Yggdrasil Linux/GNU/X, or LGX (pronounced igg-drah-sill), is an early Linux distribution developed by Yggdrasil Computing, Incorporated, a company founded by Adam J. Richter in Berkeley, California.

Yggdrasil was the first company to create a live CD Linux distribution. Yggdrasil Linux described itself as a "Plug-and-Play" Linux distribution, automatically configuring itself for the hardware.

Yggdrasil is the World Tree of Norse mythology. The name was chosen because Yggdrasil took disparate pieces of software and assembled them into a complete product. Yggdrasil's company motto was "Free Software For The Rest of Us".

History and releases

thumb|CD-ROM of the LGX Yggdrasil Linux distribution release "Fall 1993"

Yggdrasil announced their ‘bootable Linux/GNU/X-based UNIX(R) clone for PC compatibles’ and made the first release on 8 December 1992.

A beta release was made on 18 February 1993. The beta's cost was US$60. LGX's beta release in 1993 contained the 0.99.5 version of the Linux kernel, along with other software from GNU and X.

The production release version carried a pricetag of US$99. According to an email from the company's founder the marginal cost of each subscription was $35.70.

Early Yggdrasil releases were also available from stores selling CD-ROM software.

Yggdrasil Computing, Incorporated

Adam J. Richter started the Yggdrasil company together with Bill Selmeier. Richter spoke to Michael Tiemann about setting up a business, but was not interested in joining forces with Cygnus.

The company moved to San Jose, California in 1996. In 1996, Yggdrasil Incorporated released the Winter 1996 edition of Linux Internet Archives; six CDs of Linux software from Tsx-11 and Sunsite, the GNU archive on prep.ai.mit.edu, the X11R6 archives including the free contributed X11R6 software from ftp.x.org, the Internet RFC standards, and a total of nine non-Yggdrasil Linux distributions.

The company remained active until at least year 2000, when it released the Linux Open Source DVD, but its website was taken offline afterwards and the company has not released anything since. The California Secretary of State lists it as suspended.

The company also had volume discount plans.

See also

  • Arena, a web browser once developed by Yggdrasil Computing
  • MCC Interim Linux

References

  • Yggrasil Linux/GNU/X operating system distribution from 1995 (images)
  • ibiblio's mirror of 1996's release of Yggrasil Linux/GNU/X operating system distribution (docs)
  • DistroWatch on Yggdrasil
  • Yggdrasil CD images in iso format at pd.spuddy.org