Development of Linux

1986 Linus (Benedict) Torvalds programmed its own driver for its floppy controller. He learned intensively hardware programming and became better knowledge about his Sinclair computer with Q-DOS. Additionally he provided his own programmer Tools. When 1991 the 386-Intel PC became modern, he got one PC to learn about the programming of 386 CPUs. As operating system the Unix derivate MINIX was used, he has know Unix already since 1990 from its university. Minix was developed by Andrew Tanenbaum as learning system and was particularly used at universities. The written book from A. Tanenbaum "Operating Systems: Design and Implementation" is about operating system concepts and Minix, which became the favourite book from Torvalds. The source code of Minix is open source, any modifications are bound to the license conditions. Because he did not find the provided terminal emulator program in Minix acceptable, he began his project to code his own and better terminal emulator with more functions on hardware level. In addition he programmed his own drivers for the data medium access and the file system and others in assembler. With these functions the software becames the ability to upload and download from the Internet. In the line of the development terminal program got more and more functions so he made the decision to enhance it to a operating system. Its operating system was derivated from concepts of Minix but completely written from scratch beginning at the Kernel. After long programming evenings it was so far. On 17th September 1991 the operating system Freax version 0.01 was finished, as development environment was used still the MINIX for 386 CPUs. It contained already the GNU Shell bash and the GNU C-compiler GCC from Richard Stallman, which counts to the standard programs for the meantime named operating system Linux. Because Linux profits particularly from the GNU software pool, it is generally called GNU/Linux. After approximately 6 months Freax was renamed in Linux. Already on 3th July 1991 he had asked for the POSIX standards in the minix-newsgroup, he presented on 25th August 1991 his project in public and asked for suggestions for further functions and extensions. The source code was made freely accessible by ftp. To communicate with other programmers and interested people he used the Maylinglist "Linux-activists@niksula.hut.fi" and the newsgroup "comp.os.minix" for contact and progress messages. Later its own Maylinglist and forums were created. In the line of the development he received wished postcards from all over the world with thankfully words. The project has got a strong self-dynamic in the InterNet and was maintained by the community. The rights at the brand name Linux was transferred after a legal incident to Linus Torvalds and later distributed on several persons to ensure the further development and to avoid a "takeover by enemys". The symbol figure "Tux the penguin" was selected because Torvalds was bitten by a

penguin in a Finnish zoo. The self-willed animal had impressed him in such a way, which it gave to its operating system this guidance figure. At the beginning Linux doesn`t contain any installation script or graphical installation menu. To make the installation from Linux easier and automated Owen LeBlanc from the Manchester Computing Centre published the MCC Interim release, this was the key for the automated installation of today's distributions.

File structure (first level) of Linux and derivatives / - Root-Directory /bin - system tools /boot - kernel, bootmanager /cdrom - Mount-Point for CD-ROM drives (optional) /dev - device files /etc - configuration files /floppy - Mount-Point for floppy drive(optional) /home - user directory /lib - shared Libraries /mnt - mount Verzeichnis /opt - additional software, GUI /proc - system informations /root - root user directory /sbin - system programs for root /tmp - temporary files /usr - applications for the GUI, source code (kernel) /var - various files, log files Small reference of shell commands mount - Mounts a filesystem umount - Unmounts a filesystem fdisk - Used to create or delete of partitions on a hard drive hdparm - Get/set various hard disk geometry parameters rm - Remove files ls - List the contents of every subdirectory dir - List the current directory content cd - Change the current directory dd - Bit based disk or data copy ps - shows active processes df - Shows the free space of any filesystem find - Search for a file mkdir - Make a directory mv - Move or rename a file

vi - Editor with a command mode and text mode killall - Kill processes by name ifconfig - Configure a network interface netstat - Information about the network connections mc - File manager with visual shell