the equation. I don't agree with his approach, but it's foolish to deny the basis of the argument. Without RMS's vision, we would not be where we are today. I lived in the world where I had to use $5k per seat proprietary libraries to get anything done. I lived in the world where large corporations who built compilers told me what I was allowed to build. RMS rescued us from that. ESR gave us a vocabulary with which to talk about this stuff. He categorised the kinds of ways people approached things and allowed us to think critically about what we were doing. Linus showed us how to actually make it work. All of these people have disagreed with specific things the others have said, but they also show massive respect for one another -- for good reason. Without them, our lives as developers would be infinitely worse.
arendtio 8y ago
> It is NOT protable Made me laugh, as I don't know any other OS that runs on such a variety of hardware nowadays ;-)
- Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
  NetBSD!
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  Show HN: I Installed Linux on my Hat
protomyth 8y ago
Weirdly, every time I see this e-mail I curse AT&T and think how much time and opportunity they cost the BSDs.
LeoNatan25 8y ago
Such a humble announcement. I miss these kinds of projects. Most new projects today (by individuals or otherwise) are usually "best of", "world changing", "ground shaking", emoji filled nonsense, usually biting more than the developer(s) can handle, causing a buggy mess.
- outside1234 8y ago
  To be clear, Linux was definitely a buggy mess at the beginning and definitely more than Linus could handle, but they got through that by building community around fixing all of that.
  - LeoNatan25 8y ago
    That's fine, bugs are acceptable and expected as long as expectations are set accordingly. It seems clear from the start that the project didn't promise the world and its sister.
  - alexis_fr 8y ago
    More than he could handle? “I’ve already ported bash and gcc and it seems to work”. Who, even today, would even dare trying to do so much work in a few months?
- icebraining 8y ago
  I don't agree; most new projects I see are like this[1] - just the code, a reasonable description and some documentation. The flashy projects are probably more likely to appear on HN/Reddit, but I don't think they're at all more common. [1] https://github.com/vervallsweg/cast-web-api https://github.com/vervallsweg/cast-web-api
rv-de 8y ago
The photo shows a beer bottle and he refers to the development as "brewing". Being a home brewing enthusiast - that sure caught my attention.
tyingq 8y ago
"PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code" That's kind of interesting now. Most Linux installations today coexist with a management processor running Minix. So what was a sort of mild rivalry is now a détente.
- e12e 8y ago
  Minix had a proprietary license that forbade distributing altered copies (but not patches, but managing patches "out of tree" was unwieldy). Minix 3 is (I believe) gpl. So free of any Minix code, means, it's free software, primarily. Not really a slight against Minix, per se.
  - tyingq 8y ago
    There was still a bit of a rivalry there. Like this for example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum–Torvalds_debate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum–Torvalds_debate Minix 3 is BSD licensed.
    - e12e 8y ago
      Indeed. And so is minix 1, apparently - since 2000: https://minix1.woodhull.com/faq/mxlicense.html https://minix1.woodhull.com/faq/mxlicense.html
- znaji 8y ago
  I'd say most Linux installations today are Android mobiles. Do those have Minix too?
  - tyingq 8y ago
    No, but Android does use a different microkernel (LK) as it's bootloader. It's also likely that Google will replace Linux on Android with Fuschia, yet another microkernel OS, derived from LK.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    The Linux kernel is irrelevant for Android userspace as it isn't actually exposed in public APIs. You might access Linux syscalls and certain paths, but the only guarantee is that it will work on your own device.
rconti 8y ago
I remember when I first installed Linux and was trying to find my way around (1994ish) and I couldn't help but feel hopelessly behind, like everybody had way more experience than I did, and knew way more than I did. Funny thing was, of course, that WAS true at the time, but it wasn't a reason not to do it. Let that be a lesson to anyone who hasn't learned the lesson themselves yet!
- raldi 8y ago
  This is a great example of the Inspection Paradox, mentioned on HN earlier this week: https://allendowney.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-inspection-paradox-is-everywhere.html https://allendowney.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-inspection-para...
  - rconti 8y ago
    This is great! Thank you!
- bloopernova 8y ago
  I first tried it in late '96. Followed the instructions, got it installed on a spare machine at work, rebooted and it was working! Logged in and tried some command (I think it was "dir") I got back "bash: dir: command not found" (although I recall it as "syntax error" so my memory is fuzzy) I was taken aback. Did I really make such a huge mistake that the operating system wanted to bash me?
jonnycomputer 8y ago
this is rather inspiring. humble beginnings, mountains moved.
PopsiclePete 8y ago
Curious - what about Linux in particular made people interested in it so much as opposed to contributing to some *BSD, or Hurd? Strictly the license?
- nineteen999 8y ago
  In 1991, the BSD's as we know them today didn't exist. 386BSD - 1992 FreeBSD - 1993 NetBSD - 1993 OpenBSD - 1996 There were also ongoing lawsuits concerning AT&T code: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/386BSD#History I'm not 100% sure but from memory I don't believe the HURD (Mach-based) kernel was even bootable in 1991. I didn't see bootable HURD releases till much later in the 1990's and they were notoriously unstable.
dharma1 8y ago
Just yesterday I was watching his interview from a couple of years ago (in Finnish, sadly he doesn't do many of those any more). He credited having a fair amount of free time during his 8 years of studying at University of Helsinki being a fairly big enabler of how Linux happened (or how he had time to work on it). I found that interesting
- pimeys 8y ago
  I'm from the Helsinki University of Technology and it was not uncommon that people got their masters degree in about 10 years of studying and working simultaneously.
known 8y ago
In 1991 I printed MINIX code and was studying it
asdojasdosadsa 8y ago
"Fun fact": I just noticed that he is using an old email address, after that I believe it was changed to @cs.helsinki.fi and after @helsinki.fi " At the moment, the City of Helsinki uses the address Hel.fi, while the address Helsinki.fi belongs to the University of Helsinki."[1] [1] https://www.hel.fi/helsinki/en/administration/information/information/nic.helsinki/ https://www.hel.fi/helsinki/en/administration/information/in...

248 points by yurisagalov 8y ago

Is there something special about today that this is being posted again?

> Summary: small poll for my new operating system I'm intrigued. Does the email standard actually include a 'summary' field? If so, why doesn't that still exist?

zerohp 8y ago
This is a usenet post, not an email. RFC 1036 includes 'Summary' as an optional field.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
macintux 8y ago
As zerohp said, Usenet. Here's an RFC link I just chased down: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5536#section-3.2.11 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5536#section-3.2.11
kilo_bravo_3 8y ago
Not email, USENET. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1036 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1036 2.2.10. Summary This line should contain a brief summary of the message. It is usually used as part of a follow-up to another message. Again, it is very useful to the reader in determining whether to read the message.

myth_buster 8y ago

> I'm doing a (free) operating system (__just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu__) for 386(486) AT clones. [...] and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(. __just a hobby, won't be big and professional like X__ probably is how most of the startups get started.

nikanj 8y ago
Based on the pitches I’ve seen, it’s very much the opposite. ”We are about to completely upend the X industry, with a market potential of hundreds of billions”
- LeoNatan25 8y ago
  When I hear this, My instinct is to roll my eyes. So much hyperbole in startups, it’s one of the large reasons I don’t see myself working for a startup.
  - andyana 8y ago
    Exactly. It makes me cringe. A majority of the firms looking to hire in the "Who's Hiring" thread have inflated self-worth.
    - ohithereyou 8y ago
      As a developer the company can have whatever view of itself it cares to have as long as my paycheck clears.
      - andyana 8y ago
        I'm sure you can set whatever standard or lack thereof you'd like.
      - Hydraulix989 8y ago
        Most engineers care about equity potential. You don't make it in the Valley on base salary alone.
        ohithereyou 8y ago
        This is why I don't work in the Valley and am only listed in entries in the Who's Hiring list that are full time remote or outside of the Valley.

empath75 8y ago

I can only imagine the first comment was someone telling him it would never work.

tyingq 8y ago
Nope: https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/comp.os.minix/dlNtH7RRrGA https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/comp.os.minix/dlNt... Though Usenet could get toxic at times.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  I like how the first comment muses about porting it to Amiga, and Linus reiterates that no, sorry, it's completely impossible to port. Just way too hardware-dependent, don't even bother trying.
- znaji 8y ago
  Saying something is unfeasible or hard to do doesn't make your comment toxic.
usefulcat 8y ago
Actually much of usenet was still civil and quite usable in the early 90s.
- jimjimjim 8y ago
  before the Eternal September
coldacid 8y ago
This was before AOL.

chiefalchemist 8y ago

<sidebar> I just finished reading the book "Here Comes Everybody" by Clay Shirky (circa 2008). In the book he mentions this very "announcement." What's fascinating, per the book, is Linux was one of the first significant byproducts (if you will) of (internet) connectivity and how that enabled easy group / team formation. In the case of Linux, its growth helped to further connectivity, etc. That is, in creating Linux, it helped spread Linux. Great problem to have ;) </sidebar> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_Everybody https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_Everybody

tytso 8y ago
I don't know that I would call Linux "one of the first". Usenet had been around for a long time, and there were plenty of projects that were enabled via Usenet and mailing lists. For example, perl predates Linux by four years.
- acheron 8y ago
  It's also why NetHack (from 1987) was called "Net"Hack.
  - bch 8y ago
    And “Net”BSD. Collaborating over the Internet was novel at the time.
- cuspycode 8y ago
  I distinctly remember when I became aware of NNTP, the new protocol that allowed Usenet to be distributed almost in real-time, using TCP/IP instead of UUCP. Electronic mail, file transfers, and remote terminals already existed using various other protocols, but seeing Usenet over the Internet made me realize that something new and exciting was about to happen (and a few years later that turned out to be Tim Berners-Lee).
- chiefalchemist 8y ago
  Pardon me for mis-paraphrasing a 300 page book. The key I left out was that Linux went on to compete with the likes of Microsoft, and is used on a significant number of internet servers. I'm pretty sure it was one of the first to start so small and acheive so much.

tmountain 8y ago

"BTW, I'm an abusive asshole who talks down to everybody. Anybody want to join the team?" https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/06/linix_kernel_dev_who_asked_linus_torvalds_to_stop_swearing_quits_over_swearing/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/06/linix_kernel_dev_wh... https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/16/torvalds_potty_mouty_fight_back/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/16/torvalds_potty_mout... https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/11/linus_torvalds_threatens_developers_pets/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/11/linus_torvalds_thre... https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/04/torvalds_kernel_bug_rage/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/04/torvalds_kernel_bug... https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/04/linux_desktop_failure_flames/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/04/linux_desktop_failu... https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/24/linus_torvalds_rant/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/24/linus_torvalds_rant...

bsagdiyev 8y ago
How is that relevant/what does it add?
RandomTisk 8y ago
I like the guy just the way he is. Say what you feel.

jchw 8y ago

Wow, fascinating. I love the detail about probably never supporting anything other than AT hard disks and 386; isn't it funny now that Linux supports more hardware than just about damn near any operating system, free or otherwise?

caf 8y ago
...and it doesn't support 386 anymore!

codeulike 8y ago

Debate Question: would Linux have done so well without the wintel monopoly/monoculture on which it spread?

dragonwriter 8y ago
You mean “IBM PC clone”. “Wintel” wasn't really a thing until Microsoft’s dominant consumer and business OSs were Windows, starting with Windows 95, by which point Linux had already done a lot of spreading.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  Windows 3.0 and especially 3.1 were where it took over from DOS in the business world.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    Windows 3.x required DOS 3+, it didn't replace DOS. NT and, on the consumer side 95, replaced DOS as the base OS.
    - mixmastamyk 8y ago
      That's not really an important distinction. 3.x was the first mainstream Windows.
    - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
      Win95 still booted from a modified DOS.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        True, but that DOS and Win95 weren't separate products.
- rwmj 8y ago
  It's because MS-DOS and to a lesser extent Windows 3 was so bad at isolating you from the hardware that all the hardware had to be identical. If MS-DOS had been more like, say, CP/M then we would have had loads of weird machines from different manufacturers isolated from the software by proprietary BIOS[1] blobs. This would have made it harder to provide a useful Linux that worked across multiple machines. [1] I mean "BIOS" in the CP/M sense of a layer that completely abstracted the hardware to the BDOS.

antpls 8y ago

Shameless plug of my related submission of yesterday : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18345058 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18345058 If someone can explain it, I'm open to new hypothesis.

red-tea 8y ago
Strange, why hasn't it doubled now that women can contribute to Linux?

drinchev 8y ago

Although I’ve read this probably a dozen times. What I think about this today, as I’m about to reviel my next project is that it’s so crazy how things evolved for open source. Nowadays people compete with companies and having an announcment like this usually includes : - website explaining as a pitch what is better about your software - ready to use examples and templates to support your claim - branding with a logo that makes you look more professional - issue tracker - github repository ( even mirror of yours ) - bugfree software ready for production from day one. And many more which I probably miss. Writing something “cool” nowadays is not enough to be taken from the folks seriously.

duxup 8y ago
And yet with all that ... I likely still won't understand what exactly the product or thing is or does. Meanwhile I understand Linus's email well enough.
- flyrain 8y ago
  That's probably due to OS is much more well known than some random open source software.
  - HippoBaro 8y ago
    Probably more because Linus is pretty much bs-free (for the better and worse).
- simonh 8y ago
  I can't count the number of times I've read an announcement of some OSS project, gone to the project home page, read it all and still had absolutely no idea what it was, what it did or why it might be important. It is impressive how much Linus had working at that point though. Getting bash and gcc working and a multithreaded FS is no mean feat, and is enough for other people to actually make useful contributions without excessive pain.
  - 8y ago

bluedino 8y ago

Didn’t people on usenet pay his computer off?

lolive 8y ago

One question: Being noob at OS stuff, I feel quite impressed that bash and GCC could work on the Linux that Linus built on his own. But everybody says that Linux really was something interesting as soon as a proper memory management was added to it. And that was done, but not by Linus. So, which achievement sounds to you the most impressive? Building the first Linux? Or adding that (afaiu, critical) memory management feature?

taeric 8y ago
I don't think there is a total ordering on impressive achievements. Both are impressive in their own ways. So, in large, it depends on what perspective you have in looking at it.
kyberias 8y ago
What do you think that "proper memory management" was? Linus himself implemented virtual memory support with paging to disc in Linux version 0.12 (Jan 1992). This made people to switch from Minix to Linux. Maybe you mix it up with some other important feature? X was ported to Linux by Orest Zborowski in 92. Or networking? That was not a one-man show.
pjc50 8y ago
That story sounds odd to me, as I've never heard it. Looking for history I found https://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/962/CS-TR-3929.pdf https://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/962/CS-TR-392... which describes the history of memory management as "unclear". I would say it really took off with userland package management - Debian in 1993 https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=comp.os.linux.development/Md3Modzg5TU/xty88y5OLaMJ https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=comp.os.linu... following SLS in 1992. To me it feels that kernel debugging is the hard part; if you're lucky you get a nice clean panic with stacktrace, but if not the machine just locks up. Or overwrites critical parts of its filesystem. Or, in some extreme cases, is bricked and will never boot again.

gjmacd 8y ago

people give Jobs and Gates a lot of credit because they focused on commercial products that were marketed to the public -- Linus, for me, is probably the single most important person to technology (software) in the last 35 years. With Linux and Git alone, it as impactful and game changing in this industry that I can think of. I cannot think of any person that's been this important to my career and my income.

dr_teh 8y ago
Somewhere in a cavern full of sandals, a Stallmanu is quietly weeping.
- keketi 8y ago
  It's still GNU/Linux to me dammit!
  - mitchtbaum 8y ago
    and to me.. 'Its Still Real To Me Damn It!' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvd3aEsThbc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvd3aEsThbc
- crazysim 8y ago
  Would there have been a GPL without Stallman?
- mikekchar 8y ago
  I really dislike this snarky comment, but rather than down vote it, I thought I'd give an alternate view. I was around at the time that Linux was born. I remember the HURD. I had done some work on Mach while I was in university and I was hugely interested in working on the HURD. I sent email to MIB and essentially received a reply "We don't need you kid". But this is the way it was at the time. People working on GNU were used to doing things in a Cathedral fashion (to put it in ESR's terms). They had small teams where only a few trusted people had input. The rest were users, not collaborators. The internet was not common at that point and we didn't have things like distributed source repositories. Development was usually done using CVS and you had to be a core contributor to have access. You got access to source code from releases only. And while some projects had fairly regular releases, some did not. For the HURD, I think the idea was that there was no point to having regular releases because it wasn't even self hosting yet. Linus showed up and changed the world. He said, "Here's this thing I've been working on" and he didn't care who you were. If you sent him a patch, he looked at it. This was completely different from how things used to work for most projects. Linus didn't make you sign over your copyright. He didn't vet you as a core or non-core developer. He just took your patch and evaluated it on its technical merits. The whole Bazaar approach that is common today, stems from how Linus ran kernel development right from the start. It changed everything in free software development because it was just 100x better. No friction. Welcoming. Not discriminatory. But if you think RMS is sad about this state of affairs, I think you are terribly mistaken. The HURD was a failure because the world changed under them. Linus came around and showed everybody how software freedom is supposed to work in practice. This took a powerful but small group and expanded its reach to the everyday programmer. RMS's dream of a world where normal developers valued free software over proprietary software came about because of this shift -- and he's smart enough to realise it. RMS was clumsy about the whole GNU/Linux thing, but Linux only existed because GNU existed. Back in the day, the first thing I would do when I got a new Unix box was to install GNU -- because it was massively better than whatever crap came with the Unix system. Even now, despite the advances of BSD systems, I would still install GNU on top of a BSD kernel if I was running BSD. Occasionally I hear people asking the question, "If Android is running Linux, why can't I run my Linux apps on my phone?" It drives me crazy. It's because you've got an Android/Linux box instead of a GNU/Linux box. The bit you want is GNU, not Linux. This is precisely why people like RMS wanted to stress the importance of GNU in the equation. I don't agree with his approach, but it's foolish to deny the basis of the argument. Without RMS's vision, we would not be where we are today. I lived in the world where I had to use $5k per seat proprietary libraries to get anything done. I lived in the world where large corporations who built compilers told me what I was allowed to build. RMS rescued us from that. ESR gave us a vocabulary with which to talk about this stuff. He categorised the kinds of ways people approached things and allowed us to think critically about what we were doing. Linus showed us how to actually make it work. All of these people have disagreed with specific things the others have said, but they also show massive respect for one another -- for good reason. Without them, our lives as developers would be infinitely worse.

arendtio 8y ago

> It is NOT protable Made me laugh, as I don't know any other OS that runs on such a variety of hardware nowadays ;-)

Sir_Cmpwn 8y ago
NetBSD!
PhasmaFelis 8y ago
Show HN: I Installed Linux on my Hat

protomyth 8y ago

Weirdly, every time I see this e-mail I curse AT&T and think how much time and opportunity they cost the BSDs.

LeoNatan25 8y ago

Such a humble announcement. I miss these kinds of projects. Most new projects today (by individuals or otherwise) are usually "best of", "world changing", "ground shaking", emoji filled nonsense, usually biting more than the developer(s) can handle, causing a buggy mess.

outside1234 8y ago
To be clear, Linux was definitely a buggy mess at the beginning and definitely more than Linus could handle, but they got through that by building community around fixing all of that.
- LeoNatan25 8y ago
  That's fine, bugs are acceptable and expected as long as expectations are set accordingly. It seems clear from the start that the project didn't promise the world and its sister.
- alexis_fr 8y ago
  More than he could handle? “I’ve already ported bash and gcc and it seems to work”. Who, even today, would even dare trying to do so much work in a few months?
icebraining 8y ago
I don't agree; most new projects I see are like this[1] - just the code, a reasonable description and some documentation. The flashy projects are probably more likely to appear on HN/Reddit, but I don't think they're at all more common. [1] https://github.com/vervallsweg/cast-web-api https://github.com/vervallsweg/cast-web-api

rv-de 8y ago

The photo shows a beer bottle and he refers to the development as "brewing". Being a home brewing enthusiast - that sure caught my attention.

tyingq 8y ago

"PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code" That's kind of interesting now. Most Linux installations today coexist with a management processor running Minix. So what was a sort of mild rivalry is now a détente.

e12e 8y ago
Minix had a proprietary license that forbade distributing altered copies (but not patches, but managing patches "out of tree" was unwieldy). Minix 3 is (I believe) gpl. So free of any Minix code, means, it's free software, primarily. Not really a slight against Minix, per se.
- tyingq 8y ago
  There was still a bit of a rivalry there. Like this for example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum–Torvalds_debate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum–Torvalds_debate Minix 3 is BSD licensed.
  - e12e 8y ago
    Indeed. And so is minix 1, apparently - since 2000: https://minix1.woodhull.com/faq/mxlicense.html https://minix1.woodhull.com/faq/mxlicense.html
znaji 8y ago
I'd say most Linux installations today are Android mobiles. Do those have Minix too?
- tyingq 8y ago
  No, but Android does use a different microkernel (LK) as it's bootloader. It's also likely that Google will replace Linux on Android with Fuschia, yet another microkernel OS, derived from LK.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  The Linux kernel is irrelevant for Android userspace as it isn't actually exposed in public APIs. You might access Linux syscalls and certain paths, but the only guarantee is that it will work on your own device.

rconti 8y ago

I remember when I first installed Linux and was trying to find my way around (1994ish) and I couldn't help but feel hopelessly behind, like everybody had way more experience than I did, and knew way more than I did. Funny thing was, of course, that WAS true at the time, but it wasn't a reason not to do it. Let that be a lesson to anyone who hasn't learned the lesson themselves yet!

raldi 8y ago
This is a great example of the Inspection Paradox, mentioned on HN earlier this week: https://allendowney.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-inspection-paradox-is-everywhere.html https://allendowney.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-inspection-para...
- rconti 8y ago
  This is great! Thank you!
bloopernova 8y ago
I first tried it in late '96. Followed the instructions, got it installed on a spare machine at work, rebooted and it was working! Logged in and tried some command (I think it was "dir") I got back "bash: dir: command not found" (although I recall it as "syntax error" so my memory is fuzzy) I was taken aback. Did I really make such a huge mistake that the operating system wanted to bash me?

jonnycomputer 8y ago

this is rather inspiring. humble beginnings, mountains moved.

PopsiclePete 8y ago

Curious - what about Linux in particular made people interested in it so much as opposed to contributing to some *BSD, or Hurd? Strictly the license?

nineteen999 8y ago
In 1991, the BSD's as we know them today didn't exist. 386BSD - 1992 FreeBSD - 1993 NetBSD - 1993 OpenBSD - 1996 There were also ongoing lawsuits concerning AT&T code: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/386BSD#History I'm not 100% sure but from memory I don't believe the HURD (Mach-based) kernel was even bootable in 1991. I didn't see bootable HURD releases till much later in the 1990's and they were notoriously unstable.

dharma1 8y ago

Just yesterday I was watching his interview from a couple of years ago (in Finnish, sadly he doesn't do many of those any more). He credited having a fair amount of free time during his 8 years of studying at University of Helsinki being a fairly big enabler of how Linux happened (or how he had time to work on it). I found that interesting

pimeys 8y ago
I'm from the Helsinki University of Technology and it was not uncommon that people got their masters degree in about 10 years of studying and working simultaneously.

known 8y ago

In 1991 I printed MINIX code and was studying it

asdojasdosadsa 8y ago

"Fun fact": I just noticed that he is using an old email address, after that I believe it was changed to @cs.helsinki.fi and after @helsinki.fi " At the moment, the City of Helsinki uses the address Hel.fi, while the address Helsinki.fi belongs to the University of Helsinki."[1] [1] https://www.hel.fi/helsinki/en/administration/information/information/nic.helsinki/ https://www.hel.fi/helsinki/en/administration/information/in...