Looking for a comprehensive Linux history guide/book

[Takumidesh]

I am pretty familiar with linux as a general user. However I was wondering if anyone knows a good in depth book/guide/walthrough or whatever, that goes through the history of linux, and what goes on under the hood. I am not looking for a tutorial, or anything like that. More like something I can read before bed. 

[Ashleyyyy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

[Takumidesh]

1 minute ago, Twilight said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

Yea, Wikipedia is great. I was looking for something a little more authored, if that's a good way to say it. If linux was a person I want to read its biography not it's stat pages if that makes sense.

[jdfthetech]

2 hours ago, Takumidesh said:

Yea, Wikipedia is great. I was looking for something a little more authored, if that's a good way to say it. If linux was a person I want to read its biography not it's stat pages if that makes sense.

there really isn't too much to it, to be honest.  Not sure if there is a book on the topic because the history is pretty simple.

[Takumidesh]

9 minutes ago, jdfthetech said:

there really isn't too much to it, to be honest.  Not sure if there is a book on the topic because the history is pretty simple.

Gotcha. I have read a lot of the wikipedia pages, but when getting to technical topics wikipedia just becomes a mess of hotlinks. Wikipedia loses its structure when you need to keep hopping around pages and topics to get a full story, that's why I was looking for something a little more structured. Oh well.

[jdfthetech]

25 minutes ago, Takumidesh said:

Gotcha. I have read a lot of the wikipedia pages, but when getting to technical topics wikipedia just becomes a mess of hotlinks. Wikipedia loses its structure when you need to keep hopping around pages and topics to get a full story, that's why I was looking for something a little more structured. Oh well.

I get what you are saying. Maybe this will help: the problem is the technical aspects are not lost, they are just from an old email list from the mid 90s.  Before there was a versioning system, Linus was just using an email list and compiling all the submissions manually.  This means your best bet is to read through a lot of those technical docs as those compiled all that information.  It's literally a window into the conversations the devs make every day.

Hopefully this will help.

Now, you can find the public information on kernel dev conversations here:

 

https://lkml.org/

 

There is another archive here (which can be rather fun to read):

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/
 

There is also the main page:

https://www.kernel.org/

 

 

[Takumidesh]

6 minutes ago, jdfthetech said:

I get what you are saying. Maybe this will help: the problem is the technical aspects are not lost, they are just from an old email list from the mid 90s.  Before there was a versioning system, Linus was just using an email list and compiling all the submissions manually.  This means your best bet is to read through a lot of those technical docs as those compiled all that information.  It's literally a window into the conversations the devs make every day.

Hopefully this will help.

Now, you can find the public information on kernel dev conversations here:

 

https://lkml.org/

 

There is another archive here (which can be rather fun to read):

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/
 

There is also the main page:

https://www.kernel.org/

 

 

That is awesome! that is the type of stuff i was looking for, A good look into the actual development process and how linux as we know it came to be. thank you.

[sp331yi]

Like GNU/Linux, itself, what you are asking for is scattered about the internet, AFAIK.  Hope these links help!

 

https://www.tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/

https://www0.sun.ac.za/hpc/images/d/d5/Rute.pdf

https://linuxnewbieguide.org/

https://www.linuxtrainingacademy.com/what-is-linux/

https://www.slackbook.org/

And here are some more

https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/running-linux-third/156592469X/ch01s02.html

http://www.linfo.org/linus.html

https://livinginternet.com/i/iw_unix_gnulinux.htm

 

Perhaps OP could write a compendium/history and share it with us!

[Takumidesh]

6 hours ago, sp331yi said:

Like GNU/Linux, itself, what you are asking for is scattered about the internet, AFAIK.  Hope these links help!

 

https://www.tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/

https://www0.sun.ac.za/hpc/images/d/d5/Rute.pdf

https://linuxnewbieguide.org/

https://www.linuxtrainingacademy.com/what-is-linux/

https://www.slackbook.org/

And here are some more

https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/running-linux-third/156592469X/ch01s02.html

http://www.linfo.org/linus.html

https://livinginternet.com/i/iw_unix_gnulinux.htm

 

Perhaps OP could write a compendium/history and share it with us!

These are great resources. thanks!

[igormp]

22 hours ago, Takumidesh said:

I am pretty familiar with linux as a general user. However I was wondering if anyone knows a good in depth book/guide/walthrough or whatever, that goes through the history of linux, and what goes on under the hood. I am not looking for a tutorial, or anything like that. More like something I can read before bed. 

There's the flame war between Linus and Tanenbaum which is a must read: http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/~gabik/Linus_vs_Tanenbaum.html

[vlads_]

Not Linux, but if you're interested in how Unix came to be, which is where a lot of the framework comes form, these are a must read: https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/OralHistory/ (look, for assembled version at the bottom for the TL;DR) as well as this clip, which summerises the philosophy at the time. So not quite what you're asking for, but a couple of vintage sources I thought you'd appreciate nonetheless.