Embedded Systems Design, 2nd Edition

Real-time operating systems 265

Linux

Linux started as a personal interest project by Linus Torvalds

at the University of Helsinki in Finland to produce an operating

system that looked and felt like UNIX. It was based on work that

he had done in porting Minix , an operating system that had been

shipped with a textbook that described its inner workings.

After much discussion via user groups on the Internet, the

first version of Linux saw the light of day on the 5 October, 1991.

While limited in its abilities — it could run the GNU bash shell and

gcc compiler but not much else — it prompted a lot of interest.

Inspired by Linus Torvalds’ efforts, a band of ...