Timeline
- Apr 1991: Linus Torvalds, then 21 starts working on some simple ideas for a operating-system. Starting with a task-switcher in 386-assembly and a terminal-driver. Linus posts to comp.os.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).
- 25 Aug 1991: 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 […] 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.
- It’s mostly in C, but most people wouldn’t call what I write C. It uses every conceivable feature of the 386 I could find, as it was also a project to teach me about the 386. As already mentioned, it uses a MMU, for both paging (not to disk yet) and segmentation. It’s the segmentation that makes it REALLY 386 dependent (every task has a 64Mb segment for code & data – max 64 tasks in 4Gb. Anybody who needs more than 64Mb/task – tough cookies). Some of my “C”-files (specifically mm.c) are almost as much assembler as C. Unlike minix, I also happen to LIKE interrupts, so interrupts are handled without trying to hide the reason behind them”
- Sep 1991: Linux version 0.01 is released, the source is all of 64kb.
- Dec 1991: Linux 0.11 is released. This version is the first that is self-hosted. (that is: you can compile Linux 0.11 under Linux 0.11)
- 31 Mar 1992: The newsgroup comp.os.linux is created
- Apr 1992: Linux version 0.96 is the first to be capable of running the X Window System.
- 14 Mar 1994: Linux 1.0 is released.
- Mar 1995: Linux 1.2 is released
- 9 May 1996: Tux the penguin, is suggested as mascot for Linux
- 9 Jun 1996: Linux 2.0 is released.
- 25 Jan 1999: Linux 2.2 is released, very buggy at first.
- 4 Jan 2001: Linux 2.4 is released
