Overview

Linux is one of the most well-known multitasking free operating system within the microprocessor and minicomputer environment because of a group of dedicated individuals, an interest in computer games, and despite an apparent lack of interest from major corporations. In these respects it has followed the early development of the UNIX operating system, which it has used for its system specification.

Origins and beginnings UNIX

UNIX was first described in an article published by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie of Bell Research Labs in 1974, but its origins owe much to work carried out by a consortium formed in the late 1960s by Bell Telephone, General Electric and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to develop MULTICS a MULTIplexed Information and Computing Service.

The idea behind MULTICS was to generate software that would allow a large number of users simultaneous access to the computer. These users would also be able to work interactively online in a way similar to that experienced by personal computer users today. This was a fairly revolutionary concept. Computers were very expensive and fragile machines that required specially trained staff to keep users away from and protect their machine. However, the project was not as successful as had been hoped and Bell dropped out in 1969. The experience gained in the project was turned to other uses when Thompson and Ritchie designed a computer filing system on the only machine available a Digital Equipment Corp. PDP-7 minicomputer.

The next development was that of the C programming language, which...