Question

According to a comment in one of my previous Questions Linux System Calls. Linux wasn’t implemented on 8086/88 Intel CPUs. So what was the first Intel CPU to support Linux and implement its system calls?

Answer 1

From the horse’s mouth itself (with no insult intended to Linus):

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 ([e-mail])

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

This is from the August ’91 Usenet posting where Linus first announced his baby.

Hence 386 was the first CPU it was implemented on.

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Only those of us who suffered having to lock memory sections at their location in Windows real mode, to prevent the memory manager emulator from moving them around without telling you, will appreciate what a good move Linus made in not trying to shoehorn Linux on to earlier CPUs.

I particularly love the:

just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu

comment. If only Linus had realised how big this beast would become.