To the greatest example of world collaboration for a great good, at least in the computer world, I wish you a happy 18th birthday Linux. This is the post that Linus posted on the comp.os.miux Usernet group
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 (torvalds@klaava.helsinki.fi)
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 : – (.
Here is Wired.com’s article of the history of the Linux kernel