Linux

48332 readers

405 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
No misinformation
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

167

How would Linux have been today if locked bootloaders were as common in the 90s as they are now on ARM devices? (self.linux)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by Timely_Jellyfish_2077 to c/[email protected]

59 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Basically the title

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

competition in the x86 OS space back then

Oh yeah: there were a stuuuupid amount of OSes.

On the DOS side you had MS, IBM, and Digital Research.

You also had a bunch of commercial UNIXes: NextStep, Solaris, Xenix/SCO, etc. along with Linux and a variety of BSDs. There were also a ton of Sys4/5 implementations that were single-vendor specific so they could sell their hardware (which was x86 and not something more exotic) that have vanished to time because that business model only worked for a couple of years, if that.

There was of course two different Windows (NT, 9x), OS/2 which of course could also run (some) Windows apps, and a whole host of oddballs like QNX and BeOS and Plan9 or even CP/M86.

It was a lot less of a stodgy Linux-or-Windows monoculture, and I miss it.