On 25 August 1991, Linus Torvalds wrote:

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. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I’d like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

I’ve currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I’ll get something practical within a few months, and I’d like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them 🙂

Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes – it’s free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have :-(.

I can remember playing with Minix, and being somewhat unsatisfied.  When I learnt about Linux and downloaded an early version (I think it was v0.11 – it was well before the version numbering made the big jump towards v0.95).  I found the first version somewhat lacking.  But the pace of progress was undeniable even then.  By v0.95 it was quite a useable platform.

Although I mainly used FreeBSD from 1995 to 2005 (desiring a somewhat more stable platform) the momentum behind Linux has been unstoppable.

Congratulation Linus!