| Company / developer | Owen Le Blanc |
|---|---|
| OS family | Unix-like |
| Working state | Historic |
| Source model | Free and open source software |
| Initial release | February 1992 |
| Latest stable release | 1.2+ / 23 April 1996 |
| Available language(s) | Various |
| Update method | None (manual) |
| Package manager | None |
| Supported platforms | Intel 386 |
| Kernel type | Monolithic (Linux kernel) |
| Default user interface | Command line interface |
| License | Various |
MCC Interim Linux was a Linux distribution first released by Owen Le Blanc of the Manchester Computing Centre (MCC), part of the University of Manchester, England) in February 1992. MCC Interim Linux has the distinction of being the first Linux distribution capable of being independently installed on a computer.[1]
The MCC first made Linux available by anonymous FTP in November 1991.[2] Owen Le Blanc's irritations with his early experiments with Linux, such as the lack of a working fdisk (he would later write one), the need to use multiple FTP repositories to acquire all the essential software, and library version problems, inspired the creation of this distribution.[3]
Le Blanc claimed he referred to the distributions as "interim" because "...they are not intended to be final or official. They are small, harmonious, and moderately tested. They do not conform to everyone's taste -- what release does? -- but they should provide a stable base to which other software can be added."[2]
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Prior to its first release, the closest approximation to a Linux distribution had been H J Lu's "Boot-root" floppies. These were two 5¼" diskettes consisting of the kernel and the minimum tools required to get started. So minimal were these tools that to be able to boot from a hard drive required editing its master boot record with a hex editor.[4]
The first release of MCC Interim Linux was based on version 0.12 of the Linux kernel and made use of Theodore Ts'o's ramdisk code to copy a small root image to memory from the previously wasted space of the boot floppy, freeing the floppy drive for additional utilities disks, although the inefficient kernel ramdisk code of the time in practice led to problems on systems with only 2 MB of RAM.[2]
He also stated his distributions were "unofficial experiments", describing the goals of his releases as being:
Indeed, no attempt was ever made to distribute it with a wide range of software or even the X386 windowing system.
Soon after the first release came other distributions such as TAMU, created by individuals at Texas A&M University, Martin Junius's MJ, Softlanding Linux System and H J Lu's small base system.
These too being quickly superseded by the oldest surviving distributions - Debian and Slackware.
The 1.0 distribution of MCC Interim advised that Debian was "five times the size of MCC, and quite comprehensive",[2] and less ambiguously encouraged its use in his final version, providing transitional support for existing users.[5]
As discussed in an email dated 23 April 1992, the boot and utilities disk pair included:[3]
Notably not included was 'man'. An optional pair of disks contained gcc and g++ 2.1, kermit and shoelace.
Released on the 14th April 1993.[6] Added to version 0.95c+ were bison, flex, gdb, gprof, groff, gzip[7] and man.[8]
Released on the 26th April 1993.[9] Added to version 0.99.p8 were emacs and info.[10]
Added to version 0.99.p8+ were elm,[11] lp, mail, progman, timezone and words[12]
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