Why so many distros? The Weird History of Linux 

8:11 " He created git!" - Lol why not right

When it came to version control controversy Linus said "Fine I'll do it myself"

And remember kids: "Free" is about "freedom", not price

"Distro" means "Distribution." It's so obvious to Linux users that defining the term seems unnecessary. But to an outsider, that simple definition helps a lot of understanding.

Next video idea: filesystems exFAT, EXT4, FAT32, NTFS, etc

Linus created this as a hobby. While I can't even remember basic email pattern for regular expressions

8:12 He was actually forced to create Git. What happened was that BitKeeper was made available as freeware to the Linux developer community, hedged around with a great deal of caveats. One of these was “no reverse engineering”. Torvalds felt for some reason he could agree to these terms on behalf of the entire Open Source community. So when Andrew Tridgell was commissioned (by the FSF, I think) to reverse-engineer BitKeeper’s formats and protocols, Torvalds ordered him to stop. To which he responded in the predictable way. So Larry McVoy gave notice of the termination of the BitKeeper licence. Torvalds went off to ruminate on things for a couple of weeks, and came back with the beginnings of Git. And the rest, as they say, is history.

This moment when you realize, that this legend create a second project worth millions, only for manage his first big project worth millions

Pls next : Story of git !

Weaponized assault Penguin is an accurate representation of linux community

Gotta love the subtitles sometimes. "led to a period known as the eunuchs wars"

I love what Linus said about creating git; he used concurrent versions system (CVS) as an example what NOT to do, and when in doubt on a decision point, made the exact opposite decision from CVS. 😀

"won't be a big professional thing" lol no

Watching it from a GNU/Linux based OS, a big respect goes to you, bro

SteamOS is actually Arch these days. A couple years back Valve split to Arch, and that was *before* this video was made.

5:38 That “security” aspect was a bit of a joke in the early days, when Red Hat installers tended to load on everything by default. A client of mine got hacked through a vulnerability in the SunRPC service, which we weren’t even using.

The community of Linux is so diverse that almost any discussion can turn controversial. The way you covered this topic is no less of an artistic genius! I use arch btw

Correction 0:49 - "Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie were creating the Unix operating system". Ken Thompson wrote the (original) operating system solo in 3 weeks ... in assembly. He thought he was going to be be fired for doing so, because Bell Labs was told not to work on operating systems anymore. A couple years later Dennis Ritchie invented C (built on top of Ken's own language, B), Ken then tried rewriting Unix in C a couple of times, providing feedback about the language to Dennis - He didn't like using the language until Dennis added structures. Because C and Unix were both invented at Bell Labs, and were (after a few years) closely entwined, lots of people seem to confuse who invented what, and sadly often leave out how significant Ken's contribution was.

Dennis Richie, Ken Thompson, Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds Legends that created the heart(engine) of computer programming.

2:18 this would be the biggest blunder in this video according to me. Linux is released under GPL2 and not 3. When GPL3 was released torvalds clearly rejected upgrading to GPL3 because he doesn't agree with the license.

Thanks for making Linux videos

Seriously, you did a hard work on making this video!

You should do more of these historical topics. I think people really dig it and I do so too. There are so many projects and great people behind them and amazing stories from the history of technology that deserve to be known.

Thank you for giving proper credit to Stallman and the GNU Project, a lot of people overlook that.

*mentions the fact that Linus created git in passing* "Like yeah man, I was not liking this software. So I built one of the biggest version control systems just out of spite. Y'know, everyday things"

"While grandpa was dropping acid at Woodstock" - lines I never thought I'd heard in a developer video🤣

This video was incredible and so insightful! This is a brilliant summary of the story of linux and really helped highlight why linux and the distros are the way they are! Another quality video sir!

Linux has been a joy since I first installed Slackware on my 486DX2-66. I've dabbled with most major distros, and enjoyed the puzzle of getting cd-roms, printers, and sound cards to work back in the '90s and '00s. I used to have to compile a custom kernel to enable a Panasonic cd-rom! Fun times.

"Some cars are designed to go fast...", of all F1 cars shows Ferrari.

This video man ... your channel is awesome! Stopped multiple times in between to study the amazing info graphics! Keep up the great work, I love your channel and your focus on intermediate to advanced programmers!

This is such a helpful video, for beginners or for anyone that is interested about Linux, thanks for all the hardwork.

I started using GNU/Linux in 2007, and I never looked back. My first distro was Aurox, which I only used for few weeks. Then there was the mighty Ubuntu 7.04 and few versions after that. However, my life has truly changed when I started using Debian. Since 2010, all my computers used Debian and I absolutely love it till today. It only gets better. I was very fortunate to always be allowed using Linux at work.

Wisdom: "It's better when it's free. :P" ❤️ I agree 😬

This is the most concise overview of Linux and its history I have seen. I first read about Linux at the end of an article in Infoworld back when it was still an oversized newsprint magazine. Must have been the spring of '92. I downloaded a root/boot pair of floppy images to write out and play with. Kernel v.0.97. The idea was that you load the 'boot' floppy and then just before you start the system you eject the 'boot' floppy and insert the 'root' floppy for your Linux filesystem. There wasn't much you could do with such a minimal system but it got my feet wet. I researched to learn as much as I could about the Soft Landing System which promised a user friendly entry into Linux, Yggdrasil had that cool name and a lot of people said they preferred it, but the only one I could actually figure out how to install was Slackware. Too many floppy disc sets to download over dialup so I only had a very basic system. Later I actually bought a copy of RedHat but got fed up with it before long, so I tried Debian, but it had it's own problems. It keeps wanting to autoupdate all the time. I might as well be using Windows. I tried several different distros as the trends changed but was never really satisfied. Eventually I came back to where I started and have been using Slackware ever since. It's the simplest, most plain-vanilla distribution, therefore the fastest and most secure. It's the most internally documented release and support is offered through the Slackware forum on LinuxQuestions.org. You say it was last updated in 2016. That was the 'stable' branch. We all run Slackware-current for the very latest software technology. Slackware-current is still more stable than most other distributions' "stable' releases. Oh, and it's the most Unix-like. I really appreciate that. It taught me everything I ever needed to know to work under the hood (through the Terminal) on my Mac which runs a version of FreeBSD.

This was a really informative video. I thought I knew a bit about Linux history but I learned a few new things here. Great job.

I would love to see a series on history of other distributions. Great content 👍☺️

Every day I see more and more Linux content from various RU-vid channels. Really cool to see the community grow

Awesome video dude, you're killing it. I really enjoyed placing my entry to the Linux world on the greater timeline, if only I knew when I tried out feisty (7.04) it would change my live forever!

I freaking loving this channel what a video bro... Keep it up I am going to share this channel to my friends and family.. Amazing channel...

0:35 great words by great man

4:02 That's hilariously genius

Man you are uploading daily? Awesome content as always 😃

This video is actually a very good, short, and easy to understand introduction to linux. I think I'm gonna send this to anyone that asks me what linux is.

3:40 thanks for having suse in the list. However: Suse parted ways with Slackware in the 1990s, moved over to become their own thing from scratch and be rpm packaged. And _open_SUSE, the step of going from in house development to an open community started only 2004.

Another amazing one! Love this history

I've been waiting for this so eagerly since yesterday when you told us this would be coming!

Wonderfully concise, comprehensive and historically accurate. THANK YOU!

Love the way you tell this! Should be the go to video for anyone not familiar with GNU/Linux.

Distro doesn't matter as long as you do something worthy in your life

I miss the music at the end like the one in your old videos, it really makes me feel rewarded 🤗☺️☺️.

Excellent. that the kind of perspective which cast a lot of light on the subject and brings lots of order on a somewhat many piece jigsaw.

Wow.. I learned A TON of stuff I had no clue about.. So happy I clicked this... being a geek has it's wonderful moments! Thank you!!

Loving the spotlight on Linux!

Linux from scratch in 100 seconds?

Keep on posting Linux videos and i ll be heree all day long

Manjaro KDE is my current primary OS. Great video as always!

I really missed knoppix, which revolutionized the installation process by making it possible to run the entire thing from cd or dvd.

There is a great book that Linus Torvalds co-authored called "Just for Fun: a story of an accidental revolution" - that describes early days of Linux and how that later influenced Torvald's life. A super well written book that is not technical at all.

i remember being at college in 1991 and hearing about the linux project. Was an exciting time.

I was waiting to hear something about Kali linux. Still enjoyed watching it. Thanks for making such unique content ❤️

I switched to Ubuntu 20.04 from Windows 10 just a few months back. Honestly, that was the best decision of my life. The experience is really amazing. And it is damn easy to do any kind of programming in Linux. A million thanks to Linus Torvalds and the entire open source community. And thanks for making this video. It was fun to watch.

Fireship: There are 2 Linux families that came out in the early 2000s that are focused on simplicity, performance, and minimalism *Ah yes, Gen Z distros*

Bro I love your videos. You got one more subscriber. Pls don't stop uploading.

So well explained! Great work!

Not something many people in the Linux community are likely to admit to, but a lot of the different distros have come about because people thought their way was better and that that required a whole new distro. Little of it is about actual needs.

I'm gonna show this to my buddy who is skeptical about Linux AND Communsim ;) :> Thanks for this !

These videos are sick man, digging the subscription

this was actually very comprehensive 💪🙏

Calling Arch Linux simple and minimalistic is true for power user, but it is quite misleading for layman.

This Linus guy is a legend. Didn't even know we have git thanks to him.

This is amazing, this is exactly what I have been searching all along.

How is this person able to explain this topic better than literally Everyone else!! Amazing! Awesome videos!

I love linux, when windows 10 released it totally tanked my old laptop, so I upgraded computers and put mint on my old laptop, it runs great and my son uses it

I've been into Linux and the free software community for many years now. Honestly, this was one of the best intros to "What the f*** is Linux?" that I've seen. Thanks Fireship.

Man, what a fine content. The editing...God bless you.

6:45 Thumbs up for the visualisation of "rolling release" :)

i switched from win10 to Manjaro for my workstation half a year ago and yes there is a learning curve. however i don't think i would be able to switch back because most things on linux just make sense compared to win10

7:15 Some cars are designed to go fast >Shows a ferrari xd

Linus deserves a Nobel prize.

Thanks for creating awesome content☆ your linux videos are my favorite

I've loved Arch ever since I move to linux

So much left unsaid about linux's unique history. Loved your take on linux in less than 10 minutes though.

I think I'm going to have to run an image of some of these distros. The one I'm most excited about trying is linux studio. I can't wait to learn more about linux, thanks for the quality content. I use Linux as a data person daily, but have only explored the standard ubuntu distro. It seems viable to make custom flavors to sell to a niche industry. I'm interested in learning more about how to make custom flavors of linux, or even design industry specific packages. However, I wonder if this would be against the general philosophy of Linus. He really seems like a legend in the open source mindset. Another part of me is thinking about that car analogy, and under that mindset the idea of an engine is what is open sourced. I personally wouldn't be morally conflicted thinking about building a car with that "open sourced" engine and selling it, so why should I be conflicted here? I guess the analogy between the linux kernel and a car engine breaks down here though. The car engine is made of a whole lot more mass than the physical linux kernel, so the engine took a much larger portion of resources to create. Thus, it isn't really open sourced since you have to source the materials from somewhere to make the engine. That is assuming you had a computer to begin with. I love this channel! You blow my mind with every video I've watched.

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!

@1:06 Best part of the video explaining the origin of it all in operating systems. And I am grateful to Stallman for GNU (and previously his fight against the corporation) and Torvalds for Linux because without them, we would be stuck in a nightmarish computer world controlled by Microsoft/Sun/IBM with 0 innovation for the people - well, if Apple would have had a better follow up of its Apple II we might have went through but the world wouldn't be as advanced computing-wise as it is today.

Note: Linux is under GPLv2, not GPLv3 (logo in video)

Awesome video Jeff, keep rocking!

I'm 29 years old and what's amazing with this is that most of these awesome people from the beginning at Bell Labs/AT&T, Ken Thompson, Lorinda Cherry, Brian Kerningham, etc. then afterwards people like Linus Torvals, Richard Stallman are still alive today (sadly not Ian Murdock, but he did not die of old age, and Dennis Ritchie), even if to younger conmputer science enthusiasts today, it feels like the history of mankind all the way from prehistoric times, all of this happened incredibly fast. It's so awesome that even if it feels like old software if you would boot up the first versions of GNU/Debian, etc, it's the same commands that you run today, with some updates of course, but most of it looks the same. I'm so thankful for all of their code that I use everyday for free, especially for those who intended it to be free and open source software from the beginning. To me, they are legends, we will always remember their names, but we should not forget that behind the big names, there are thousands of mostly anonymous FOSS projects contributors who are awesome too! I believe GNU/Linux systems will continue to improve (almost) forever.

7:35 "... but in reality, it's the polar opposite [of Communism] and the Free Market at its finest" This is only true if its taken as a play on words: "Free" as in software, not "Free" as in deregulation. Markets fundamentally regulate property and ownership: who owns what and under what conditions. The "Free" Market refers to an unregulated market where ownership is determined by whichever private entity has the most power to enforce their will. Therefore, a free market seeks to privatize as much Intellectual Property as possible, mainly because owning ideas is a form of power over people (thought control, limiting the ability to express themselves), but also because requiring people to go through you to meet their specific needs would generate more revenue (secondary resources that become property) than letting some other private entities use "your" ideas to cater to those people's needs. Free Software directly spits in the face of this and says "these ideas are owned by the entire community, including end users who don't even contribute to the project, and no singular entity may have total control over it." The term 'Communist' is appropriate because what I just described is communal ownership (the likes of which a communist market functions on), regardless of the intentions of those using it.

Everyday I admire the GNU project more and more

Warty Warthog caught my eye at my local library one year, I had no idea, but soon started figuring it out. I am glad for ShipIt back then. I was so pumped checking the mail every day waiting on my Live CD.

best basic intro to linux fireship keepit up men.

7:17 Some cars are designed to be fast : *Shows a picture of a completely red tractor*

03:00 I refuse to believe that you couldn't find a higher resolution of the GNOME logo than that half-hearted excuse of a pixelated mess!! haha :D

Started watching it on Manjaro, then used KDE connect to send open this vid on my Android phone and continue watching... Huge respect

this is good content. thanks. just subscribed

Seriously! This is how history should be taught in schools! ✌️ Loved it!

I love Linux so much. Thank you to all the people who have made it possible to flourish to where it is now, we owe you an unpayable debt.

Awesome video, so clear and yet interesting. These videos need translation support tho!

Wow! One of the best video about Linux history 👍