Linux and History of Understatements

Post on my local Linux User Group reminded me that Linux is just about 15 years old. Linux Journal, something my friend Pablo subscribed to in the long long ago when we were just starting at CyberGate, is doing a big write-up on it and has put up the original Usenet post from Linus regarding his project:

“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 (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 :-(.''

Ok, so I did find that bit a little cute, as I'm here in 2006, at 4:00 AM and my Windows workbench keyboard (HP 1996 baby) has F6 worn out. If you don't get that you're reading the wrong blog 🙂