Linux meeting to feature alumnus
By Nathan Dean
Editor in
Chief
In the early 90s, a Purdue student created something
called the Debian Project. Nearly a decade later, he will come back to
explain how it helped him create a company.
Ian Murdock, president and CEO of Progeny Inc., will
speak at 7 p.m. on Monday at PHYS 112 to the Purdue Linux Users Group.
The speech is open to the public.
Chris Deckard, president of the Purdue Linux Users
Group, said he believes that it is important for the community to see
what Debian has to offer and how it works.
"Debian is known worldwide. It's one of the first
major distributions for Linux," said Deckard.
Linux, which is an operating system for computers,
is usually freely distributed and has open code sources. It has been considered
the only rival of Microsoft Windows, which has closed sources and is only
available through purchase of the software.
"Debian is a different version of Linux, except version
isn't exactly what it is," said Deckard.
Distributions of Linux can be thought of as different
organizations of the software. Debian is just another version, although
highly popular around the world.
Murdock, who created the project, is considered to
be one of the most well known members of the Linux community. He graduated
in 1993 with a degree in computer science and created the project while
still in school.
Deckard says that it was quite a feat to create this,
because distributions involve installation programming and packaging tools.
"It combines files into packages."
The Purdue Linux Users Group hopes to invite other
well known Linux creators to come to speak and will hope to invite Murdock
again later this fall semester. The group has about 300 members on its
roster.
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