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The early days of Linux (2023)

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Re: The early days of Linux (2023)

#11

Post by arp242 »

linsomniac wrote: post #8

One thing I often think about in the early days of Linux is it's competitors. The article mentions "commercial Unix was so expensive it was easier to write your own". Which is largely true. However there is also Coherent Unix. I remember adverts for it as the full back page of so many magazines of the day, for $99. I always was on the fence about buying it. One of the big drawbacks of Coherent was that it didn't have…

Reading a review from Dec 1990[1], it doesn't seem that brilliant:

"Coherent remains true to Unix's roots and eschews local area networking, graphical user interfaces, menus, mice, and many of the other amenities that present-day DOS users and Unix users have come to expect of modern software."

It goes on to describe that "learning Unix from Coherent would be a bumpy road" and "nor could you realistically use Coherent to automate a small business".

Coherent was closed-source, so you couldn't take an imperfect incomplete system like Linux and help improve it. Linux attracted contributors early on not because Linux at the time was so great, but because people liked to work on this kind of thing.

$99 is ~$230 today. I know software used to be a lot more expensive in general (e.g. $25 for PKZIP in the late 80s), but $230 for a bare-bones OS for playing around is only "cheap" relative to Enterprise Unix™® pricing.

[1]: https://books.google.ie/books?id=JZxkO0PpksUC&pg=PT61&redir_...

Re: The early days of Linux (2023)

#13

Post by jmclnx »

linsomniac wrote: post #8

One thing I often think about in the early days of Linux is it's competitors. The article mentions "commercial Unix was so expensive it was easier to write your own". Which is largely true. However there is also Coherent Unix. I remember adverts for it as the full back page of so many magazines of the day, for $99. I always was on the fence about buying it. One of the big drawbacks of Coherent was that it didn't have…

>However there is also Coherent Unix.

I was a customer and it was very good, I use to use kermit to dial into a Sun System at work and it would call me back so I would avoid charges. That was to get USENET and general Internet access. Fun times. It is too bad they had to fold, be to be honest by 1995 the writting was on the wall,

When they folded, I went to Slackware, which I still use. Back then, Linux was changing almost daily.

Coherent had one thing that Linux could not do, but via USENET I asked and someone supplied a patch for me within days. It would allow me to use 2 monitors with 2 cards on my 386sx, a BW and a VGA just like what Coherent was able to do.

People were far more accessible back then until the fortune 500 companies got involved in the 2000s.

Re: The early days of Linux (2023)

#14

Post by [deleted] »

linsomniac wrote: post #8

One thing I often think about in the early days of Linux is it's competitors. The article mentions "commercial Unix was so expensive it was easier to write your own". Which is largely true. However there is also Coherent Unix. I remember adverts for it as the full back page of so many magazines of the day, for $99. I always was on the fence about buying it. One of the big drawbacks of Coherent was that it didn't have…

[deleted]

Re: The early days of Linux (2023)

#17

Post by ahartmetz »

jmclnx wrote: post #13
linsomniac wrote: post #8

One thing I often think about in the early days of Linux is it's competitors. The article mentions "commercial Unix was so expensive it was easier to write your own". Which is largely true. However there is also Coherent Unix. I remember adverts for it as the full back page of so many magazines of the day, for $99. I always was on the fence about buying it. One of the big drawbacks of Coherent was that it didn't have…

>However there is also Coherent Unix. I was a customer and it was very good, I use to use kermit to dial into a Sun System at work and it would call me back so I would avoid charges. That was to get USENET and general Internet access. Fun times. It is too bad they had to fold, be to be honest by 1995 the writting was on the wall, When they folded, I went to Slackware, which I still use. Back then, Linux was changing…

Yes, people were really accessible when the community was small. I remember calling, by phone, some (also German) guy about a printer problem - my Samsung printer's Epson emulation apparently wasn't good enough for my distro's Epson driver. It must have been in '98 or '99. He was either the printer guy at S.u.S.E. (name at the time) or maintaining a relevant driver. We chatted for about an hour and I remember being impressed by how willing to engage he was and by his collection of workstation-class computers. But my printer problem remained unsolved :D

Re: The early days of Linux (2023)

#18

Post by hnthrowaway0315 »

Such an inspiring read! Thanks for writing and/or sharing. One of my many future hermit projects is to hack on an early version of Linux.

------------ Please ignore just jotting down for future myself ---------------

(Actually I want to study Win NT more than Linux as it brought me good memories, but Win NT was designed as a mature product from the beginning, and even the leaked 3.5 source code is way too much for me.)

I checked the version history and 0.11 seems to be a good start. Reasons:

- There is this book (https://download.oldlinux.org/ECLK-5.0-WithCover.pdf) which follows the style of Lion's Unix v6 book and uses the 0.12 kernel as reference;

- 0.11 doesn't have a virtual memory or a virtual terminal, and they are among the software I'd like to implement;

- 0.11 does have the basic stuffs so I assume it is not too difficult to set it up with QEMU and QEMU-gdb;

The list of software to implement in mind:

- a Debugger (I'll probably use QEMU-gdb, but if I can write a simple step-in debugger maybe it makes it a bit easier to dogfood? Still too early though as there is no compiler on it)

- a Virtual Memory system (following the MIT xv6 lab, maybe a bit more advanced as I will complete the MIT xv6 labs before pursuing this venture);

- a Virtual terminal (not sure how much I can implement, maybe just a basic one with limited control sequence support);

- a USB driver (not sure if it's possible for 0.11, I have never written a driver before);

- a mouse driver (again probably too difficult for me);

- a LOT of CLI programs as warm-up. Basically simpler versions of modern ones (less switches);

- a text editor. I never liked the key layout of emacs or vim so this is going to be my own thing. I care a lot about moving caret around without using a mouse;

- a very basic GUI system. Nothing fancy, just something that can show windows and some widgets. Maybe don't even care about multiple windows. Showing one window with a menu and some buttons probably needs a lot of effort;

- a compiler/linker of a simple language (can't dogfood without an editor, a compiler, a linker and a debugger I think)

Preparations:

- I need to complete all MIT RISC xv6 labs;

- I need to figure out how to write drivers for USB and mice;

- I want to investigate how X11 and Win32 GUI were implemented and figure out the architecture;

- I need to figure out how to write terminals and text editors. There are tons of tutorials online so shouldn't be too tough;

- I need to study compiler theory, just continue reading Crafting Interpreters should be good enough;

- I need to figure out a comfortable development and debugging environment;

Re: The early days of Linux (2023)

#19

Post by klysm »

It’s a weird feeling to be young enough to never have experienced a world without Linux, but be close enough in time to its creation that many of the people involved are still around. My entire professional career has mostly revolved around it in some capacity. My entire life even since age like 12? It’s pretty crazy to think about the impact it has had on my life

Re: The early days of Linux (2023)

#20

Post by qingcharles »

hnthrowaway0315 wrote: post #18

Such an inspiring read! Thanks for writing and/or sharing. One of my many future hermit projects is to hack on an early version of Linux. ------------ Please ignore just jotting down for future myself --------------- (Actually I want to study Win NT more than Linux as it brought me good memories, but Win NT was designed as a mature product from the beginning, and even the leaked 3.5 source code is way too much for me…

I always drop this book when people talk about writing or hacking their own OS etc:

https://www.amazon.com/Developing-32-Bit-Operating-System-Cd...

Can probably find it on a shadow library. Getting something to boot on x86 is a little tricky, because IIRC the CPU comes up in real mode, so you have to create your own boot sector and bootloader before you can even execute your kernel.

That book + Linux inspired me to write my own OS in 1995. My goal was to have an OS that booted directly into a modern GUI and fitted (with basic tools) onto a single 1.4Mb floppy, which I did manage.

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