GNU/Linux naming controversy lacking. The GNU kernel was called GNU Hurd. The Hurd followed an ambitious design which proved unexpectedly difficult to implement and has only been marginally usable. Independently, in 1991, Linus Torvalds released the first version of the Linux kernel. Early Linux developers ported GNU code, including the GNU C Compiler, to the kernel. The free software community adopted the use of the Linux kernel as the missing kernel for the GNU operating system. This work filled the remaining gaps in providing a completely free operating system. Over the next few years, several suggestions arose for naming operating systems using the
Operating system paging capabilities, provided personal computers with the ability to run multitasking operating systems like those of earlier minicomputers and mainframes. Microsoft responded to this progress by hiring Dave Cutler, who had developed the VMS operating system for Digital Equipment Corporation. He would lead the development of the Windows NT operating system, which continues to serve as the basis for Microsoft's operating systems line. Steve Jobs, a co-founder of Apple Inc., started NeXT Computer Inc., which developed the NEXTSTEP operating system. NEXTSTEP would later be acquired by Apple Inc. and used, along with code from FreeBSD as the core of Mac