Introduction

In the following book you will be presented with some information regarding the Inferno operating system created by Bell Labs in the mid-1990s. Its name and somewhat mysterious aura led me to write it in a style akin to the one that can be seen in older books, such as those from the early 20th or late 19th centuries. This applies to both the chapter headings, as well as the text itself.

Furthermore, a rudimentary study of the Limbo programming language is also included, wherein I attempt to explain its basics in a manner which I hope will be easy to understand even if you do not have a lot of programming experience.

I believe that this may also make reading it somewhat more enjoyable than the otherwise rather dryly written literature available on this subject and perhaps help those who are interested in this operating system — and that may possibly not know much about Linux itself either — can have an interestingly written introduction.

It is, however, to be noted that this is not meant to be a complete introduction to the operating system and its underlying structure; it is merely intended to be a quick overview of the operating system, how to install it and what you can do with it.

Additionally, should you want further information regarding this operating system, I do promote the reading of the Addendum, wherein you will find supplementary information I found unfit for the main portion of this work or which I became aware of only after having finished the main work. In addition to that, the Further Reading section will provide you with a list of texts which can be used to delve deeper into this interesting topic.

I highly encourage you to criticise my work — this is, obviously, without having to result to petty insults and the like — and send me an email with your feedback. It is not unlikely that I have made a mistake — or perhaps even several — over the course of this work and I always like to be corrected if there are factual, grammatical or spelling errors.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license, which means you are allowed to share it with others free of charge and I do encourage you to do so; you should never have to pay for this document in a digital format and I would like you to report any such occurrences to me, since commercial distribution is strictly prohibited by the license and those who make a profit from it are in violation of it. Physical copies can be obtained solely from me, at least commercially.