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The Earliest Linux Distros: Before Mainstream Distros Became So Popular

In this throwback history article, we’ve tried to look back into how some of the earliest Linux distributions evolved and came into being as we know them today.

In here we have tried to explore how the idea of popular distros such as Red Hat, Debian, Slackware, SUSE, Ubuntu and many others came into being after the first Linux kernel became available.

As Linux was initially released in the form of a kernel in 1991, the distros we know today was made possible with the help of numerous collaborators throughout the world with the creation of shells, libraries, compilers and related packages to make it a complete Operating System.

1. The first known “distro” by HJ Lu

The way we know Linux distributions today goes back to 1992, when the first known distro-like tools to get access to Linux were released by HJ Lu. It consisted of two 5.25” floppy diskettes:

• LINUX 0.12 BOOT DISK: The “boot” disk was used to boot the system first.
• LINUX 0.12 ROOT DISK: The second “root” disk for getting a command prompt for access to the Linux file system after booting.

To install 0.12 on a hard drive, one had to use a hex editor to edit its master boot record (MBR) and that was quite a complex process, especially during that era.

You can install cool-retro-term application that gives you a Linux terminal in the vintage looks of the 90’s computers.

2. MCC Interim Linux

Initially released in the same year as “LINUX 0.12” by Owen Le Blanc of Manchester Computing Centre in England, MCC Interim Linux was the first Linux distribution for novice users with a menu driven installer and end user/programming tools. Also in the form of a collection of diskettes, it could be installed on a system to provide a basic text-based environment.

MCC Interim Linux was much more user-friendly than 0.12 and the installation process on a hard drive was much easier and similar to modern ways. It did not require using a hex editor to edit the MBR.

Though it was first released in February 1992, it was also available for download through FTP since November that year.

3. TAMU Linux

TAMU Linux was developed by Aggies at Texas A&M with the Texas A&M Unix & Linux Users Group in May 1992 and was called TAMU 1.0A. It was the first Linux distribution to offer the X Window System instead of just a text based operating system.

4. Softlanding Linux System (SLS)

“Gentle Touchdowns for DOS Bailouts” was their slogan! SLS was released by Peter McDonald in May 1992. SLS was quite widely used and popular during its time and greatly promoted the idea of Linux. But due to a decision by the developers to change the executable format in the distro, users stopped using it.

Many of the popular distros the present community is most familiar with, evolved via SLS. Two of them are:

• Slackware: One of the earliest Linux distros, Slackware was created by Patrick Volkerding in 1993. Slackware is based on SLS and was one of the very first Linux distributions.
• Debian: An initiative by Ian Murdock, Debian was also released in 1993 after moving on from the SLS model. The very popular Ubuntu distro we know today is based on Debian.

5. Yggdrasil

Released on December 1992, Yggdrasil was the first distro to give birth to the idea of Live Linux CDs. It was developed by Yggdrasil Computing, Inc., founded by Adam J. Richter in Berkeley, California. It could automatically configure itself on system hardware as “Plug-and-Play”, which is a very regular and known feature in today’s time. The later versions of Yggdrasil included a hack for running any proprietary MS-DOS CD-ROM driver within Linux.

Their motto was “Free Software For The Rest of Us”.

In the late 90s, one very popular distro was Mandriva, first released in 1998, by unifying the French Mandrake Linux distribution with the Brazilian Conectiva Linux distribution. It had a release lifetime of 18 months for updates related to Linux and system software and desktop based updates were released every year. It also had server versions with 5 years of support. Now we have Open Mandriva.

If you have more nostalgic distros to share from the earliest days of Linux release, please share with us in the comments below.

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History Of Linux: From Beginning To Success

This is the story of how one developer created an entire operating system that’s been praised by developers for three decades and it’s a massive source of inspiration. Lets we know how Linux developed, the history of Linux, and how it become so popular operating system.

Founder Of Linux

Linux was developed by Linus Torvalds, he was just a regular student and not unlike many others. The simple key to his success is the fact that he didn’t settle for what others could make if something wasn’t good enough. He tried to make it himself and share his work with the world. Linus has grown up in Helsinki, Finland, he entered the University of Helsinki in 1988 and began his studies in computer science. After his first year, he had to go to the army but then after around 11 months, he returned to the university to continue his study. During this time he started the Linux project. The first online post regarding the creation of Linux was shared by him on 25 August 1991. He wrote:

«I’m developing a free operating system ( just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386 (486) at clones.»

How Linus Started Developing Linux?

Linus’s interests in computers began with a Commodore VIC-20, on which he started to learn programming prior to his time in university. Initially, he learned the basics but later he learned the machine code of the processor to access it directly. Then he bought a Sinclair QL computer and he heavily modified it including the operating system. Due to the difficulty of getting software in Finland, he eventually ended up creating his own games and other programs and eventually even made a Pac-Man clone.

Why Did Linus Developed Linux?

In 1990, he was introduced to the operating system Unix for the first time. Personally, he started studying the Unix-like operating system, Minix. After 1991, he bought his Intel i386 clone of the IBM PC, this was already common for Linux. The software available for the system was not really satisfactory. Minix really couldn’t do what he wanted it to do and was sort of limited due to its licensing. So this is what led to the motivation behind creating the Linux project. He becomes very familiar with the Unix-like operating systems. Linus started out writing a task switcher and terminal driver for his intel processor in the spring of 1991 using the Intel x86 assembly language for the chip, this marked the beginning of the Linux project. As shown by his very first post about Linux in 1991, Linus was very interested in and followed very closely the open-source GNU project. But as the GNU project had failed to create a stable kernel, he basically pushed forward with making his own kernel.

Kernel

In simple terms, the kernel is the core of an operating system that has control over the system and runs the most essential components like the processor, memory, I/O, etc. It’s what connects the user applications with the hardware.

Beginning Of Linux

Linus actually said later that if the GNU kernel had existed in 1991, he would never have built a Linux project. On 17 September 1991 Linus uploaded the very first version of Linux which was named 0.0.1 and he uploaded this to a server at his university. Still, it wasn’t executable, because it still depended on Minix for compiling. The first official version of Linux was called 0.0.2 and was released on 5 October 1991. Still, it wasn’t much better than the first version but it could run Bash GCC and some GNU utilities.

Success Story Of Linux

Following the open-source mentality of the GNU project, Linus shared the source code and this led to many like-minded people joining his project, including some people from the Minix community. While the Linux kernel was very limited in its functionality, it actually worked, unlike the GNU kernel. This attracted many developers and users even in the infancy of Linux. The GNU project had created many other components for an operating system and many of these components found their way to Linux. Therefore the free software foundation refers to Linux as a GNU/Linux to give credit to the GNU project for their contribution.

Reason Behind Success Of Linux

The biggest advantage was that Unix was popular in academia so by making a Unix-like operating system, it would be easier for other students to join in.’

As it was so similar to Unix, the change from Unix to Linux is quite simple and these factors have helped Linux become so popular.

With the help of the open-source community, the very simple task switcher and the terminal driver had turned into a real production-ready operating system and this was marked with the release of Linux 1.0.0 in March 1994. At that point, the Linux kernel had 1,76,250 lines of code.

Today the latest version of the Linux kernel is version 5 and most of the big tech companies like Intel, Huawei and Google contribute to the development of Linux. Considering the very humble beginnings and that very first post from Linus back when he announced that he started working on Linux, it’s kind of crazy to think that this whole thing has developed into this huge operating system, that’s really professional and that’s being used by these huge corporations. This is such an inspiring thing because at the end of the day this is just a story of one person who decided to make something that he thought was cool and then shared it with the world.

Things That Show Linux Success

The future of Linux looks really bright and as of 2021, there are more than 27 million lines of code in the Linux git repository.

If you look at the top 25 websites in the world then you will find that only two are not using Linux.

The most popular operating system for smartphones is android, but android is based on Linux, so this means that most smartphones in the world run on Linux.

For desktop use, some of the most popular distributions are Mint Debian and Ubuntu. So as you might sense there are Linux distributions for different devices and different users and that shows that Linux can basically run on any device.

Naming Of Linux

Regarding the naming of Linux, Linus actually wanted to call the operating system Freax, a combination of the words «free», «freak» and «x». He had also considered Linux but he thought it sounded too egocentric, so he dismissed it. Actually, if you look at some of the project’s early files created by Linus, you will find the files with the name «Freeax». In September 1991, the files were uploaded to FUNET’s FTP server (ftp.funet.fi) to facilitate development. Ari Lemmke, a volunteer administrator for the FTP server at Helsinki University of Technology (HUT) at the time, did not think «Freax» was a good name. So, without consulting Torvalds, he named the project «Linux» on the server, Torvalds eventually agreed to «Linux.»

Why Is Linux Not So Popular On Desktop?

One of the reasons why Linux isn’t so popular on desktops is because many applications made for windows do not run on Linux and Linux has also been particularly behind on gaming. In recent years however a lot of effort has been put into improving gaming compatibility on Linux. According to the Steam Hardware & Software Survey, Linux has grown from around a 0.8% user base to around 1% in the last three years. This might not seem like much but it’s a very positive trend for Linux. We might see more gamers switching to Linux in the coming years.

How To Download And Use Linux?

The great thing about the open-source nature of Linux is the fact that it’s free to try, so if you become excited about Linux and you want to try it, you can head over to one of the Linux distro sites and download the distro of your choice and just try it out. for free. You can use it either on an old laptop that you have lying around that you’re not using or you can run on your current laptop or a computer without any real issues.

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