Summary
LINUX is a free UNIX-like operating system that runs onIntel/Cyrix/AMD Pentium, Intel 80x86, Motorola/IBM PowerPC, Motorola 680x0, SunSPARC, SGI MIPS, DEC Alpha, HP PA-RISC, DEC VAX, ARM, API 1000+, and CL-PS7110.
Linux is named for Linus Torvalds, a Finnish engineeringstudent who created the original kernel. Linus didn’t want to use Windows andsearched for an inexpensive alternative that would run on low cost IBM PCclones. The GNU open source project was progressing very slowly because ofpolitical infighting and an attempt to make the same operating system run thesame on numerous processors. Linus received permission to use MINIX as thefoundation for his own efforts. MINIX was a small version of UNIX created byAndrew S. Tanenbaum to provide college students with a working version of UNIXwith no AT&T owned source code. Linus opened a web site on his universitystudent account and started posting free copies of his source code. During theearly days of the project, Linus was posting updated versions several times a day,which directly contradicted the commercial approach of only releasing newversions on an infrequent basis after extensive testing. With the help of agrowing number of volunteers (literally tens of thousands), Linus quicklyreplaced all of MINIX with new all new source code. As Linux caught on inpopularity (because it allowed college students and hobbyists to experimentwith very cheap Intel hardware), other groups of volunteers ported Linux to awide variety of additional processors. The success of Linux proved theviability of open source software projects and Linus’s approach of rapid andcontinual incremental updates proved to be an effective method for harnessingvolunteer effort and an excellent method for widespread testing on a widevariety of hardware.
“Linux has achieved a measure of success. Inonly a few years, the program has evolved from a hacker’s toy into softwarethat is, at least in part, technically superior to Windows NT.” —StephenMorley, “Revenge of the hackers”, The Economist, July 11th - 17th, 1998 [NOTE:Linux has advanced substantially since this article was published, nowsurpassing Windows 2000 in every way except user interface and installation,both of which are being addressed by the KDE and Gnome projects.]