free barcode generator in asp net c# The Quest for a UNIX-like Operating System in Font

Printing Code 39 in Font The Quest for a UNIX-like Operating System

Richard Stallman was not the only one with the idea of making a UNIX-like operating system. In fact, in the 1980s the technical superiority of UNIX was widely recognized, so everyone expected it to become the dominant force in the PC market recently created by IBM and its clones. But that wasn t happening. Disputes over copyright issues spread among UNIX companies in what became known as the UNIX wars. The HURD (the kernel of the GNU project, remember ) was nowhere near finished (even today there is still no stable release). And MS-DOS continued to gain popularity, a Microsoft trend that later intensified with the graphical interface of Windows. As an exception, from the BSD version on, UNIX spawned a little derivative that today, after years of evolution, is giving Microsoft people more than one headache: the Mac OS. That s right: the sleek operating system from Apple (now in the version Mac OS X) shares a foundation with Linux as a UNIXlike operating system.1 Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, a computer science professor named Andrew Tanenbaum was writing a classic book called Operating Systems: Design and Implementation. He decided that for it to be more didactic, the book should be accompanied by a complete operating system, including its source code. The result of this work was MINIX, short for minimal UNIX. It was developed for compatibility with the IBM PC models available at the time and included a kernel (the core of the OS, remember), a memory manager, and a file system pretty much the most important components of any OS. The book became very popular, and MINIX became the learning tool of many students worldwide. Linus Torvalds was one of them.

In 1991 Linus Torvalds was a student at the University of Helsinki, Finland, when he purchased an Intel 80386-based IBM PC, which he intended to use as a terminal emulator for remotely connecting to the University s lab. The main choices at that time for a PC operating system were MS-DOS and MINIX. He was rapidly disappointed with MS-DOS, and given his respect for UNIX and his willingness to learn, his choice was the latter. But his dissatisfaction with some technical aspects of MINIX encouraged him to create his terminal emulator from scratch, although based on MINIX. He also wanted his version to be noncommercial, which MINIX, although inexpensive, was not. The terminal emulator soon evolved into a full OS kernel he first called Freax (a combination of free, freak, and the X that identified it as a

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UNIX-like system), but in the end Linux (yes, standing for Linus ) became popular because that s how a friend named the folder in which the files were stored and shared. Torvalds then decided he wanted his OS to do more things, but he needed outside collaboration so he didn t have to do all the hard work. It was due to a bit of laziness that he posted a message to the MINIX user group which started with the less-than-visionary statement: I m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.

The first version of Linux, dubbed Linux 0.01, was extremely limited. It only ran on AT 386 machines and even then only a small subset of the hardware worked. Because for a long time he was a lonely coder hiding from the Finnish winter, it was as though the hardware required for making Linux work was... Linus Torvalds own PC! Even having a Finnish keyboard was recommended.2

What followed was his accidental revolution. Soon more and more developers were following his lead in the development of the Linux kernel, starting what is now considered the most important collaborative effort in computing history. He even had a fierce debate with Andrew Tanenbaum, who declared in the same user group that Linux is obsolete as early as 1992. In the end, of course, Linus prevailed. Today, Linus Torvalds lives with his wife Tove and their three daughters in California, supervising the Linux kernel development and directing The Linux Foundation, a not-for-profit organization sponsored by individuals and companies that advocate the use of free software and Linux in particular. He is seen by the community as their leader, and is often called the benevolent dictator of planet Linux, even though he likes to describe his own position as the hood ornament of Linux.