History in brief

We could say that the history of Linux originates in 1991 and has started with the work of Linus Torvalds. He  started work on Linux while he was a student at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He wanted to create a UNIX-like kernel so that he could use the same kind of operating system on his home PC that he used at school.  Linus managed to combine everything that he had learnt from the previous landmark systems into a kernel that has managed to impress the entire world.  He managed to give birth to a free terminal emulator that relied on MINIX and based on UNIX. On 25 August, he posted his famous message on the MINIX Newsgroup.

Although Torvalds stated that Linux was written for the 386 processor and probably wasn’t portable, others persisted in encouraging (and contributing to) a more portable approach in the early versions of Linux. By October 5, Linux 0.02 was released with much of the original assembly code rewritten in the C programming language, which made it possible to start porting it to other machines.

The Linux kernel was the last — and the most important — piece of code that was needed to complete a whole UNIX-like operating system under the GPL. So, when people started putting together distributions, the name Linux and not GNU is what stuck.

The non-profi t Open Source Development Labs, renamed the Linux Foundation after merging with the Free Standards Group (http://www.linuxfoundation.org), which employs Linus Torvalds, manages the direction today of Linux development efforts. Its sponsors list is like a Who’s Who of commercial Linux system and application vendors, including IBM, Red Hat, SUSE, Oracle, HP, Dell, Computer Associates, Intel, Cisco Systems, and others. The Linux Foundation’s primary charter is to protect and accelerate the growth of Linux by providing legal protection and software development standards for Linux developers.