1. How quickly it became usable. I remember using Linux as my full time OS in 1994. I first installed it at least a year before in 1993. I have trouble remembering exactly when, but I clearly recall it being on about 25 floppies. Definitely somewhere in 1993, especially looking at the Slackware History. Looking at that it was already 51 floppies by Feb 1994. Now you might say 18 months is a long time. Of course it is. But what we are really talking about is not just the kernel, but the complete set of stuff around it, and packaging as a complete install.
So in 18 months, Linux went from a "hackers" toy that needed Minix to build to a complete OS that anyone with 25 free floppies and a lot of patience to download them on a 9600 baud modem could use.
2. Linus is not just a geek. I mean this was him as a 22 year old. I really enjoyed reading his email.
3. At one point Linus says:
"I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will be
out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows."
Well, frankly, I'm glad he didn't wait! Hurd is still "not ready for production use, as there are still many bugs and missing features".
No comments:
Post a Comment