this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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I can recommend the book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, which I've read multiple times. I can also recommend Linus' autobiography Just For Fun.
You can also consider The Cathedral and the Bazaar... though ESR can be a bit much.
That said, here are some random articles I've saved that you might be interested in:
Cuckoo’s Egg is a hacker true-crime from the 80s. Sorry no link. Lunch break.
There were some good pieces on Groklaw back in the day about the history of unix and Linux.
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.