The great moment has arrived to talk about it, the largest open source software project in the world. I'm talking about Linux, which was one of the most requested topics in the history of this board and I was late on purpose so as not to talk nonsense, because it deserves to be treated well. Before knowing the origin, evolution and where it is today, leave that thumbs up because the wish was finally granted, subscribe to the channel for more content like this and ring the bell to be notified when there's a new video on the air.
Beauty? So let's go to the history of Linux. Before getting to Linux itself, we need to stop a little earlier.
In 1964, when most computers were huge ones that took up a room and required several people to operate, an operating system called Multics was born. It was the first focused on remote use of terminals, ideal for corporate and university environments. Development was a partnership of the Massachusetts institute of technology, MIT, along with General Electric and Bell Labs.
Already in the mid-70s, UNIX is established by two former members of the Multics team: c, employees of Bell Labs, which at the time was AT&T. Considered less complex, Unix was used even more in academic and industrial circles, and was the basis or inspiration for many modern systems. Modifications of it became Solaris, from Sun Microsystems, which has already been a theme here on the channel, and even Mac OS X has Unix as its ancestor.
In 1987, the last piece of this puzzle came: Minix, another operating system for use in universities, developed by Andrew Tanenbaum and based on Unix. Now the episode is about to begin, because it was in April 1991 that a young student named Linus Torvalds began to work on his own version, free and easily distributed, of Unix, since he was not interested in buying expensive systems or those of large companies like Microsoft and Apple and thought Minix could be better. Code writing was done from scratch, with inspirations from those platforms from before.
Linux was born in Helsinki, studied Computer Science and was a member of the enthusiast community. So much so that on August 25, 1991, Linus publicly announced in a discussion group that he was creating an operating system based on Unix that was " just a hobby", which would not be anything big or professional like what already existed. October 5, 1991 comes the first official version of Linux, 0.
02. 0. 01 came out earlier, on September 17, but is less considered as it is very experimental and needs to be run on a Minix machine.
All three dates are considered valid to celebrate the birthday of Linux, including by Linus himself, and what matters is that now in 2021 he completes 30 years of life. Oh, and the explanation of the name is very simple: Linux is a mixture of Linus, the creator, with Unix, the pioneering system. It would be called Freax, but the name did not please and some participants started to make “linux” catch on, even if Torvalds did not like it at first because it seemed too authorial.
And here we need to open a parenthesis. In 1983, the Free Software Foundation and developer Richard Stallman begin work on GNU, the activist group's own operating system. The idea of GNU, which was one of the great pioneers of the free software community, was to get away from proprietary and expensive platforms.
But its utilities were created before the system itself, which would be called Hurd, and in the end these tools were incorporated into the ready-made kernel developed by Torvalds, creating GNU/Linux. That is, what many people call Linux, which is the system itself with the utilities, is actually GNU/Linux. Stallman, who is a well-respected figure in the community, but also very controversial and with extremely unfortunate statements that led to his being temporarily removed, doesn't like it when they leave GNU out of the name.
This nomenclature issue is soooo complicated and is not the topic of the video, so let's move on. And here, another quick concept is worth it. The kernel, with k, is the core of an operating system.
It is responsible for vital functions of a platform, such as managing memory and communicating with installed drivers. The Linux kernel is open source, and can be accessed by anyone, copied and redistributed with modified functions. And Linux distributions are compilations of the program with varied changes in appearance, operation and target audience.
On the one hand, this could generate system fragmentation due to the incompatibility of codes and programs. On the other hand, it is a kind of “ healthy competition”, with the aim of improving or giving a personal touch, always seeking to serve the community. It's obvious that we can't talk about all or the main Linux distros in a single video, but let's focus on some important events.
First, in 1992, the Softlanding Linux System, or SLS, was launched, a distribution that had more elements than the normal package and, therefore, inspired several successors. In 1993 Slackware was born, the oldest in distribution, created by Patrick Volkerding and based on SLS. Debian begins to be distributed by Ian Murdock in September of that year and was also the basis for several others in the future.
Another duo worth mentioning at the beginning is Mark Ewing and Bob Young, who created a company called Red Hat Incorporated to focus on corporate Linux distributions. And, yes, this is “the” Red Hat that is still going strong today. And of course, among all the names, we cannot fail to honor the figure of Jon "Maddog" Hall, another very important software engineer and free software activist, who has already been to Brazil in events such as the Campus Party.
Already at that time, he was a big supporter of Linux, which in 93 had at least 12,000 users. Going back to the timeline, in 1994 Linux officially arrives at version 1. 0, which means that it is more stable and complete than ever.
And in 1996, the friendly Tux, the official Linux mascot, was born. The first image was created using free software, of course, which is GIMP, and had contributions from various members of the community. Linus himself was a fan of the animal and even created a story that he was bitten by one of them in an Australian zoo to justify all this, but of course it was a big joke.
The name Tux means both “Torvalds Linux” and the shortening of “tuxedo”, which is a terminology in English. In 1997, GNOME was born, created by Mexican developers Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena Quintero. This is a graphical environment and desktop system that was later used in many of the distros.
The year is still marked by the discovery of one of the first viruses to hit Linux systems , Bliss, which prevented the execution of files and programs. Finally, during this period, Torvalds moves with his wife and three daughters to California, to work at a company called Transmeta. In the second half of the decade, the business began to become more mainstream, with some very interesting market movements.
In 1999, Red Hat goes public, becoming the first Linux-based company to do so. In the same year, the first edition of the Linux World Expo takes place in San Jose, California. And giants are starting to invest more and more in distros and free software in general, including with IBM announcing spending of 1 billion dollars on systems, equipment and training.
And 2000 marks the establishment of The Linux Foundation, an entity that would make creation more organized, allowing the development of systems, the defense of free software values and the unity of the community. And little by little kernel updates are coming out too. Linux 2.
4, from 2011, brought adaptations such as multiple processing and Bluetooth, while 2. 6, from 2003, was a more radical change with support for 64-bit systems. Incidentally, 2.
6 stayed years as the main one, receiving minor updates. The year 2003 is even more important because Linus leaves chip maker Transmeta and begins more community-focused work with the Open Source Development Labs, or OSDL. Oh, and speaking of Torvalds, it's worth mentioning that he's not a saint either, see.
There are several accusations that he treats members of the community badly and is not at all understanding with some issues. And let's go back to the emergence of distros, because the early 2000s saw the birth of a few more. In November 2002, a student at the University of Hawaii named Warren Togami started a small project that turned into a giant: Fedora, which would later receive support from Red Hat and differentiate between versions for workstations, servers and work in the cloud.
In October 2004, the Debian distro became the basis for the creation of nothing less than Ubuntu. The project was born from the mind of Mark Shuttleworth, a South African who sold one of his companies at a young age, became a successful investor and was also passionate about free software. He decided to create a version that was more accessible and intuitive, aimed at those just starting to explore this open source world.
With the success of the idea, the company Canonical was born to take care of the project. And just out of curiosity, the term Ubuntu is derived from dialects of the Mark region and, among other possible translations, means “humanity to others” or the saying “I am what I am because of who we all are”. Other name releases include openSUSE, in 2005, with the help of the company Novell, and the following year Cent OS and the first version of Linux Mint, which was widely adopted here in Brazil.
As of 2007, there is an organizational novelty: OSDL merges with The Free Standards Group to form the current The Linux Foundation, the non-profit organization that still helps to maintain the kernel. And the manufacturer Dell innovates in 2007 to start selling laptops with Ubuntu pre-installed as an option. Only there is no way: the popularization of Linux, even if indirectly, came in 2008.
This is the year in which Android is launched by Google as a mobile operating system “based on Linux”. This means that it uses the kernel, which is that communication interface I explained at the beginning, but it has specific and exclusive modifications made by Google. Chrome OS, which was born two years later, is also based on the Linux kernel.
In 2012, the Raspberry Pi project was born, with a Debian-based system, miniature size and with countless possibilities of use. The year also marks the period in which Linux systems become the leader in servers, surpassing those based on Unix. 2013 was the year Ubuntu Touch was launched, an attempt to popularize the system on portable and mobile devices.
The idea was very good, it had potential, but unfortunately it was discontinued four years later due to lack of interest from the community and a very competitive market. And now getting closer to the present, let's go faster, because the advances are widespread: distros receive updates, new ones appear and more and more equipment adopts the open standard. But there's also some bad news: 2016 is the year of attacks by Mirai, the malware that turns Linux devices that are less security-focused, like internet of things devices, into zombie armies of machines that serve to attack websites and servers in the format that we call botnet.
Another serious threat that has emerged in recent years is 2019's EvilGNOME, which disguises itself as an extension of the real GNOME and spies on your activities. Among updates, it is worth highlighting Linux 4. 12, from 2017, which adds support for USB Type-C.
And currently, with release just now in 2021, we are on Linux kernel version 5. 11-rc3. Microsoft has always been the dominant name in desktop systems and Windows 95 in particular was one of the factors that prevented its popularization on home computers.
After seeing Linux as a villain for a long time, the brand started to embrace this technology more and more and today the relationship is much healthier. Another giant, IBM, acquired Red Hat in 2019, confirming that it really always paid attention to the segment. And of course there are the “this is the year of Linux” jokes , which are actually more specific about the desktop system.
But let's talk here: in fact, they talk about a turning point that has already happened, but we don't even feel it right because it's all behind the scenes and without much publicity. Currently, there is the use of Linux on servers, supercomputers, bank systems and where we don't even imagine that it is running from a distribution or modification. Even places like the New York Stock Exchange run on it, and that's not counting Android's worldwide dominance in smartphones.
You may have noticed that I spoke little about Brazil, but now here at the end I will mention some important initiatives in the country. In 1995, Conectiva Linux was born in Curitiba, a company that was a national pioneer in distributions Linux in the country. It was acquired in 2005, changing its name to Mandriva, and ceased to exist ten years later.
Back in 1999, Guia Foca was born, a complete guide created by Gleydson Maziolli for anyone who wants to start life in the GNU/Linux system or is already more of a veteran on the subject. Another national milestone in Linux was in 2003, when the Kurumin distribution appeared, authored by Carlos Eduardo Morimoto. It was officially discontinued in 2008, but it was the first and a favorite for many people here in the country.
And of course I could mention countless others here, but the fact is that the Linux community in Brazil is strong and faithful, with many people producing content and developing distributions around. For fans, every year is the year of Linux. And that's the story of Linux, which celebrates 30 years now in 2021 and still has a lot of history ahead of it.
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