The history of Linux in my opinion is very interesting for us to look at. Its history is so inspiring, involving 2 people who are far apart but have the same vision and are brought together in an operating system where the operating system multiplies and develops very rapidly. Even many smartphones use Linux (Android) as their operating system. How is the history that a non-commercial operating system can develop so rapidly. Let’s take a look together.
The Beginning of Linux History
The history of Linux is certainly inseparable from the history of previous operating systems. Before Linux, there was already an operating system developed around 1960 called Unix. Unix was developed by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs. Initially Unix was only used to help research in the lab until it was finally commercialized.
In 1984 Apple developed MacOS utilizing the XNU kernel which was based on Unix. MacOS was then used for the operating system on Macintosh computers. This is the forerunner of the current Mac Book.
On the other hand, in 1987 Professor Andrew S. Tanenbaum from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam developed the MINIX operating system for learning purposes. MINIX is simpler than Unix although the concepts are still taken from Unix. MINIX is also one of the keys to the history of Linux.
Linux development
In 1991 MINIX inspired a student at the University of Helsinki, Finland named Linus Torvalds. Linus was moved to develop his own kernel because he was not satisfied with the existing operating system at that time, so he felt the need to develop a kernel to optimize the use of his personal computer. In addition, Linus also has a vision of an open source operating system where the system can be developed by the community.
The history of Linux also cannot be separated from the history of GNU (GNU’s Not Unix) which was developed in 1983 by Richard Stallman and the GNU developer community. Stallman is a programmer from the United States and is said to be the Father of Free Software. Stallman’s greatest contribution is the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Linux and GNU relationship
In the history of Linux, the relationship between the Linux kernel and GNU is very close. Actually, GNU appeared first and had the same vision as Torvalds, namely developing an open operating system. But, GNU had a problem with its kernel which at that time used Unix-Like and that’s where Linux appeared to replace the GNU kernel. It turns out that the emergence of Linux as the GNU kernel stabilized GNU and became GNU/Linux. GNU and Linux, although different continents, but they can unite in 1 operating system. They are both driven to develop open operating systems.
Actually, most of the distros that exist today are derivatives of GNU/Linux. One example is Alpine Linux. Alpine is very lightweight and is usually used in containers.
Thus a little story about the history of Linux. Hopefully this little story gives us insight into how it used to be until linux can be like today. It turns out that behind the history of Linux there are great people who have a very extraordinary vision.
