Back in August of 1991, a student from Finland began a post to the comp.os.minix newsgroup with the words:
Hello everybody out there using minix -
I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby,
won't be big and professional like gnu) for
386(486) AT clones.
The student was Linus Torvalds,
and the ``hobby'' he spoke of eventually
became what we know today as Linux.
A full-featured POSIX-like operating system, Linux has been developed
not just by Linus, but by hundreds of programmers around the world. The
interesting thing about this is that this massive, world-wide development
effort is largely uncoordinated. Sure, Linus calls the shots where the
kernel is concerned, but Linux is more than just the kernel. There's no
management infrastructure; a student in Russia gets a new motherboard, and
writes a driver to support a neat feature the motherboard has. A system
administrator in Maryland needs backup software, writes it, and gives it
away to anyone that needs it. The right things just seem to happen at the
right time.
Another interesting thing is that Linux can be obtained for absolutely no
money. That's right, most of the software is available (at no charge) to
anyone with the time and inclination to download it. But not everyone has
that much time...
Enter a group of programmers based in North Carolina. Their goal was to
make it easier for people to give Linux a try. Like many other such
groups, their approach was to bundle all the necessary bits and pieces into
a cohesive distribution, relieving ``newbies'' from some of the
more esoteric aspects of bootstrapping a new operating system on their
PCs.
However, unlike other distributions, this one was fundamentally different.
The difference? Instead of being a snapshot of a hard disk that had a
working copy of Linux on it, or a set of diskettes from which different
parts of the operating system could be dumped, this distribution was based
on packages.
Each package provided a different piece of software, fully tested,
configured, and ready to run. Want to try a new editor? Download the
package and install it. In seconds, you can give it a try. Don't like it?
Issue a single command, and the package is removed.
If that was all there was to it, this distribution would be pretty nifty.
But being package-based meant there was one additional advantage:
This Linux distribution could be easily upgraded.
Software development in the Linux world is fast-paced, so new versions of
old software come out continually. With other distributions, upgrading
software was painful -- a complete upgrade usually meant deleting
everything on your hard drive and starting over.
By now you've probably guessed that the group of programmers in North
Carolina is Red Hat Software, and the package-based distribution is
Red Hat Linux.
Since Red Hat Linux's introduction in the summer of 1994, Linux and Red Hat
Software have grown by leaps and bounds. Much has changed; support for
more esoteric hardware, huge increases in reliability, and the growing use
of Linux by companies around the world.
But much still remains the same. Linux is still developed by people
world-wide; Linus is still involved. Red Hat Software is still located in
North Carolina; still trying to make Linux easier for people to use.
And Red Hat Linux is still package-based; always has been, always will be.
Since the release of version 4.0, Red Hat Linux runs on three leading computing
platforms: Intel compatible PCs, Digital Alpha computers, and Sun SPARC
equipment. Our unified source tree and the benefits of RPM (Red Hat
Package Management) technology enable us to deploy Red Hat Linux for each platform
with a minimum of effort. This in turn enables our users to manage and
port software between these platforms as easily as possible.
We make Red Hat Linux available by unrestricted FTP from our site and many mirror
sites on the Internet. Red Hat Linux is also available on CD-ROM. For current
information on our product offerings and links to other Linux resources
please check Red Hat Software's web site at On most systems, Red Hat Linux is easy to install; the installation program can
walk you through the process in as little as 15 minutes. The system itself
is very flexible. With RPM, you can install and uninstall individual
software packages with minimal effort. Because of RPM, Red Hat Linux is also easy
to maintain -- package installations can be verified and corrected, and
packages can be installed and uninstalled simply and reliably.
Furthermore, Red Hat Linux is easy to administer. Included are a rich set of
administrative tools which reduce the hassle of everyday system
administration. Complete source code is provided for the freely
distributable components of the system.
What is Red Hat Linux?
http://www.redhat.com.