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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Resources to learn about history of linux (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

21 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I have always been a history enthusiast. Unfortunately, I don't know much about history in the context of computers. I am therefore interested in learning more about significant events and people like Richard stallman and all the related events such as Windows refund day. I am interested to read and explore the timeline, I suppose a book would be ideal but any good resource such as a youtube series would be great too.

Update: I am happy to recieve such wide variety of resources to explore, I hope this post might help someone who is interested in FOSS history in the future too.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Can also recommend Just For Fun - that Finnish sense of humour doesn't come across well, and while he's good with English he certainly isn't Shakespeare, but it does fly by.

History of Linux, abridged: Linus was using Minix on his own PC while at University, but was a bit fed up with its networking capabilities, so he'd written a toy operating system for a couple of his classes. While experimenting with adding features to it, he deleted his Minix partition by accident. Might as well continue with the one he'd written, since it was almost capable enough to be a daily driver. Publish the source, get a few collaborators in to add in the features that they found most useful, repeat. Boom.