8 Linux Concepts That Are Older Than You Think
While Linux is usually considered a modern operating system, some of the ideas it contains are much older than you might think. Here are some aspects of Linux that have long histories.
1. Dual-Booting
Dual-booting Linux has long been the standard way to share Linux with different operating systems, including Windows.
The concept of multi-booting operating systems has been present for about as long as computers have been around.
In a Unix-like context, it’s also been popular on older PC Unix systems like Xenix to run both Unix and MS-DOS. Dual-booting also predates Linux on the Amiga.
The Commodore Amiga 3000UX shipped with Amiga Unix, a customized version of System V, and the standard Amiga Workbench OS. You could select the OS at boot time by using the left and right mouse buttons.
you could see it in action in this video:
2. Supporting Different Architectures
While Linus Torvalds himself didn’t foresee his Linux kernel spreading to other architectures than the Intel x86 platform whenhe announced it on Usenet in 1991, he probably should have given the historical precedent.
Like the original Unix, Linux is written in C. C by itself is a portable language. C programs, as long as they don’t make any assumptions about the underlying environment, can be compiled on any computer that happens to have a compiler written for it.
Like many operating systems of the day, Unix was originally written in assembler, but Dennis Ritchie rewrote it in the early ’70s using the C language he invented. A side effect of this was that the OS was decoupled from the hardware and Unix became a universal operating system.
This was unusual at the time since operating systems were tied to one specific machine. It’s one reason Unix made such a splash in computer science academia in the ’70s and ’80s.
3. The Concept of Different Shells
The Bourne Again (Bash) shell is a popular default shell on Linux systems, but you can easilychange your login shellto whatever you choose. You may know that this was a feature of the original Unix system, but did you know that this idea predates even Unix?
The Multics project pioneered the idea of interchangeable shells. Bell Labs was one of the entities that was participating in the project to build an OS for reliable timesharing. The concept was to build a facility for “utility computing,” that you could use just like water or electricity. The concept was similar to today’s cloud computing.
Unfortunately, Multics was the Windows Vista of the day: ambitious but overcomplicated, delayed, and over-budget. Bell Labs pulled out, leaving two researchers, Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, yearning for a good programming environment. One of the first things they implemented in their Unix system was replaceable shells.
As Unix decoupled the OS from the underlying hardware, the shell decoupled the user interface from the OS beneath it. This kind of flexibility has endeared Unix-like systems to programmers and techies ever since.
4. WSL-Like Environments
Windows Subsystem for Linux, or WSL, lets you run native Linux apps on Windows 10 or 11. But did you know a similar idea could have been implemented by Digital Equipment Corporation back in 1988?
DEC was developing an OS called MICA (you can find the original business plan onBitsavers) that would run on a new processor architecture called PRISM. It would be based on DEC’s popular minicomputer OS, VMS, but would also have a Unix personality.
This ambitious project was the brainchild of Dave Cutler. DEC ultimately canceled MICA and Cutler moved to Microsoft, where he would lead what eventually became Windows NT.
On the VMS side, there was also a program called Eunice which also ran Unix programs. Like the initial WSL, it worked but was also noted for performance and compatibility issues compared to native Unix.
When Windows NT finally emerged in 1993, ithad a POSIX environmentbut it seemed to be there just so Microsoft could say it was POSIX-compliant and bid on certain contracts with the US federal government.
Microsoft would also release a more complete environment, Windows Services for Unix, and the open-source Cygwin project emerged as well.
5. Legal Issues
In the 2000s, the lawsuit against IBM brought on by SCO was widely discussed among Linux and open-source advocates. SCO alleged that Linux infringed on their rights to the original Unix code, which they had acquired.
While IBM and the Linux community eventually prevailed, the situation also had a precedent in the original Unix era. AT&T’s Unix System Laboratories (USL) claimed copyright over Berkeley Software Distribution code, which put a chill on the latter in the early ’90s.
While it eventually turned out that only a few files were “encumbered” and could be easily rewritten to enable open-source distribution, Linux became the darling of computer enthusiasts.
6. Inter-Flavor Competition
While the Linux community likes to debate which distro is better, this is nothing new to Unix culture.
In the ’80s, the big debate was between AT&T’s System V and BSD. The latter was more popular in the academic world, being developed at UC Berkeley. It was also a major component of Unix on workstations, like those from Sun Microsystems.
Toward the end of the 1980s, the Unix world fell into what’s called the “Unix Wars.” AT&T and Sun started to work together on a merger of BSD and System V, and this alarmed other computer companies like HP, DEC, and IBM. The latter companies formed the Open Software Foundation, while Sun and AT&T formed Unix International.
The “war” ultimately ended in a cease-fire. Both organizations merged, but Linux would ultimately supersede proprietary Unix in most applications.
7. “Year of the (Unix) Desktop”
Linux distros have been known for their desktop UIs, trying to make Linux palatable for non-technical users. The efforts also have a long history, as seen in a 1989 episode of the PBS show, “The Computer Chronicles.”
Here, we see offerings from Sun Microsystems, HP, and even Apple. Apple also had a Unix-based OS in the form of A/UX.
8. Open-Source Software
While Linux has popularized the concept of open-source software, this is another idea that has been around for a long time. It’s possibly as old as the computers themselves.
While the GNU project is credited for giving it an explicit ethos in the form of free software, software was already freely passed around in academic circles. The BSD developers created their own license that allowed for free distribution as well.
Lots of Linux Concepts Are Older Than You Think
You’d be surprised at how old some parts of Linux culture, like dual-booting and open-source software, are. A lot of peculiarities of Linux can be explained by how they originated in Unix.
One example that confuses a lot of people new to the Linux command line is how odd the commands seem. Why are they so short? The reason is that they were originally designed to run on teleprinter machines rather than screens.
Ever wondered why Linux commands are so short and weird? Teletype machines and Unix is the answer.
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