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The early days of Linux

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Re: The early days of Linux

#101

Post by oblio »

Dalewyn wrote: post #71
earthscienceman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. But also, as a species, we're such a fan of these narratives that lionize people like Steve jobs. A brief article written by a friend about a project from their college years is much more humanizing than anything I've read about Steve Jobs. Sure, there's the "garage beginnings" part of the story but even that is very much lionized as "grind and hustle". I think the way the myth of Steve Jobs and his impac…

Steve Jobs was one of the greatest marketers in recent history, and from that perspective he really was "totally dependent on them for [his] life and well-being". Others did the work going from zero to one, he did the work of going from one to a hundred.

The first ones put in an infinity units of effort and received maybe N units of recognition for it.

Jobs put in 100 units of effort and received N billion units of recognition for it.

Re: The early days of Linux

#102

Post by fifticon »

jononomo wrote: post #55

The fact that Linus created both Linux and Git will never cease to impress me. I might even suggest that Linus is a "ten x programmer".

I wonder the number would be somewhat larger than 10.. Still, my hands can reach the keys on a keyboard, so I won't give up..

Re: The early days of Linux

#103

Post by oblio »

jjice wrote: post #7

If you're interested in Linux history, check out Just For Fun by Linus Torvalds himself. It's written in 1999 if I recall, which is so much closer to Linux's inception than it is to today, so it's so interesting to hear thoughts and predictions about Linux at the time. Super cheap book. I think I got my copy for $4 on ebay.

For a more generic FOSS perspective, https://www.amazon.com/Rebel-Code-Linux-Source-Revolution/dp... is a very nice read.

Cristi Vlăsceanu, if you're around, many thanks for the books. The OS one I gave to a Poli student that was very passionate about OSes.

Re: The early days of Linux

#104

Post by zabzonk »

b112 wrote: post #15
zabzonk wrote: post #5

i started using linux in the mid-90s, after using commercial unices for the previous 10 years. i was amazed at how well-engineered it all was. i think i was using slack - too long ago to remember. thanks linus.

The only guy I knew who used commercial unixes at home back then, lived in Seattle and loved to play games. Even got his girlfriend interested in them, which was unusual at the time. Come to think of it, I remember one day some government goons took him away, right around that big nuclear scare. And no one has heard from him ever since. Hmm.

and your point is ... what?

Re: The early days of Linux

#105

Post by bullion9872 »

unforgivenpasta wrote: post #90

> We decided to release version 1.0 and arranged a release event. The Finnish computer press was invited, and a TV station even sent a crew. Was this ever aired? Was it recorded? If so, is there a public archive of it somewhere?

Found this after quick search https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaDpjlFpbfo

Re: The early days of Linux

#106

Post by gabereiser »

This is great. A few years later I would stumble upon this new operating system. I was hooked. I spent all my time tinkering with it, building with it, so much so that I ignored the outside world around me. Case in point, me, ignoring the world around me [1]. I was maybe 13 at the time. 1996 I think. Man, the wonder of the unknown and the potential of the future… :D

[1]: https://pasteboard.co/yOQrjCR8OsZh.jpg

Re: The early days of Linux

#107

Post by quijoteuniv »

earthscienceman wrote: post #12

I absolutely love articles like this that humanize the creation of such a megalithic thing. It was just someone who was curious enough to tinker for a while on a project who was hanging out with friends. I love it. I think it would be hard to overstate the impact of Linux and free software. I do climate science research and its pretty obvious that every single paper that contains an important finding was built on FOS…

This & open source give me hope in humankind. Almost drop a tear reading the article.

Re: The early days of Linux

#108

Post by v7n »

unforgivenpasta wrote: post #90

> We decided to release version 1.0 and arranged a release event. The Finnish computer press was invited, and a TV station even sent a crew. Was this ever aired? Was it recorded? If so, is there a public archive of it somewhere?

Perhaps you missed the words "release event" being a hyperlink to this rather short clip on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaDpjlFpbfo

Edit: Decided to add a link to a Finnish-language 27 minute documentary of Linus (21.1.1998) so this isn't just a duplicate comment.

https://areena.yle.fi/1-50115178

Re: The early days of Linux

#109

Post by lb1lf »

earthscienceman wrote: post #12

I absolutely love articles like this that humanize the creation of such a megalithic thing. It was just someone who was curious enough to tinker for a while on a project who was hanging out with friends. I love it. I think it would be hard to overstate the impact of Linux and free software. I do climate science research and its pretty obvious that every single paper that contains an important finding was built on FOS…

   >> One day, Linus accidentally attempted to use his hard drive to dial the university, resulting in his master boot sector starting with "ATDT" and the university modem-pool phone number. After recovering from this, he implemented file permissions in his kernel.
Now this nugget made my day. I love Finnish deadpan humor.

Re: The early days of Linux

#110

Post by teleforce »

bashtoni wrote: post #100
teleforce wrote: post #97

It's strange that Lars did not mention about Yggdrasil Linux, it's probably the earliest Linux distro even before Slackware existed [1][2]. According to the article, 1992 is the year of Linux desktop by the introduction of X11 system but every year since then is allegedly the year of Linux on the desktop. Anyway this article has taken me back down memory lane, thanks Lars. 1) The Very 1st Linux OS Ever Made? https://…

MCC interim was the first Linux distribution. Its creator had to implement what we would consider pretty fundamental tools, including fdisk. Yggdrasil was released half a year or so later, and included most of these tools. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCC_Interim_Linux

Yes, I stand corrected.

In fact my friend who studied in UMIST (now part of University of Manchester) introduced me to Linux. The fact that Manchester Computing Centre (MCC) is based inside UoM probably make it accessible to him because at the time Linux was installed from floppies.

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