1984: Richard Stallman starts GNU (GNU's Not Unix) project - create a free Unix, did not have a kernel
1991: Linus Torvalds creates kernel called Linux
Linux + GNU = GNU/Linux (sadly usually just called Linux)
1993: Red Hat Inc. founded
1994: Red Hat Linux 1.0 released Nov 1994
The Unix Philosophy
each program does one thing well
1 tool -> 1 function
reusable tools
output of any program can be used as the input of another
combine simple tools to perform complex tasks
prototyping mentality - get something small up and running quickly and modify it incrementally as needed, re-write in a "real" language if needed (like C or C++)
terse commands to reduce typing and screen output - text based!
hardware independent (written in C which can be compiled on many platforms)
porting can be a simple as re-compiling on the new system
rich set of tools
distributed processing/multi-tasking (opposite of containers)
like most Open Source Software, you can trace much every tool/utility to an individual or group of programmers