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The Linux kernel is a free and open-source,: 4  monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally written in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU operating system, which was written to be a free (libre) replacement for Unix. Linux is provided under the GNU General Public License version 2 only, but it contains files under other compatible licenses. Since the late 1990s, it has been included as part of a large number of operating system distributions, many of which are commonly also called Linux. Linux is deployed on a wide variety of computing systems, such as embedded devices, mobile devices (including its use in the Android operating system), personal computers, servers, mainframes, and supercomputers. It can be tailored for specific architectures and for several usage scenarios using a family of simple commands (that is, without the need of manually editing its source code before compilation); privileged users can also fine-tune kernel parameters at runtime. Most of the Linux kernel code is written using the GNU extensions of GCC: 18  to the standard C programming language and with the use of architecture-specific instructions (ISA) in limited parts of the kernel. This produces a highly optimized executable (vmlinux) with respect to utilization of memory space and task execution times.: 379–380  Day-to-day development discussions take place on the Linux kernel mailing list (LKML). Changes are tracked using the version control system git, which was originally authored by Torvalds as a free software replacement for BitKeeper. History In April 1991, Linus Torvalds, at the time a 21-year-old computer science student at the University of Helsinki, Finland, started working on some simple ideas for an operating system inspired by UNIX, for a personal computer. He started with a task switcher in Intel 80386 assembly language and a terminal driver. On 25 August 1991, Torvalds posted the following to comp.os.minix, a newsgroup on Usenet: 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 [...]Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT protable [sic] (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(. On 17 September 1991, Torvalds prepared version 0.01 of Linux and put on the "ftp.funet.fi" – FTP server of the Finnish University and Research Network (FUNET). It was not even executable since its code still needed Minix to compile and test it. On 5 October 1991, Torvalds announced the first "official" version of Linux, version 0.02. At this point, Linux was able to run Bash, GCC, and some other GNU utilities: [As] I mentioned a month ago, I'm working on a free version of a Minix-lookalike for AT-386 computers. It has finally reached the stage where it's even usable (though may not be depending on what you want), and I am willing to put out the sources for wider distribution. It is just version 0.02...but I've successfully run bash, gcc, gnu-make, gnu-sed, compress, etc. under it. After that, despite the limited functionality of the early versions, Linux rapidly gained developers and users. Many people contributed code to the project, including some developers from the MINIX community. At the time, the GNU Project had created many of the components required for its free UNIX replacement, the GNU operating system, but its own kernel, GNU Hurd, was incomplete. For this reason, it soon adopted the Linux kernel as well. The Berkeley Software Distribution had not yet freed itself from legal encumbrances and was not competing in the space for a free OS kernel. Torvalds assigned version 0 to the kernel to indicate that it was mainly for testing and not intended for productive use. Version 0.11, released in December 1991, was the first self-hosted Linux, for it could be compiled by a computer running the same kernel. When Torvalds released version 0.12 in February 1992, he adopted the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2) over his previous self-drafted license, which had not permitted commercial redistribution. In contrast to Unix, all source files of Linux are freely available, including device drivers. The initial success of Linux was driven by programmers and testers across the world. With the support of the POSIX APIs, through the libC that, whether needed, acts as an entry point to the kernel address space, Linux could run software and applications that had been developed for Unix. On 19 January 1992, the first post to the new newsgroup alt.os.linux was submitted. On 31 March 1992, the newsgroup was renamed comp.os.linux. The fact that Linux is a monolithic kernel rather than a microkernel was the topic of a debate between Andrew S. Tanenbaum, the creator of MINIX, and Torvalds. The Tanenbaum–Torvalds debate started in 1992 on the Usenet group comp.os.minix as a general discussion about kernel architectures. Linux version 0.95 was the first to be capable of running the X Window System. In March 1994, Linux 1.0.0 was released with 176,250 lines of code. It was the first version suitable for use in production environments. It started a versioning system for the kernel with three or four numbers separated by dots where the first represented the major release, the second was the minor release, and the third was the revision.: 9  At that time odd-numbered minor releases were for development and tests, whilst even numbered minor releases were for production. The optional fourth digit indicated a set of patches to a revision. Development releases were indicated with -rc ("release candidate") suffix. The current version numbering is slightly different from the above. The even vs. odd numbering has been dropped, and a specific major version is now indicated by the first two numbers, taken as a whole. While the time-frame is open for the development of the next major, the -rcN suffix is used to identify the n'th release candidate for the next version. For example, the release of the version 4.16 was preceded by seven 4.16-rcN (from -rc1 to -rc7). Once a stable release is made, its maintenance is passed off to the "stable team". Occasional updates to stable releases are identified by a three numbering scheme (e.g., 4.13.1, 4.13.2, ..., 4.13.16). After version 1.3 of the kernel, Torvalds decided that Linux had evolved enough to warrant a new major number, so he released version 2.0.0 in June 1996. The series included 41 releases. T.... Discover the Christine Bresnahan Richard Blum popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Christine Bresnahan Richard Blum books.