Peter MacDonald is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

software engineer Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining software applications. It involves applying engineering principles and computer programming expertise to develop ...

, best known as the creator of

Softlanding Linux System Softlanding Linux System (SLS) was one of the first Linux distributions. The first release was by Peter MacDonald in May 1992. Their slogan at the time was "Gentle touchdowns for DOS bailouts." SLS was the first release to offer a comprehensive ...

(SLS), widely regarded as the first complete

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

. Some of his work served as a foundation of

Wine Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

. He also created the

Tcl TCL or Tcl or TCLs may refer to: Business * TCL Technology, a Chinese consumer electronics and appliance company ** TCL Electronics, a subsidiary of TCL Technology * Texas Collegiate League, a collegiate baseball league * Trade Centre Limited ...

web browser BrowseX, and the PDQI suite of Tcl utilities. Current projects include Jsish, an embeddable JavaScript interpreter with builtin type-checking.

Biography

Peter Charles MacDonald was born in

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Gre ...

on June 28, 1957. He graduated from the

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

program of the

University of Victoria The University of Victoria (UVic) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay, British Columbia, Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. Established in 1903 as Victoria College, British Columbia, Victoria Col ...

with a BSc (1989) and MSc (1996,

master's thesis A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...

: ''Decomposing the Linux Kernel into Dynamically Loadable Modules'').

Softlanding Linux System

MacDonald co-developed early features of the

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a Free and open-source software, free and open source Unix-like kernel (operating system), kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the k ...

in the early 1990s, including

shared libraries In computing, a library is a collection of resources that can be leveraged during software development to implement a computer program. Commonly, a library consists of executable code such as compiled functions and classes, or a library can ...

pseudo terminal In some operating systems, including Unix-like systems, a pseudoterminal, pseudotty, or PTY is a pair of pseudo-device endpoints (files) which establish an asynchronous, Duplex (telecommunications), bidirectional communication (IPC socket, IPC) c ...

s, the select call and

virtual console The Virtual Console was a line of downloadable retro video games for Nintendo's Wii and Wii U home video game consoles and the Nintendo 3DS family of handheld systems. The Virtual Console lineup consisted of titles originally released on pa ...

s."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. He announced

(SLS), the first standalone Linux install, for testing in August 1992 (on 15

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a ...

s), and for general release in October 1992 (recommending at least 10 MB of

disk space Computer data storage or digital data storage is a technology consisting of computer components and recording media that are used to retain digital data. It is a core function and fundamental component of computers. The central processing ...

). SLS became popular, but also drew criticism. MacDonald was criticized for trying to make money on free software, but defended by

Linus Torvalds Linus Benedict Torvalds ( , ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and lead developer of the Linux kernel. He also created the distributed version control system Git. He was honored, along with Shinya Yam ...

. Two of the early

s were made specifically in reaction to SLS,

Ian Murdock Ian Ashley Murdock (April28, 1973 – December 28, 2015) was an American software engineer, known for being the founder of the Debian project and Progeny Linux Systems, a commercial Linux company. Life and career Although Murdock's parents were ...

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

to compensate for SLS's bugs, and

Patrick Volkerding Patrick Volkerding (born October 20, 1966) is the founder and maintainer of the Slackware Linux distribution. Volkerding is Slackware's " Benevolent Dictator for Life" (BDFL), and is also known informally as "The Man". Personal life Volkerding e ...

Slackware Slackware is a Linux distribution created by Patrick Volkerding in 1993. Originally based on Softlanding Linux System (SLS), Slackware has been the basis for many other Linux distributions, most notably the first versions of SUSE Linux distr ...

to include installer patches which weren't added to SLS, and which MacDonald wouldn't allow Volkerding to distribute independently.

Other software

The initial 1993

Windows compatibility layer was based on

Tcl/Tk Tk is a cross-platform widget toolkit that provides a library of basic elements of GUI widgets for building a graphical user interface (GUI) in many programming languages. It is free and open-source software released under a BSD-style software l ...

windowing functions MacDonald wrote (though later rewritten as direct

Xlib Xlib (also known as libX11) is an X Window System protocol client library (computer science), library written in the C (programming language), C programming language. It contains subroutine, functions for interacting with an X Server (computi ...

calls). MacDonald founded BrowseX Systems in 1999,"BrowseX Home Page"
Retrieved 2011-09-27. and put out version 1.0 of BrowseX, an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

Tcl-based cross-platform web browser, meant to be smaller and faster than

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was o ...

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

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:MacDonald, Peter Canadian software engineers People from Victoria, British Columbia 1957 births Living people Linux people Free software programmers