Linux celebrates 17 years

In 1987, Professor Andrew Tanenbaum, published Minix, a simple system based on the UNIX kernel specially designed for students. It is on this system that Linus Torvalds developed his programming skills. Thereafter, Torvalds suggested some improvements to Tanenbaum for Minix but the latter refused to change its system. Finally, Torvalds decided to create its own system based on Minix. Then, ultimately, it is truly a new kernel that will be distributed.

Thus, on 5 October 1991 on usegroup comp.os.minix dedicated to Minix, Linus Torvalds released a message in which it invited readers to test an alternative system incorporating the foundations of Minix. This is the first kick-off that marked the beginning of the adventure Linux.

"Find a good project and an OS that you could modify to suit your own needs? Do you find it frustrating that not everything works on Minix? More sleepless night trying to run a program? So this post is for you :-). As I wrote about a month ago, I worked on the free version of a similar system in Minix for AT-386 computers. I finally reached a stage where the system is used (see, depending on your needs) and I want to publish these sources for a more important.. "
Among the major changes Linux systems, note the appearance of graphical environments including Matthias Ettrich KDE which began in 1996, then in 1997 by Miguel de Icaza with GNOME. A few years later, the first systems are beginning to be marketed, including from companies such as Oracle or IBM.

Today Linux has democratized to the general public with some optimized distributions such as Ubuntu or Mandriva. More recently, the arrival of Netbook popularized the idea of a Linux system offering light the main features for computers booster.