Praveen’s Journal

August 25, 2004

Linux b’day?

Filed under: General — Praveen Kumar @ 6:03 pm

I recieved a mail (forward) a few minutes back from Rekha, titled “Happy b’day Linux”. It also claimed that on Aug 25th 1991, the first public announcement about Linux came from Linus. Find below the mail (supposed to be) from Linus Torvalds.

Hello everybody out there using 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-sytem due to practical reasons)among other things.

I’ve currently ported bash (1.08) an gcc (1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that i’ll get something practical within a few months, and I’d like to know what features most people want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them :-)

Linus Torvalds torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi

3 Comments »

  1. Hi Praveen,
    Nice to see this mail on the internet.
    ./Unknown

    Comment by Anonymous — August 25, 2004 @ 6:23 pm

  2. Verified the authenticity of the mail. Here is the original mail from Linus.

    Message-ID: 1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.helsinki.fi
    From: torvalds@klaava.helsinki.fi (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
    To: Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
    Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
    Summary: small poll for my new operating system

    Hello everybody out there using 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 Any suggestions are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them :-)
    Linus

    Comment by Praveen — August 25, 2004 @ 6:25 pm

  3. Yet another form of the mail…
    From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
    Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
    Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
    Summary: small poll for my new operating system
    Message-ID:
    Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08 GMT
    Organization: University of Helsinki

    Hello everybody out there using 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).

    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, and I’d like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them :-)
    Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

    PS. 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 :-(.

    Comment by Praveen — August 25, 2004 @ 6:35 pm

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