My first step on this journey is to really get to know GNU/Linux. I want to know exactly how all the low level programs interact with each other and fit together. How the kernel fits in and how it could be replaced with the GNU Hurd.
I have used various distributions of GNU/Linux over the last three or four years but I believe the best way to learn how the GNU/Linux system works is with the Linux From Scratch project. This way I can basically build my own distro from source, with only the tools I need. I am hoping this will give me a better understanding of GNU/Linux and help me with my installation of the Hurd.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
My journey begins
Hello World!
My name is Adam Cheasley and welcome to a blog about my journey to find the GNU Operating System.
I suppose the first thing I should do is explain a little bit about the background of GNU and also why I am interested in the idea of free software.
GNU stands for Gnu's not Unix (it's a recursive acronym) and the project was started by Richard Stallman. In the mid 1970's Stallman worked as a staff hacker in the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab. Here he helped maintain and add new features to an operating system called the Incompatible Timesharing System. At this point in time all software was passed around freely between programmers. Yet this way of freely sharing source code soon began to dwindle as the money that could be made in software soon became obvious. More and more of the MIT hackers left the Lab to work on proprietary software eventually leading to an incident when Stallman was denied some source code on which he wanted to work and fix. In 1884 Stallman left MIT to start the GNU project, which he envisioned was going to be a completely free alternative to the UNIX operating system (OS). Free in this context refers to freedom as opposed to price so anyone could get the source code and change or modify it as they wished.
When I first heard this story it made sense to me on so many levels. I had been interested in computers from a very early age so the idea of a computer I could completely control and change as I wished made perfect sense.
In about 2001 I started playing about with Linux a little bit. I didn't really use it as my main OS but I liked the idea of it. It was about 2004 when I realised that the Linux system I was using was really GNU/Linux. It was GNU as Richard Stallman had imagined it but with a different kernal running it, the Linux kernal, which was originally built by Linus Torvalds in 1991.
Gnu does have its own kernel, GNU Mach, and a whole series of low level programs around this called the GNU Hurd, but this system is quite unstable at this point in time and not recommended as a production OS.
I thought I'd start this blog to document my journey from a Linux newbie all the way through to, hopefully, someone who is using GNU on a regular basis. Welcome.
My name is Adam Cheasley and welcome to a blog about my journey to find the GNU Operating System.
I suppose the first thing I should do is explain a little bit about the background of GNU and also why I am interested in the idea of free software.
GNU stands for Gnu's not Unix (it's a recursive acronym) and the project was started by Richard Stallman. In the mid 1970's Stallman worked as a staff hacker in the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab. Here he helped maintain and add new features to an operating system called the Incompatible Timesharing System. At this point in time all software was passed around freely between programmers. Yet this way of freely sharing source code soon began to dwindle as the money that could be made in software soon became obvious. More and more of the MIT hackers left the Lab to work on proprietary software eventually leading to an incident when Stallman was denied some source code on which he wanted to work and fix. In 1884 Stallman left MIT to start the GNU project, which he envisioned was going to be a completely free alternative to the UNIX operating system (OS). Free in this context refers to freedom as opposed to price so anyone could get the source code and change or modify it as they wished.
When I first heard this story it made sense to me on so many levels. I had been interested in computers from a very early age so the idea of a computer I could completely control and change as I wished made perfect sense.
In about 2001 I started playing about with Linux a little bit. I didn't really use it as my main OS but I liked the idea of it. It was about 2004 when I realised that the Linux system I was using was really GNU/Linux. It was GNU as Richard Stallman had imagined it but with a different kernal running it, the Linux kernal, which was originally built by Linus Torvalds in 1991.
Gnu does have its own kernel, GNU Mach, and a whole series of low level programs around this called the GNU Hurd, but this system is quite unstable at this point in time and not recommended as a production OS.
I thought I'd start this blog to document my journey from a Linux newbie all the way through to, hopefully, someone who is using GNU on a regular basis. Welcome.
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