[TUHS] 386BSD released

Andy Kosela akosela at andykosela.com
Wed Jul 14 21:49:06 AEST 2021


On 7/14/21, Michael Kjörling <michael at kjorling.se> wrote:
> On 14 Jul 2021 08:28 +1000, from dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall):
>> In 1992, 386BSD is released by Lynne and William Jolitz, starting the
>> open
>> source operating system movement (Linux didn't come along under later).
>
> Are you sure? Wikipedia claims that it happened the other way around;
> that the Linux kernel initial release was 0.02 on 5 Oct 1991, while
> the 386BSD initial release was 0.0 on 12 March 1992.
>
> It seems that work on 386BSD began earlier than work on Linux, but
> that the initial release of Linux was earlier than the initial release
> of 386BSD.
>

I consider the birth of Linux to be August 25th 1991, when Linus
announced it on comp.os.minix.  If he had access to 386BSD in 1991
then probably he would never have started the Linux project -- that's
his words.

He was exposed to UNIX at uni in late 1990, and purchased 386DX33 on
January 5th, 1991 -- a turning point in his life.  After messing
around with MS-DOS and games like Prince of Persia (still one of the
best computers games ever!) for a few months, he started exploring
programming tools for MS-DOS and wanted to write a UNIX clone for his
home computer.  The rest is literally the history...

--Andy


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