it won't be big and professional....

[id10t]

30 years ago today, the computing world changed....

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@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. 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 :-(.
— Linus Torvalds

[masraum]

Wow, crazy. And only 30 years ago.

[GH85Carrera]

Heck it will never last!

We have a photogrammetic scanner made by Vexcel (bought later by Microsoft) that uses Bash as the operation system. It is designed for 9x9 aerial negatives. Like any decent scanner it has to be calibrated and it is all done with bash commands. The scanner sits in the shipping crate unused as film is dead. If I had a the room I would set it up and scan regular slides and negatives as it is a fantastic scanner that cost 70 grand new.

[JackDidley]

I like the the "free" part. 30 years later there are so many free linux versions that are free and easy to use it is hard for me to stay with one for long.

[Sooner or later]

Good stuff!

Thanks for posting!

[cstreit]

No one needs an operating system that sophisticated except maybe a few large businesses.

[Vipergrün]

Best thing ever! A former CEO of a cyber security company I worked for proclaimed in 2009 or so that Linux/UNIX would be dead....hence the 'former' part. LOL

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Vipergrün

Best thing ever! A former CEO of a cyber security company I worked for proclaimed in 2009 or so that Linux/UNIX would be dead....hence the 'former' part. LOL

Back in 1998, I got a job working for Wang Global. Wang had previously been a mostly mainframe business, I believe. When PCs came out, Wang said "that's just a fad." They went bankrupt, I believe.

Hell, even Microsoft has/uses/released an open source version of Linux.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-released-cbl-mariner-linux-distro

Microsoft has developed its own Linux distro, CBL-Mariner, and released it under the open source MIT License.

Microsoft said in the CBL-Mariner repository on GitHub that it's "an internal Linux distribution for Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure and edge products and services" that was "designed to provide a consistent platform for these devices and services" and "enhance Microsoft’s ability to stay current on Linux updates" moving forward.

[mjohnson]

Originally Posted by masraum

Hell, even Microsoft has/uses/released an open source version of Linux.

So does Cray. Our now-five year old machine, "Trinity", runs what's claimed to be a Cray-modified linux system with >960,000 cores (almost 9 megawatts!). The next gen that's now running at LLNL is similar but bigger I think and the forthcoming third-gen 150 petaflop system coming in 2022 will also use that.

You know it's serious when the computers have building-sized cooling towers out back.

Just a humble little OS. It's probably installed with a USB-stick like mine at home.

[Pazuzu]

So, what happened 30 years ago? Was that like the first email sent or something?

[JackDidley]

Originally Posted by Pazuzu

So, what happened 30 years ago? Was that like the first email sent or something?

First release of Linux OS was announced.

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by JackDidley

First release of Linux OS was announced.

First email was more important.

I was joking.

[beepbeep]

I am currently working with porting PB-worth of data out of zOS MF system into Linux-based x86 system.

In 10 years, it would not surprise me that most back end systems are either Windows $erver or Linux.

[KFC911]

^^^ As a mainframe systems guy, I used (and mastered) more Op. systems than I could ever recall over my IT career. Mainframes, high end servers etc.... many offloaded/ported to Unix based stuff running in a seperate "partition" decades ago. Unix was too "simple" ... so I never became a Unix guru...

I was a communications systems programmer ... as the communications protocols, hardware, and speeds evolved.... Unix thrived behind the scenes under other extremely sophisticated Op systems.

KISS ... that's Unix for ya

All of the Internet related stuff (Web servers, TCP stacks, etc.), run on some flavor of Unix ... even on big blue.

But it ain't KISS

[id10t]

Originally Posted by KC911

^^^ As a mainframe systems guy, I used (and mastered) more Op. systems than I could ever recall over my IT career. Mainframes, high end servers etc.... many offloaded/ported to Unix based stuff running in a seperate "partition" decades ago. Unix was too "simple" ... so I never became a Unix guru...

I was a communications systems programmer ... as the communications protocols, hardware, and speeds evolved.... Unix thrived behind the scenes under other extremely sophisticated Op systems.

KISS ... that's Unix for ya

All of the Internet related stuff (Web servers, TCP stacks, etc.), run on some flavor of Unix ... even on big blue.

But it ain't KISS

Well, not with systemd involved it ain't. But otherwise, the philosophy of "write one tool to one job really well, then write another and another, and then some glue code to tie them all together" still works well today.

[KFC911]

^^^ Hey .... KISS is good stuff .

I developed/wrote a compiler (parser/lexical analyzer) back in college....

It was a bit RISCy tho'

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by mjohnson

So does Cray. Our now-five year old machine, "Trinity", runs what's claimed to be a Cray-modified linux system with >960,000 cores (almost 9 megawatts!). The next gen that's now running at LLNL is similar but bigger I think and the forthcoming third-gen 150 petaflop system coming in 2022 will also use that.

You know it's serious when the computers have building-sized cooling towers out back.

Just a humble little OS. It's probably installed with a USB-stick like mine at home.

It is kinda funny, in the very beginning of computers the FAA had an entire building to house and keep cool a computer that had less than a megabyte of memory. Huge banks of tape drives. Then PCs changed everything, and they closed that huge outdated mainframe. Modern cell phones have more processing power than the 1960s mainframes.

Now the super computers are more advanced than could be imagined in the 1950s. 960,000 cores is an 5 year old system. Wow.

[stealthn]

Geek

😁

[KFC911]

^^^^ I've been called worse ...

Though I would have jumped at an opportunity to work with Crays .... I was usually stuck with IBM's latest offering.... in the old daze .... the "chiller rooms" were bigger than my house. The last "big blue" box I used was a 10 million dollar air-cooled puppy tho'

Unlike cars.... back in the day... H20 cooling was a requirement... as they grew bigger and faster and tech changed.... then the "air cooled" mainframes appeared ....

I started in IBM's Advanced Communications division in r&d fresh out of college.

A micro-processor based device with 18 of them suckers.... similar to the one in my Carrera fwiw and about the time the ECUs appeared....

I had a ball...

...so I played

[JackDidley]

Originally Posted by Pazuzu

First email was more important.

I was joking.

Email has faded. Now everybody is texting their fingers off. Linux keeps getting better.