Is X11 the oldest code found on most Linux desktop installations?

Posted Jul 4, 2024 13:52 UTC (Thu) by alison (subscriber, #63752)
Parent article: Rosenthal: X Window System At 40

If not, what is? /usr/bin/sh? I see that Debian default still include xeyes, but not xroach. edlin is available as a package, but not as a default installation. The age of code older than source control may now be hard to establish.

Is X11 the oldest code found on most Linux desktop installations?

Posted Jul 4, 2024 14:14 UTC (Thu) by smcv (subscriber, #53363) [Link]

I'd guess xterm, which is actually older than X (according to its FAQ).

Is X11 the oldest code found on most Linux desktop installations?

Posted Jul 4, 2024 21:14 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (3 responses)

Possibly it's ed, though I don't know how much of current ed's code is original.

Is X11 the oldest code found on most Linux desktop installations?

Posted Jul 5, 2024 8:49 UTC (Fri) by pdewacht (subscriber, #47633) [Link] (2 responses)

There probably are some BSD utilities that haven't seen much change since the late 70s.

Linux of course usually ships GNU utilities, which usually date from the late 80s or early 90s.

Is X11 the oldest code found on most Linux desktop installations?

Posted Jul 5, 2024 8:52 UTC (Fri) by pdewacht (subscriber, #47633) [Link] (1 responses)

Wait no, BSD rewrote everything to get rid of AT&T code. So it can't have anything that old.

Is X11 the oldest code found on most Linux desktop installations?

Posted Jul 5, 2024 9:52 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Why not? AT&T Unix contained large amounts of BSD (the University) and similar code (eg vi) before BSD the Unix existed.

That's why AT&T lost the case so badly, they accused Berkeley of stealing code that Berkeley themselves wrote.

So a lot of Berkeley / University of New South Wales / Imperial College code could still be there.

Cheers,
Wol

Is X11 the oldest code found on most Linux desktop installations?

Posted Jul 5, 2024 9:50 UTC (Fri) by gioele (subscriber, #61675) [Link]

According to a cursory search of the content of debian/copyright files, it seems that auto-07p (software for continuation and bifurcation problems in ODE) is the oldest program in Debian:

Files: *
Copyright: 1979-2007, E.~J.~Doedel, California Institute of
 Technology, and Concordia University.  All rights reserved.
License: BSD-3-clause

The more modern jlapack contains what seems to be oldest file with a substantial amount of code:

Files: jlapack-3.1.1/src/blas/blas.f
Copyright: 1978-1993 Lawson, C.L. (JPL)
           1978-1993 Hanson, R.J. (SNLA)
           1978-1993 Kincaid, D.R. (U. of Texas)
           1978-1993 Krogh, F.T. (JPL)
License: BSD-3-clause