A Brief History of Linux

Linus Torvalds announced Linux 27 years ago this week. 27 years is a long time and a lot has happened. So here is my brief overview of the history of Linux from 1993 to 2018.

#garyexplains

[SamiurRahmanTonmoy]

Just wow! Brief history of Linux in a flash. Great job Gary :)

[troylhester]

I have items to recommend for your timeline; The time MS execs called it a cancer, and the time MS joined the Linux Foundation (OK maybe three.. how about the time MS added Linux to Windows?)

[timi_ro]

I'm a simple man, I see a ''Gary Explains'' video I click like!

[er]

"I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and
professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones." - Linus Torvalds

[MatCendana]

After 18 years of "wanting to" - and didn't for various reasons - I'm FINALLY starting to use Linux. Thanks to various guide videos at YouTube, I learned how to download a Linux Mint ISO and install it on a 5-year-old Asus eee netbook.

So much had happened over the years since 2000 when I first wanted to. Thanks to all those passionate and helpful people involved in open source and Linux, it's now very easy for newcomers to at least give this OS a try. I'm pleasantly surprised by how the programmers and developers have handled issues that would have discouraged newbies from continuing with using Linux. Critical issues like hardware drivers, internet connection etc. which have become like Windows and OSX - plug-and-play. Then the availability of tons of good programs and utilities, with most of these being free of charge.

Right now Linux is a more-than-capable replacement for the Windows 10 laptop I've been using. With the exception of a few programs that I simply must use (work-related) like Microsoft Publisher. I'm also having trouble handling those tar.gz files. But other than these, using Linux as my main system is making more sense.

[billbez]

Thanks Gary. Appreciate your excellent & informative videos.

[shanethomas]

Please do a video on software installation, ppa's, software suites, etc. on Linux. I believe that many people would stand to benefit between the differences on direct downloads, package managers, etc.

[malgailany]

Since you mentioned Git, how about explaining Git in one of your nice videos?
Thanks

[georganatoly]

Didn't know that about Git. Really interesting video!

[venkataravieluri]

I use Linux and I think this video is very informative. Thanks Gary.

[ashique]

Great job
could you make a video about RISC-V or ARM vs RISC-V

[tonifasth]

Great history lesson! I believe that Linux development is just getting started. There's currently a lot of exciting stuff going on. I believe that Linux will soon catch up with Windows and MacOS in terms of daily desktop and gaming usage. Also hardware manufacturer driver support for Linux has grown a lot lately.

Even Microsoft sees how powerful Linux can be when given proper support and to be honest I think they've become a bit scared of being overrun. Thus they've added things like WSL with the help of Ubuntu and joined the Linux foundation etc... 😜

[RocktCityTim]

Reexamine those first Distros. In 92/93, most of us were using archie/gopher and uucp from our SCO or SunOS systems to pull the code from funet.fi. The first "distros" were SLS, Yggdrasil, TAMU, and TSX-11 with Yggdrasil being the first commercially packaged kit (booklet, boot floppies, and CD) in Dec 1992 (kernel 0.98pl1). DebIan (named after Ian Murdoch and his wife, Debbie) started pushing beta builds in September of 1993. Patrick's Slackware was based on the SLS collection and became available via FTP in late 1993, as well.

[onisarb]

Quite informative, albeit highly condensed :) kudos.

[jagardina]

I remember downloading slackware on multiple floppy disks. Running x-windows was painful. You had to know all kinds of config details for your graphics card and monitor. Good times.

[Kneedragon]

Thank you Gary, excellent work.
Favourite milestones... I'm not entirely sure.
The birth of Mate, which was just restarting dev + maintenance on the gnome2 system, when the gnomes moved to gnome3. I'm not sure, I've been using Linux now for about 23 years, so...
The birth of Debian and the release of the first Debian distro, that was a major.
Start of Canonical & Ubuntu. Start of Mint....
Generally I think you've listed the biggest & most important ones.

[voiceoftreason]

thanks again for sharing your humble knowledge

[adithyabhat]

I use Linux and I live it! It's the best

[BasavarajuBV]

Thank you for sharing history. Can you please make video on Windows Subsystem for Linux which was released with windows 10 anniversary update?

[joshuajosephson]

Maybe next you can do a history of the Windows KERNEL and leave out everything else.