Peter MacDonald (computer programmer)

Last updated

Peter MacDonald is a Canadian software engineer, best known as the creator of Softlanding Linux System (SLS), widely regarded as the first complete Linux distribution. [1] Some of his work served as a foundation of Wine. He also created the Tcl web browser BrowseX, and the PDQI suite of Tcl utilities.

Contents

Current projects include Jsish, an embeddable javascript interpreter with builtin type-checking. [2]

Biography

Peter Charles MacDonald was born in Victoria, British Columbia on June 28, 1957. He graduated from the Computer Science program of the University of Victoria with a BSc (1989) and MSc (1996, master's thesis: Decomposing the Linux Kernel into Dynamically Loadable Modules). [3]

SLS

MacDonald co-developed early features of the Linux kernel in the early 1990s, including shared libraries, pseudo terminals, the select call and virtual consoles. [4] [5] [6] He announced Softlanding Linux System (SLS), the first standalone Linux install, for testing in August 1992 (on 15 floppy disks), [7] and for general release in October 1992 (recommending at least 10 MB of disk space). [8]

SLS became popular, but also drew criticism. MacDonald was criticized for trying to make money on free software, but defended by Linus Torvalds. [6] Two of the early Linux distributions were made specifically in reaction to SLS, Ian Murdock's Debian to compensate for SLS's bugs, and Patrick Volkerding's Slackware to include installer patches which weren't added to SLS, and which MacDonald wouldn't allow Volkerding to distribute independently. [9] [10] [11]

Other software

The initial 1993 Wine Windows compatibility layer was based on Tcl/Tk windowing functions MacDonald wrote (though later rewritten as direct Xlib calls). [12]

MacDonald founded BrowseX Systems in 1999, [13] and put out version 1.0 of BrowseX, an open source Tcl-based cross-platform web browser, meant to be smaller and faster than Netscape. [14] [15] The last update of BrowseX was in 2003; the company was renamed to PDQ Interfaces Inc., and put out a set of various TCL based utilities. [13] [16]

Jsish: a javascript interpreter with builtin sqlite, json, websocket, and zvfs support. [17]

Related Research Articles

Linus Torvalds Creator and lead developer of Linux kernel

Linus Benedict Torvalds is a Finnish-American software engineer who is the creator and, historically, the main developer of the Linux kernel, used by Linux distributions and other operating systems such as Android and Chrome OS. He also created the distributed revision control system Git and the scuba dive logging and planning software Subsurface.

Linux distribution Operating system based on the Linux kernel

A Linux distribution is an operating system made from a software collection that is based upon the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one of the Linux distributions, which are available for a wide variety of systems ranging from embedded devices and personal computers to powerful supercomputers.

Slackware Linux distribution (operating system)

Slackware is a Linux distribution created by Patrick Volkerding in 1993. Originally based on Softlanding Linux System, Slackware has been the basis for many other Linux distributions, most notably the first versions of SUSE Linux distributions, and is the oldest distribution that is still maintained.

Within the free software and the open-source software communities there is controversy over whether to refer to computer operating systems that use a combination of GNU software and Linux kernel as "GNU/Linux" or "Linux" systems.

FOSDEM Annual event in Brussels centered on free and open source software development

Free and Open source Software Developers' European Meeting (FOSDEM) is a non-commercial, volunteer-organized European event centered on free and open-source software development. It is aimed at developers and anyone interested in the free and open-source software movement. It aims to enable developers to meet and to promote the awareness and use of free and open-source software.

HFS Plus or HFS+ is a journaling file system developed by Apple Inc. It replaced the Hierarchical File System (HFS) as the primary file system of Apple computers with the 1998 release of Mac OS 8.1. HFS+ continued as the primary Mac OS X file system until it was itself replaced with the Apple File System (APFS), released with macOS High Sierra in 2017. HFS+ is also one of the formats used by the iPod digital music player.

Softlanding Linux System Linux distribution

Softlanding Linux System (SLS) was one of the first Linux distributions. It was founded by Peter MacDonald in May 1992. Their slogan at the time was "Gentle Touchdowns for DOS Bailouts".

AppImage Self-contained and compressed executable format for the Linux platform

AppImage is a format for distributing portable software on Linux without needing superuser permissions to install the application. It tries also to allow Linux distribution-agnostic binary software deployment for application developers, also called upstream packaging. Released first in 2004 under the name klik, it was continuously developed, then renamed in 2011 to PortableLinuxApps and later in 2013 to AppImage.

Tanenbaum–Torvalds debate 1990s debate regarding the Linux kernel

The Tanenbaum–Torvalds debate was a written debate between Andrew S. Tanenbaum and Linus Torvalds, regarding the Linux kernel and kernel architecture in general. Tanenbaum, the creator of Minix, began the debate in 1992 on the Usenet discussion group comp.os.minix, arguing that microkernels are superior to monolithic kernels and therefore Linux was, even in 1992, obsolete.

The ext4 journaling file system or fourth extended filesystem is a journaling file system for Linux, developed as the successor to ext3.

Linux Family of free and open-source software operating systems based on the Linux kernel

Linux is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution.

SUSE Linux is a computer operating system developed by SUSE. It is built on top of the free and open source Linux kernel and is distributed with system and application software from other open source projects. SUSE Linux is of German origin, its name being an acronym of "Software und System-Entwicklung", and it was mainly developed in Europe. The first version appeared in early 1994, making SUSE one of the oldest existing commercial distributions. It is known for its YaST configuration tool.

Criticism of Linux Issues concerning use of operating systems which use the Linux kernel

The criticism of Linux focuses on issues concerning use of operating systems which use the Linux kernel.

MCC Interim Linux was a Linux distribution first released in February 1992 by Owen Le Blanc of the Manchester Computing Centre (MCC), part of the University of Manchester. It was the first Linux distribution created for computer users who were not Unix experts and featured a menu-driven installer that installed both the kernel and a set of end-user and programming tools.

Linux began in 1991 as a personal project by Finnish student Linus Torvalds: to create a new free operating system kernel. The resulting Linux kernel has been marked by constant growth throughout its history. Since the initial release of its source code in 1991, it has grown from a small number of C files under a license prohibiting commercial distribution to the 4.15 version in 2018 with more than 23.3 million lines of source code, not counting comments, under the GNU General Public License v2.

Linux kernel Free and open-source Unix-like operating system kernel

The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was conceived and created in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU operating system, which was created as a free replacement for UNIX. Since then, it has spawned a plethora of operating system distributions, commonly also called Linux.

LIO (SCSI target)

In computing, Linux-IO (LIO) Target is an open-source implementation of the SCSI target that has become the standard one included in the Linux kernel. Internally, LIO does not initiate sessions, but instead provides one or more Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs), waits for SCSI commands from a SCSI initiator, and performs required input/output data transfers. LIO supports common storage fabrics, including FCoE, Fibre Channel, IEEE 1394, iSCSI, iSCSI Extensions for RDMA (iSER), SCSI RDMA Protocol (SRP) and USB. It is included in most Linux distributions; native support for LIO in QEMU/KVM, libvirt, and OpenStack makes LIO also a storage option for cloud deployments.

The x32 ABI is an application binary interface (ABI) and one of the interfaces of the Linux kernel. It allows programs to take advantage of the benefits of x86-64 instruction set while using 32-bit pointers and thus avoiding the overhead of 64-bit pointers.

Windows Subsystem for Linux Compatibility layer for running Linux binary executables natively on Windows

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is a compatibility layer for running Linux binary executables natively on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019.

The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was conceived and created in 1991 by Linus Torvalds.

References

  1. ↑ "Linux Distributions", Apr 01, 1994, Linux Journal , Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  2. ↑ "Jsish.org" . Retrieved 2017-12-01.
  3. ↑ "Peter MacDonald" Archived 2007-11-08 at the Wayback Machine , PDQI Staff page. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  4. ↑ "Linux-Activists" mailing list, 1991. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  5. ↑ "Linux-Activists" mailing list, 1992. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  6. 1 2 "The Choice of a GNU Generation: An Interview With Linus Torvalds", Originally published late 1993 in Meta Magazine. By Mike Linksvayer. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  7. ↑ "SLS: now available (for testers)" Archived 2011-07-18 at the Wayback Machine , SLS first announcement - Newsgroup: comp.os.linux, August 15, 1992. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  8. ↑ "Linux Timeline", Linux Journal , May 31, 2006. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  9. ↑ "The Ultimate Distro", by Glyn Moody, Linux Journal , December 27, 2006. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  10. ↑ "Interview with Patrick Volkerding", by Phil Hughes, Linux Journal , April 1, 1994. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  11. ↑ Linux Bible 2010 Edition: Boot Up to Ubuntu, Fedora, KNOPPIX, Debian, openSUSE, and 13 Other Distributions, by Christopher Negus, Wiley, 2009, ISBN   978-0-470-48505-7, p.528. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  12. ↑ "Wine History", WineHQ. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  13. 1 2 "BrowseX Home Page". Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  14. ↑ "BrowseX Systems Inc. announces Beta Release 1.0.x of BrowseX", BrowseX Systems Inc., Sept 26, 2000. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  15. ↑ "BrowseX - A Viable Alternative", review by Steve Coe, Canada Computes, Oct 04, 2000. Archived at the Internet Archive. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  16. ↑ "PDQI Home Page" Retrieved 2011-09-27.
  17. ↑ "Jsish.org" . Retrieved 2014-04-30.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.