Happy 25th birthday Linux

Twenty-five years ago today, 25th August, an unknown Finnish computer science student called Linus Torvalds wrote the following email to the comp.os.minix mailing list.

Hello everybody out there using minix –

I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I’d like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

I’ve currently ported bash (1.08) and gcc (1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I’ll get something practical within a few months, and I’d like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them 🙂

Linus (torv…@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes – it’s free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have :-(.

Today Linus Torvalds is somewhat better known, having won a raft of awards, and works as a software develope. However, Linus is still involved with developing a free operating system and is the chief maintainer of its kernel.

That free operating system has come to be known in full as GNU/Linux and just Linux by most people. GNU/Linux is available in hundreds – if not more – distinct variants which are running everything from supercomputers and web servers to desktop machines and small devices running on embedded systems.

Happy birthday Linux! 🙂