(A historic repository of the first official release of the Linux Kernel)
This repo is a means of keeping and preserving the source code of the very first release of the Linux Kernel. This year, 2021, marks the 30th anniversary of the first release, and as this is a historic milestone, I have taken it upon myself (and I'm sure I'm not the only one, either!) to keep this source code preserved online for others to study and share.
The original release notes, as written by Linus Torvalds, can be seen in the original-release-notes.txt file that's included in this repo.
Yeah, I know I'm gonna get asked this question. So to answer it:
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No, it can't do very much at all. It still requires MINIX to bootstrap, but seems to be able to run bash and GCC 1.37.
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Software preservation is an important step in building a history of all software. There will always be people who want to know where their software came from, what it must've looked like in the beginning, and how it evolved. This applies across the board to ALL software, and operating systems are no exception. There has been work to preserve ancient UNIX systems thanks to groups like The Unix Heritage Society, which allows us to go back and study the ancient roots of OSes like Linux, BSD, and macOS, so in that sense, we should strive to keep the movement going.
More information about Linux 0.01, and later versions, can be gleamed from Gunkies Computer History Wiki. While you're there, check out some other pages about historic Unix and other operating systems!
Happy hacking! :)