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Linux Turns 10
An AC sent in: "The IBM PC may be 20 years old, but they're not the only ones with a birthday coming up. Check out www.linux10.org for an invitation to a birthday party on August 25 for the Linux kernel. The big bash is in Sunnyvale, just down the peninsula from the San Francisco LinuxWorld Expo, but there are also links to local parties around the globe (or if there are none near you, plan your own and add it to the list)."
Errr...you didn't interface with the kernel..someone else did. You just used their programs to do so. Stop whinning unless all your commands are binary ioctls.
Ummm, I think we'd all have to be smoking crack to believe Linux has 60 million users. I'd estimate it more at like 650,000 maybe. The only people I know who even know what Linux is are other technical people... and half of them don't use it in lieu of Windows.
Will any of these parties be put on the web via live stream?
I am Lord Snowbeam. Heed my call!
I think you're missing one of the major ones impacts. Just five years ago e-mail viruses were virtually unheard of. Without Visual Basic, tech support people would still be telling people "No, that's not an e-mail virus, it's just a hoax." Now, with the recent innovations by Microsoft and embedded visual basic scripts, 9 chances out of 10 it IS an actual e-mail virus. Without Microsoft's passion to innovate new and exciting technologies like these many people would be out of a job... instead the security and anti-virus industry is absolutely booming! Thanks Microsoft. Happy 10th Birthday Visual Basic! May you keep infecting emerging technologies with new and innovative viruses as you have for the past 10 years well into the next decade!
Unlike some who think your counter is a little wrong i beleave it is right I've had people bring up using linux that I would of never guessed could install it much less used a computer before. I think most these people dual boot tho and just stick with what they know and experiment with linux every now and then.
I could be wrong, but I think that the first line of 0.01 was written on August 25, 1991 and released September 17th.
This space intentionally left blank.
I share a birthday with the linux kernel! I'm proud. :)
A voice spake from the darkness and said unto me "Smile, things could be worse." So I smiled and lo, things bec
Wow. Somewhat of an interesting story for me. I just got through with a long car trip with the audio book of Linus' "Just For the Fun of It" to keep my brain occupied during the mind-numbing journey.
It talked a lot about Linus himself, how Linux started, his views on Open Source, politics and the meaning of life. (His take on the meaning of life was not insightful, but at least interesting.)
Did you know that Linux started out as an overgrown terminal emulation program to read USENET newsgroups from the University's computer, and ran under Minix?
Neat stuff. Linus was taken completely by surprise that Linux has gotten to where it is today. On one hand, had he known of all the work that was ahead of him, and that he'd be spending ten years of his life on it, he would have given up. But on the other hand, seeing all that it has done and the benefits that it has brought, he said he probably would have went forward with it.
If this sounds schizophrenic, at least according to the book, that partially describes a number of Linus' views. Like on intellectual property.
Anyhow, glad to read there will be a Linux anniversary celebration, and for an intersting commute, pick up the audio book. Five CD's full.
then how about renaming it to
www.LinuxOSX.org
Btw, I don't know much about Linux Torvalds but I am amazed that he developed an operating system before he even turned ten years old. Happy Birthday!
- jfdouble
I wonder if anyone has managed to keep the kernel running for 10 years.... (California Power Crisis comes to mind)
So we can run software from the 80's? Modern versions of Windows won't. Linux will, but what is the use, seeing that practically everything has been rewritten since anyhow?
I'm a bit confused. Which Linux software from the 1980s can still run on Linux? And btw, most MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 programs run on Windows XP. Have you heard of WOW (Windows on Windows)?
cpeterso
I opened your link in Opera, and was presented with a page with "undefined" as the first word, and big squares before and after a few words, which I presume were meant to be "smart quotes" or some other thing that is not part of normal HTML outside Microsoft's world. I'll stick with the product with the better web page.
Follow me
Suitcase contents:
:-)
Stake
Holy Water
Crossbow
Sig-Sauer with carbon fibre bullets (Ultraviolet has much better weapons!!)
Ancient volumes on Vampires, Demons and other creatures of the night..
Oh, damn thats Sunnydale not SunnyVale.
Anyway, why did a vampire who gets sunburn very easily, decide to live in California ? Maine or Seattle whould be much better for his complexion.Ah, that explains Microsoft!!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
www.linu x10 .org
I know I almost did. Those damn cameras are going to ruin this world...
Regards,
KGraci
If ever having left someone's prescence, you feel as if you lost a quart of plasma, AVOID that prescence -W.H.Burroughs
There is no such thing as a user-friendly kernel.
I don't know about that. Of course, the "users" in question are the authors of programs that use the kernel's services. And I'd say that Linux is moderately user-friendly. It could be better, but it's certainly much, much friendlier than any of the OSes ever made by MicroSoft.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
What you don't do is *Address* the kernel directly on a daily basis. You DO interface with it constantly. That's what an *interface* is. It sits *between* you and kernel.
Inter-face. Look up the word and then look up "inter."
bash is an interface. KDE is a GUInterface.
THEY face the kernel. YOU face them.
Inter. Get it?
Perhaps you are getting confused by your advanced knowledge that Linux is just the kernel. You are correct.
bash and KDE are not Linux. They are among the many kernel *interfaces* available to address the kernel and for the user to address.
I wish to God that Sun had taken half the money they spent on testing Gnome and KDE. I would have written them a long letter telling them everything they learned with a lot less wasted time on everybodies part. They suck, for everybody, newbie and expert alike. They don't need to.
bash, on the other hand, is an excelent interface. . . for those that already know everything.
The joke is funny, as many jokes are, because of how painfully true it is.
KFG
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
Yes, you are a bit confused. He didn't say *Linux* software from the 80s, he said software.
.of the 80s.
The point of fact is that Linux was specifically developed to run existing software. .
You'll find most of it at gnu.org.
KFG
"Hey honey, want to go to a Linux party? Right off I-95 in Philadelphia. Yeah, near New Jersey. Honey? Honey?..."
Serious?
VB has had more of an impact.
Don't forget that at its heart linux is just a copy of a 30 year old os design. The only impact it has had on the internet is that more people get their unix binaries for free now.
meanwhile
Anonymous posts are filtered.
To bad I can't attend but it's my weddingday so the occation will be marked never the less.
Another thing happening on the same day is the wedding of the norweigan crown prince. O.k. it's not realy an issue for amnericans but still it's a nice useless fact.
I suggest we all have a great 25 of august.
// yendor
ArtEnvironment, you kick ass!
I was wondering why t-shirt sales are going up. Man, I was worried we wouldn't sell enough to cover the money I put down on them. There's still a couple hundred more, but make sure you Philly dudes get your orders in.
PLUG and BCLUG rock!
Thanks, Drew
...also related to infrastructure, can be found here. It's so interesting to compare what both have done to the internet. ;)
"Turn the Page" -- Bob Seger
"Turn Turn Turn" -- Pete Seeger
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Because 2.4.9 is supposed to be ready by then.
I never said it would be accurate. :) And I haven't found any "new numbers" that mean anything well enough to update the counter's settings. Everyone admits that it's near impossible to count the actual number of Linux users because Linux can be installed in so many different ways. Maybe it's 120,000,000. Maybe it's 15,000,000. No one really knows for sure.
Perhaps the NSA will have the anti-terrorism(anti-hacker) Alliance their to sqaush the rebel rebellion?
It's called communication.
:)
Although by your logic, _this_ post is a waste of time, as well as your question.
Unless you think I'm karma whoring. I'm not. Do you see me posting top-level? Moderators rarely even see my posts.
And why * shouldn't* it confuse people if it looks just like Windows. . . except when you want to do something? I've been using KDE for three months now and I still can't perform many simple GUI specific tasks just because I can't find where they are done, even if I've done them before.
More importantly related tasks seem to be placed at random places . . . away from each other.
I'm no computing novice, I remember when there was no UNIX. I didn't use Windows until it had been out for years, and then only because it came preinstalled.
I think MS Windows sucks for many reasons, but I can use it fairly easily.
KDE sucks not only to the extent that seeks to emulate Windows but *also* to the extent that it fails to do so.
At least it's getting better, I've stopped using GNOME because it seems to be getting worse.
Damn good thing I boot to level 3.
KFG
Great. You had to go and violate copyright laws by posting the lyrics to that song on this board. How will you feel if Slashdot now gets sued for millions of dollars? ;)
I actually live in Joisey. :) You have to have a sense of humor to live here.
A usable interface? :)
No, you're not telling the truth. You're mis-informed, and besides. Anything that's going to start a flame-war is flamebait. :)
:)
The truth is,
- Linux is a kernel.
- A kernel does not have a GUI.
- Users never interface with the kernel at all.
- There is no such thing as a user-friendly kernel.
- There is no such thing as a non-user-friendly kernel.
Let me re-iterate:
Linux is not an operating system... and what you are referring to as "linux", a distribution of kernel and user programs, has NOT existed for ten years, and is NOT what this article is about.
So even if you're not flamebait, you're offtopic.
For those east coasters, there will be a party held in Philadelphia. Check here for details. This link is correct as the one on the main page of linux10.org is broken.
Happy birthday to you..
Happy birthday to you..
Happy birthday dear Linux!
Happy birthday to you.
Omega9
$chown us base
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
Ummm, I think we'd all have to be smoking crack to believe Linux has 60 million users. I'd estimate it more at like 650,000 maybe. The only people I know who even know what Linux is are other technical people... and half of them don't use it in lieu of Windows.
What about the people who are using linux boxes but dont realise it? When they visit a web page? When they collect their mail? Think of where linux COULD be used in a multi user environmenmt, and think of the people who dont know what it is that they are using other that "that unixy stuff thing".
Do the following really mean anything? SCSA MCP CCSA CCNA
--I'm not actually after an answer!
Thats remarkably close to being a goatse.cx post, there, bud. Spanking the kernel, indeed...
A standardized set of video codecs in a single stable player.
I've been emailing quicktime@apple.com asking them to release a Sorenson decoder (not a full codec, just a decoder) so that QuickTime video can be viewed under Linux. Especially as they claim that "QuickTime is a truly cross-platform technology".
It seems to me that without a generally available decoder technology what they are providing is QuickTime encryption.
So far they have failed to even acknowledge my messages. *sigh*.
#exclude <ms/windows.h>
When was the LAST time you actually interfaced with any kernel (OS not included) directly? I know for me, it was about 2 weeks ago when I get 2.4.6 compiled on here. Butttt come on, people rarely have to interface with the kernel on a daily basis, unless you happen to be a programmer, then yea. But I don't even think you can even look at the kernel in a Windows box, so don't complain. BTW Happy Birthday Tux!
Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction.
Better keep the party in a bombshelter, just in case Microsoft decides to bomb the place !!
I'm not sure why, exactly, your post was moderated up (perhaps because it was lengthy?) -- you've not given any reasoning for saying the VM subsystem doesn't work, you just give an ad hominem (which, judging by the moderation, was effective in itself). Care to explain what, exactly, is wrong with the VM subsystem?
I'll field this one.
I write this as a kernel compiles in the background. 2.2.19. I was testing Web-1 with a number of 2.4 kernels, but it has freaked, oopsed, and panicked its way to 3 crashes in the last month, so I'm packing it away for awhile. 2.4 does okay on my desktop and the squid servers, but lions' dens we call web servers just eat it alive.
The oopsen all came out of the disk/io cache and most are posted to lkml, but it's like talking to a wall. :(
I do think it will work out in the end, though. We had fun with the 2.2.x Intel and 3Com NIC drivers up until around 2.2.12 or so. That's the curse of a high-traffic network -- you get to be the unwilling guinea pig for all of those 'close, but not quite' kernels.
I get dips on spanking the kernel!
Is that the new euphemism for what we do when pictures of a naked Tux get us far more excited than we should be? Just pick up a linux magazine at the local computer store and ask to use their bathroom for a few minutes. I can see it now...
Eew, that's dirty.
that is what you're talking about, right?
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Everybody denies I am a genius--but nobody ever called me one!
The tune is copyrighted. The copyrighted *lyrics* are:
Now, I'll have to sic AOL on Slashdot. AOL owns the copyright on Happy Birthday and will own it forever thanks to the Sonny Bono Act[?], which sets a dangerous precedent that every 20 years, Congress will pass a law extending copyright terms. And even the Supremes have a price.
Will I retire or break 10K?
>Linux is just more proof shit does not sell.
Windows 95 sold, so did NT4, so did 98, 98se, Win2k, WinMe.
Your comment couldn't be further from the truth.
Linux just doesn't have ZDNet on the payroll, a single corperate image, and a billion shiny catalogues to go with a fancy dan 'cirtifiquoite of augentacy'
Oooh boy..is this gonna be anything like when MIR was brought down? Why doesn't /. hold a contest.."give us your guess on the exact date AND TIME that Linux was created and you'll get a free t-shirt!" :P
"My days are less enjoyable because of people." ~ Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
See also this history of linux.
Linux user since early January 1992.
[note - XP =18, etc. depending on how you count it.]
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
bash? ssh? What about us korn fans? We shouldn't be discriminated against just because the music sucks.
Linux is the kernel, not the OS.
Happy b-day, linux :)
A standardized set of video codecs in a single stable player.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Who was it that said it takes 10 years to make really good software?
You need to understand one thing from reading the Kernel Mailing List.
The problem is that when _ALL_ the RAM is consumed and _ALL_ the swap is consumed ON 2GB+ RAM machines, THEN the computer goes into conniptions.
That is a very specific recipe. Linux should not have this problem; it should just degrade performance gracefully; but it does have this problem. There is a fundemental problem here. They kernel guys may be able to tune the VM to avoid the problem. But depending on the tuneing a malicious program could still cause the catelepsy.
My suggested work-arounds for the whinners with more than a GB of RAM:
- DON'T EXAUST ALL YOUR MEMORY AND ALL YOUR SWAP. If you start hitting swap consistantly, stop!
- Make sure users run with ulimits. Make them real big, but less than everything.
-- I am not a fanatic, I am a true believer.
Bill ?
Is that you !?
Is it really worth celebrating that two things that were originally intended as quick backwards compatibility HACKS has stayed around this long, spending huge amounts of energy on maintaining backwards compatibility?
The IBM PC never was very well designed to begin with, and neither was UN*X. Still, both technologies keep their life force because they've already become standards.
The IBM PC was designed to make porting easy for already existing x86 CP/M software. Check the documented CP/M backwards compatibility interrupts if you don't believe me. It used commodity parts because time-to-market was the most important issue. CP/M itself wasn't used because of a legal fight between IBM and Digital. (I believe this was mentioned in a documentary film labeled "Triumph of the Nerds".)
The reason that Linus got so much help with creating Linux, was because they wanted it to run already existing UN*X software, quickly.
As any low level coder can attest, the IBM PC as it is today is a kluge on a kludge on a hack. Just the process of making it boot is a tedious job with pitfalls around every corner. It's got an entire 16-bit computer inside that's only used during the first couple of seconds after you turn it on. The CPU is full of instructions that are never ever used by the programs that 99.9% of PC users use.
I'm almost amazed it still works.
Linux on the other hand has been totally redesigned since its hack days. There are still a major limitations with the way it's designed, though. It's a monolithic kernel, an ancient design principle, where everything is running in the same place, intermixed like crazy. The increased modularity of the recent kernels help with some things, letting you add drivers during runtime, but doesn't help much with larger upgrades, or making it easy to develop for. A more modern kernel design such as the Hurd can let a regular user develop and try out larger kernel parts during runtime, whereas with linux a reboot is still required for upgrading most nonessential parts of the kernel. And since it's just one big heap of code, a mistake in one place can make the whole thing crap out. It's a stroke of fortune that Linus has the inhuman ability to maintain such a beast.
And that's just Linux. For UNIX, the main word is Inconsistency. The inconsistencies of the API are quite hair raising, and many of the calls are practically hacks that remained, and never got implemented proper. The security model is laughable, a philosophy that you either are God (root), or you are not. The commandset is just as intuitive as you'd expect, where practically every program has a different way of recieving command line arguments. The X Window System is an add on that is also full of kludges. It eats more and more memory and can never release it. It is optimized for a situation that is hardly ever the case, namely that the applications are running on a remote computer, making every tiny little bit that's going to appear on your screen pass through a bunch of network abstraction layers. That's one of the reasons X on a monster workstation often feels slower than the actually hundreds of times slower machines we were using in the 80's...
Excuse me for hardly even touching the surface on that one, but I started feeling nauseous.
All the while we were focusing our efforts on what was already there, smart new designs came and went, because they weren't backwards compatible.
Great new designs have been researched, which would help the totally different demands of computing today. But still people cling to what they know, and prefer to hang on to what they have no matter how much extra work it'll take in the long run.
Why is this? So we can run software from the 80's? Modern versions of Windows won't. Linux will, but what is the use, seeing that practically everything has been rewritten since anyhow?
The reason not for switching to something new is not to rewrite the software, but that's happening continuously anyhow, so why would that be a problem?
What's holding us back then? To put it in Slashdot terms I think it's FUD. Not the technique, but the feelings themself. Human nature.
We pretty much like it better the older it gets, no matter how many wrinkles and scars it accumulates.
Happy Birthday, PC and Linux.
We love you more each year.
But if you really want to know why the early 2.4 VM is bad (it's finally improving a bit with 2.4.[89], fortunately), just go reading the Linux kernel mailing list archives. I scan the list in real time. And read a substantial part of it. Look for reports of machines that hang for minutes/hours while trying to sort out what to do with memory pages when the have hundreds of free megabytes of swap and other nasty things like that. Who cares about overcommit if the machine just locks up before even reaching the limit?
And now for another ad hominem attack: have you actually used 2.4.x like I do all day? Or have just just uttered an ad hominem attack against me for getting moderated up while mentioning a problem with Linux?
Linux user since early January 1992.
Sunnyvale? Isn't that sitting directly on top of a fat hunking Hellmouth...?
A word can paint a thousand pictures
It's a sad day for the internet when what used to be a communication medium becomes nothing more than a dick size contest.
Of course, Slashdot has been like that for years...
I, for one, refuse to participate in the karma game. It would be wasting my time, and your bandwidth. Personally, I'll stick to posting comments when I actually have something to say, and not just to increase my karma.
To be born in September, work must have begun the previous December, whether it was announced then or not. For the humor-impaired, that's 9 months from conception (December) to birth (September). So I get stranges thoughts when I'm tired and should be in bed.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Well, longer than that. And i've been an AC for a fairly long time too. What I meant is i'm getting to the point of where I'm reading /. A LOT (evidently more than michael), and am becoming so anal that I have to point out small errors like this.
--
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." - Homer Simpson [1F10]
Ok, i guess I can take off my AC shield now. I was the guy asking :) I know about the humor surrounding us, so I was curious to see what out-of-staters thought (which is what I thought you were) about having all those smelly chemical plants all along the turnpike and such.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
A good way to describe FDR Park's location: the intersection of Broad & Pattison on the corner opposite that of Veterans Stadium.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Users never interface with the kernel at all.
/lib/drivers and maybe run initdriver (Ot whatever) without having to worry about symbol mismatches, or what version of the kernel they are running and if they will have to build their own modules from source.
How about when the user is attempting to install a kernel module? I'd say thats as close to "interfacing with the kernel" as a user would get.
Given that definition, kernel modules suck as a solution. If there is any one thing that should be done for Linux 3.0, it should be to define a proper set of API's for drivers, and to abstract the kernel structures from the drivers. Users should be able to drop a driver in
How about that?
Wonder why they didn't wait to release 2.4.8 on that date.
Je ne parle pas francais.
Kinda makes you wonder how his posts start at score 2, doesn't it?
:)
If you don't believe me, look at the moderation done to your third example.
Note that comments are posted by default at 1 if you're a logged-in user, and 0 if you're an AC. In order to get a +1 bonus beyond that as a logged-in user, you must get a huge amount of karma. Which is hard if you're a troll.
I'd say the last time I interfaced with the kernel was when I ran top. Or maybe it was the last time I looked at the /proc filesystem. Or maybe it was when I mounted a filesystem. It was pretty recent, nonetheless.
Those systems COULD use a better interface. You're right, but you're wrong.
The moral of this story is, try some test data early, so you can realize that your hairbrained scheme of stashing binary data in a string is exactly that.
My behavior was sufficiently bad that kernel.exe didn't feel like playing anymore. So, that's one on me against a few thousand for Bill.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
In Just for Fun Linus marks the first release date as September 17, 1991. The version was 0.01
The Baylands Park also requests that we inform guests of other park rules: ...
* No [...] model rockets.
They realy dont trust nerds..
*
Anyone planning on a party in the Baltimore/Washington/Arlington area?
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
too bad i'm leaving in a week. i'd like to attend.
No media, no raging drunkards, just Bring your own entertainment, plug in your laptop, and make nice with the neighbors. The question remains as to whether or not Linux has just plain outgrown the grassroots ambience that is planned.
I can imagine thousands of dot-com 3733T 4AK3RZ trying to network to find jobs!
Damn, you got there first!!
:)
:P
I was just about to do an "In other news" post, but the page wouldn't load. Then when I finally get here, somebody's already done one. Oh well, I guess i'll have to add onto it.
In a related story, Slashdot turns sour. Somebody forgot to put it back in the refridgerator again.
"Turn the Page" -- Bob Seger
"Turn Turn Turn" -- Backup Singers for the Byrds (immediately following "To Everything" and "There is a Season".
Oh well, that's all the turns I can think of right now.
If there were really 60 million users, Linux would easily get more than the 0.5-2.0 percent that it always does whenever any tracking company releases their browser penetration surveys. Unless you really want to argue that the large majority of these people are using other operating systems when they do their web browsing. But I don't think you want to go there, do you?
D'oh! It makes for a much better pattern than mine, too! Aside from being more technically correct of course. :)
I was only remembering the Byrds' version, and couldn't think of who wrote the song.
Thanks for reminding me.
Okay, if lwn.net says there are problems, there are problems. Have I used 2.4.x? Yes, for months.
2.4.2-2smp (SMP version, Red Hat release) -- both at home and at work on the servers. I haven't seen any particularly worrying performance problems, but that's just anecdotal isn't it.
Geeks go fucking crazy when surrounded by even a dozen people. How the hell do you think they'll react when surrounded by a DOZEN THOUSAND at a LINUX RAVE? Good god, at least let them hang out in the cool-down room. There aren't *too* many people in those.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
he means a GUI for linux... not a interface for the kernel itself.
*** For a better tommorow, change your life today ***
what's wrong with read, write, and ioctl?
er, OK forget ioctl, what's wrong with read/write?
The verses you quote refer to "swearing" of the kind one does when taking or giving an oath, like "I swear that the testimony I am about to give will be the truth....", or "I swear to protect and defend...", not to the kind of vulgar language that 2 or 3 generations ago was referred to as "swearing" or "cursing" and is nowadays known as the way most people talk, and the way that ACs with nothing worthwhile to say chose to say it.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Telling the (negative) truth about linux/etc is only flamebait when you don't back it up. If you do back it up (i.e. a long post), then it's "insightful." And telling the negative truth about something such as MS is "insightful" when it's a long post, and when it's a short post it's "funny".
John Romero? And he was wrong.
...and everyone that is a part of the open source community, including "mere" users. In ten years we have come further than any comparable OS in that same amount of time. Remember, this isn't ten years since Linux 1.0 - this is ten years since the project was announced _at all_.
What's most amazing is that we've done it all on our own sweat, blood and tears. We've created something for ourselves (and others) that is powerful, useful, and has shaped the world of technology (and thus the world in general) in many important ways. All of it was for just one goal: to create something cool.
Congratulations, everyone!
Anybody know where to get a copy of an early, or the very first distro of Linux? I'd love to get ahold of one for our next LUG meeting in celebration of the Anniversary.
Sept. 9. at 01:46:40 GMT, the unix system clock is 1 billion seconds old.
SkåneSjællandLinuxUserGroup has a page that counts down to it (it's in danish, but most people should understand the numbers) at http://www.sslug.dk/~chlor/1000000000
We're celebrating the anniversary of the announcement which got the community involved in Linux. The first beta testers and offers for help came in after this announcement. August 25, 1991 was when Linux changed from being just Linus' hobby to involving others. Yes, it does pre-date the first kernel posting by a few weeks.
You can choose different criteria and arrive at a different day. Linux10.org will respect your choice and still link to your local celebration's web site if you pick a different day based on Linux history. The first involvement of the community was what we thought made this date stand out among other candidates. But as a counterexample, SSLUG in Copenhagen chose Sept 17 based on the actual posting of Linux 0.01. As long as you have a reason grounded in Linux history, it's an equally good choice. (Though I think Aug 25 and Sept 17 are the only two you're going to find.)
For those who tried to argue one date over the other, don't bother. You will never settle it because there are different criteria by which these dates can be picked. However, I urge you to respect the choices of the volunteers who go to the time and effort to organize a Linux 10th anniversary event in your area.
(BTW, sorry that I didn't post this earlier. I was at the Moffett Air Show all day.)
A usable interface?
Linux already has a usable human interface: throw on a GNU system (libc, gcc, bash, fileutils, etc.) then add a GUI such as KDE or GNOME, and you've got a very nice operating environment.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Concerning the advice to stop when one hits swap: that kills Linux for the use we currently make of our aging HP-UX servers. Of course we don't want them to swap. But they are big servers after all, shared by tens of potential users who 1) don't always know how to check these things; 2) don't sit right next to it (hence they get no audible warning from the disks going mad); and 3) run jobs that take days of weeks anyway (hence they do daily not look into why their results are slow to come in).
To make matters worse, we're a research organisation, so it is standard practice for some of us to start something of which the run time behaviour initially is unknown.
Linux user since early January 1992.
I'm afraid she's not on the guestlist.
Got friends?
No, this is not flamebait. It's an honest (and somewhat sadened) remark by a very long time Linux fan (cfr. my signature) who just finally managed to get the sysadmins at his office (very much against the desires of their NT-minded (blinded?) boss) to seriously consider Linux SMP servers with Gigabytes of RAM for some heavy E-CAD work as a replacement for our aging HP-UX boxes. In fact, one such Linux sweety will likely be ordered quite soon for evaluation purposes. And what happens? Precisely now the 2.4 kernels are taking over the various distributions while having major trouble with their VM in exactly the kind of conditions we want to use them for.
Just to short cut one kind of replies: Of course we can use an older distribution or build our own combination of things (heck, I don't even use a distribution at home and compile everything from scratch). But at work, I'm not a sysadmin, and we have to make do with a few UNIX and NT experts and lots of people who how how to fix NT problems, but whom one might suspect of fearing that a Linux box will explode if they push the wrong key. And no, the latter is not a reproach, its an simple observation. It's quite normal given their backgounds, but it's also a major problem for us Linux zealots.
I absolulety hate to say it, but Linux still has a few more years to go before really making it, even in certain non-desktop roles. It needs a several more improvements in the technical department. It definitely needs to loose its tendency to have stable versions that aren't stable at all until several months after initial release. But most of all, it needs a whole class of people who know a considerable amount about using computers (read as: Windows machines), but don't really understand them, to get used to something which, to them at least, is completely new and exotic.
Linux user since early January 1992.
ho ho ho ...monolithic kernel vs. HURD...Torvalds and Tannenbaum fought this war already, check your history. It's obvious that Tannenbaum LOST.
Linux is just more proof shit does not sell.
Well, actually...
Well, in that case you're considering a developer a "user" of the kernel, and that is not the usage of "user" that I originally intended. I was thinking more along the lines of "home user who does not know what compiling is".
:)
But you are completely correct.
Yes, We are planning an East-Coast event in Philadelphia right off of I-95, very easy to get to. http://philadelphia.linux10.org for more info, it's currently being written/updated.
Note: ill spoken, about minix compiled, it was his code that he used minix as a basis.
"If a man watches 3 football games in a row he should be declared leagaly dead" - A
I get dips on spanking the kernel!
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
33.Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: 34.But I say unto you, *Swear not at all*; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: 35.Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. 36.Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. 37.But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
...on 25 Aug 2001. Granted, it's a projection, based on estimates and guesses, but it's interesting that it happens to roll-over 60,000,000 on 25 Aug 2001. :)
Are there any parties planned for the Denver metro area (including Boulder)? If so, drop me a line and give me some details.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
These 'problems' were well known for a long time. What the study did was quantify them and test them to determine if they were the random gripe of someone with sour grapes or something that really did confuse the average user.
One thing here, however, is that most users are now used to Windows, so anything different from Wintendos is likely to confuse people who first face a new system.
I would, however, be the first to complain about the gdm login window, and I've been using Unix since 1983.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
What do you get for the kernel that already has everything?
Lotsa birthdays coming up! Be sure you don't miss these high-tech celebrations:
High-quality Linux web hosting for geeks and coders.
We just joined the rest of the world...
Linus is one smart 10-year old ... oh wait
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Violators will be prosecuted and prosecutors will be violated.
I'm interested to see if IBM will celebrate both milestones since IBM is now a Linux supporter. Kill two birds with one stone. They could use media interest in the PC anniversary to also promote the Linux anniversary and therefore, also their current Linux hardware offerings.
Kickass. 10 years. Here's to many more decades like this one. Thanks, Linus, Allen, and all who work so hard. I owe you all at least one round.
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man