Distro developments
After looking into the development of the Linux kernel itself and the surrounding supporting software, let’s turn to how Linux distributions (distros) from this point were developed and branched into a wide-ranging ecosystem.
Distros enabled the use of the Linux kernel to grow rapidly. Not only did they ease the installation of Linux (which early on was a complex process of source compilation, gathering the right tools, creating filesystem layouts by hand, and bootloaders, all from the terminal on systems with limited resources), but one distro can also become the base for a whole new distro, tailored for a new use or audience.
Primordial soup
As Linux v0.01 was only released in September 1991, the first distribution of Linux – though by modern standards, it’s lacking in every department – created by HJ Lu, was simply called Linux 0.12. Released at the end of 1991, it came on two 5.25-inch floppy disks, and required a HEX editor to get running. One disk was a kernel boot disk, the other stored the root OS tools.
In those early days of distro evolution, things changed rapidly. Development was quickly adding base functionality, and people were trying out the best ways to package a Linux-based OS. MCC Interim Linux was released in February 1992 with an improved text-based installer, and was made available through an FTP server.
X Windows – the standard Unix windowing system – was ported, and TAMU Linux was released in May 1992 with it packaged: making it the
