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Where did Redhat derive from? Did it derive directly from Linus Torvaldis linux distro (2 years earlier) or did it have roots in BSD or System-V ?? I am just wondering how to classify Redhat in the Linux world.

1991
Linus Torvalds releases the Linux® kernel.
1993
Bob Young incorporates ACC Corporation, a catalog business 
that sells Linux and UNIX software accessories and books, 
and distributes a magazine called New York UNIX.
1994
Marc Ewing creates his own distribution of Linux, which he
names Red Hat® Linux. Released in October, it becomes known 
as the Halloween release.
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According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions RedHat didn't derive from anything. Is that what you mean? Remember, back then there barely were Linux distributions. Think Linux From Scratch. – Michael Kjörling Jan 5 at 21:31
Yep, that's what I mean. I was a user of the very first Redhat system but at that time all this stuff about legacy of distros didn't exist... – djangofan Jan 10 at 21:29

2 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

http://files.cyberciti.biz/uploads/tips/2007/06/44218-linuxdistrotimeline-7.2.png

RedHat originated as a distro created from Linus' kernel, as Marc Erwig had created his own distro. It's not like CRUX/Arch Linux, where the system was heavily influenced by BSD's rc.conf and ports system. Instead, it was made as a distro, based off of the Linux kernel directly.

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1  
How can one "base off the Linux kernel directly" in terms of Linux distributions? The kernel is of less concern here; it's all Linux. I may be missing out on some history here. – gertvdijk Jan 5 at 1:50
2  
Intially a distro wasn't too much more than a small userland (think the dev packages, coreutils and a couple more), the kernel and the bootloader. I think the statement is meant to show, that it's starting from scratch and not base off of some other distro. In that case they know they want to include linux, i.e. base it on that, and then include everything to build it (dev packages) and the rest ist just added on for convenience. – Max Jan 5 at 1:57
Is there a newer version of the above image, which goes beyond 2007 up to today? I'm missing a lot distributions for e.g. the openmoko computers, and of course android. – ott-- Jan 5 at 17:24
Ok, there's an almost up-to-date version on futurist.se/gldt/2012/10/29/… – ott-- Jan 6 at 16:53
up vote 1 down vote

The roots of RedHat as well as other distributions go to the kernel from Linus and the wonderful set of tools created by the GNU Project.

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