{"id":7971,"date":"2016-08-25T22:20:06","date_gmt":"2016-08-26T02:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=7971"},"modified":"2016-08-26T11:57:48","modified_gmt":"2016-08-26T15:57:48","slug":"the-birth-of-linux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=7971","title":{"rendered":"The birth of Linux"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It was 25 years ago today that a Finnish chap by the name of Linus Torvalds made an announcement about a new operating system that he developed in the preceding few months. Nothing big and professional, he assured us, just a hobby project basically… but here it was, and\u00a0he already got a command shell and the GNU C compiler working.<\/p>\n

I have been using Linux for 23 of those 25 years. I became familiar with Linux when I took over sysop duties of the UNIX forum of the long defunct NVN (National Videotex Network).<\/p>\n

I no longer have the original SLS (SoftLanding Linux) floppy images, though I am pretty sure even without checking they can be found in several archives online.<\/p>\n

But I do have\u00a0the announcement that I posted on the NVN UNIX forum page almost exactly 23 years ago, on September 1, 1993:<\/p>\n

Welcome to the LINUX distribution on NVN!\r\n\r\nThe UNIX Forum data library now contains the complete set of files\r\nmaking up the Softlanding Software (SLS) distribution of LINUX, the\r\npopular *FREE* UNIX operating system clone.\r\n\r\nThe files are the most recent (version 0.99 patchlevel 12) as of\r\ntoday, August 28, 1993.\r\n\r\nThe files were used by the UNIX SysOp to install a complete LINUX on\r\nan 80386SX20 PC, with 4 Mb of RAM, a 68 Mb and a 42 Mb MFM hard disk\r\ndrive, an ATI VGAWonder super-VGA card with 512 kb video RAM, a\r\nMicrosoft mouse, a 5.25\" high density floppy drive, and a 3.5\" high\r\ndensity drive, and an ATI2400etc\/i internal modem. Brief assessment:\r\nit works like a charm. So well, in fact, that I decided to keep it\r\nand permanently convert my old 386SX to a LINUX host. I am already\r\nusing it as a dial-in system for my friends and business associates.\r\n\r\nThe files in this distribution are:\r\n\r\nreadme.sls this file\r\nsls_info.zip miscellaneous text information files\r\nrawrite.zip needed to create the A1 bootable LINUX disk\r\nsls_a1_3.zip bootable floppy image for 3.5\" 1.44 Mb drives\r\nsls_a1_5.zip bootable floppy image for 5.25\" 1.2 Mb drives\r\nsls_a2.zip Minimum base system\r\nsls_a3.zip\r\nsls_a4.zip\r\nsls_b1.zip Base system extras\r\nsls_b2.zip\r\nsls_b3.zip\r\nsls_b4.zip\r\nsls_b5.zip\r\nsls_b6.zip\r\nsls_b7.zip\r\nsls_c1.zip Compilers\r\nsls_c2.zip\r\nsls_c3.zip\r\nsls_d1.zip Documentation\r\nsls_d2.zip\r\nsls_s1.zip Essential component source\r\nsls_t1.zip TeX\r\nsls_t2.zip\r\nsls_t3.zip\r\nsls_x1.zip X-Windows\r\nsls_x2.zip\r\nsls_x3.zip\r\nsls_x4.zip\r\nsls_x5.zip\r\nsls_x6.zip\r\nsls_x7.zip\r\nsls_x8.zip\r\nsls_x9.zip\r\nsls_x10.zip\r\n\r\nAll the files named sls_Sn.zip must be uncompressed under DOS and\r\ncopied onto separate floppies. The bootable LINUX floppy (disk A1)\r\ncan be created from sls_a1_3.zip or sls_a1_5.zip using the RAWRITE\r\nprogram, supplied in RAWRITE.EXE.\r\n\r\nIt is suggested that you download sls_info.zip first, for additional\r\ninformation. The files in this archive are text files readable under\r\nDOS (lines end with CR\/LF instead of LF only as they do under UNIX).\r\n\r\n\r\nPlease note that while the NVN UNIX does not (indeed, cannot) provide\r\nsupport for LINUX, I will be glad to answer any of your questions. \r\nAlso, if you are interested in a specific program, application, or\r\ninformation file that is not included in the present distribution,\r\nplease let me know and I will see if I can obtain and upload it. If\r\nyou would like to run OSF\/Motif on your LINUX system, you may not\r\nhave to wait too long; I am planning to try and obtain Motif in the\r\nnear future.\r\n\r\nGood luck with your installation and I hope that the next time you\r\ncall, it will be with your LINUX system!\r\n\r\nUNIX SysOp<\/pre>\n
Before making this announcement, I already set Linux up on an old 386SX desktop computer that I was no longer using. Within a few months, this computer began to play a permanent role as my Internet server. Although it went through several hardware and software iterations, its basic identity remains the same: it’s the very same server on which these words appear.<\/p>\n<\/fb:like>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was 25 years ago today that a Finnish chap by the name of Linus Torvalds made an announcement about a new operating system that he developed in the preceding few months. Nothing big and professional, he assured us, just a hobby project basically… but here it was, and\u00a0he already got a command shell and […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,25,6,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers","category-history","category-internet","category-personal","category-11-id","category-25-id","category-6-id","category-35-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7971"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7975,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7971\/revisions\/7975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}