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Linus on Linux in 1994
Vrallis writes "Ten years ago this month, Linux Journal christened their maiden issue with an interview with Linus Torvalds. It is definitely worth the read, and worth some reflection on just how far Linux has come in the last decade."
I'm curious if anyone remebers the Linus - Tanenbaum: polemics.
Of course Mach is a great idea: WIndows NT/2000, NeXT, Mac OS X, OpenDarwin, etc. but Linux is not dying...
You can defy gravity... for a short time
Now I wasn't around for kernel 1.x, but I certainly have extensive experience with 2.4 and now 2.6. I even used distros back in the day that were based on 2.0 and 2.2. I cannot believe how far Linux has come - just take (for example) Gnome. I used to use the console alone because the two main WMs - Gnome and KDE - were klunky and not very usable. The text rendered horribly even at higher resolutions.
In addition, with the recently added hotplug functionality it is no longer necessary to know the exact specs for your hardware in some cases - it is automatically detected and supported.
It still has a ways to go though. Second-generation hardware is still not supported well enough yet - for example, ACPI doesn't work properly on my A7N8X Dlx. The system randomly crashes with it enabled and generates a ton of interrupt errors.
I am really quite impressed with the new functionality of the 2.6 series kernels. I think I'll go off and upgrade to 2.6.2 now...
Ads? What ads?
I notice from the swearing chart that the number of occurrences of the word "shit" has gone up in kernels 2.6.2 and 2.6.3. What happened? Did they get some new psychotic core developer? Heh.
Linus: I actually have no good idea at all: I haven't really followed either the CD-ROM sales or any ftp statistics, so it's rather hard to say. I guesstimate a user base of about 50,000 active users: that may be way off-base, but it doesn't sound too unlikely. The c.o.l. newsgroup had about 80,000 readers according to the network statistics back before the split (and I haven't looked at the statistics since), and I saw a number like 10,000 CD-ROMs sold somewhere. Not all of those are active users, I'm sue, but that would put some kind of lower limit on the number.
Here is a article from 1994 from Linux Journal about the DECUS conference.
I also once enjoyed reading an account of the early days of Linux by his near friend. I just can't remember the link or the name of him.
"Until you do what you believe in, how do you know whether you believe in it or not?" -- Leo Tolstoy
(I think I'm kidding, but if Linux is running as much of the world's infrastructure as I think it will be in 2014, then maybe this is a realistic prediction...)
although some people may find the link about the word count of the various "swear words" in the linux source tree amusing, i do not. it's not that i have a problem with swearing, i just don't think that's the place for it.
i know that when i do coding, i try to make sure that not only the code itself is of high quality, but also that the comments are informative and useful -- not vulgar.
i just think that it's a childish thing to do.
They asked Linus this question in 1994. And are we all using Amigas and DEC Alphas? Nope. I wonder what assumptions that we're making these days (x86_64 will take over the desktop, Microsoft will keep losing market share to Linux, Slashdot will eventually get redesigned, etc.) will end up being dead wrong, and funny when you look back. Maybe all of the above ...
It's also interesting to read some of the other early posts by him (and other now famous persons). This for example. Or this list of this early posts.
"Until you do what you believe in, how do you know whether you believe in it or not?" -- Leo Tolstoy
Stop saying how bad windows is. Say how good Linux is.
I propose saying how free linux is and that that is what makes the big difference at the end of the day in how it is good as a system and in how it is good as a community.
Unfortunately, you're doing the same damned thing you're railing against:
The Geeks spend too much time trying to show non-Geeks how uncool using Windows is
[flame]Geeks are annoying. Most people only want to deal with them when something is broken. Most people don't like being preached to.[/flame]
(And yes, you can be both a UNIX guru and a non-geek.)
Understand that Linux is superior to Windows
By any sane/balanced person's standards, Linux is not categorically superior to Windows, sorry.
Linux may be simpler and speedier in many situations, but loses to Windows badly in the terms of: available software for the masses, gaming, video work, 3D design, drafting/CAD, audio work.
Simply put, Linux isn't the right thing for everyone, or perhaps even most people (for other than economical reasons). Recommending Linux to people who are better off using Windows or OS X is going to piss these people off and make them have a very unfavorable view of Linux, justified or not.
Stop saying how bad windows is
Quite some contradictory statements you've made there. You might want to rethink things.
Linux would benefit more if people would look at it as simply an OPERATING system, rather than a (religious) BELIEF system.
There's a reason why Linus has consistently distanced himself from the zealots; they don't represent his personal vision/goal of Linux.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
LinuxNews, October 18-26, 1992 (scroll down to the "Interview" section).
Linus: "I'm most certainly going to continue to support it, until it either dies out or merges with something else. That doesn't necessarily mean I'll make weekly patches for the rest of my life, but hopefully they won't be needed as much when things stabilize." 8-)
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
A lot of the arguments supporting Linux in there are now used by Windows supporters. Things like "All the software I want runs now" and the like.
Rolled in there with greater portability and flexibility, I guess Linux's focus has changed in ten years. I think that's probably the most important thing to note.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
How would one go about *testing* an old version of linux in a modern distro. I mean it would be cool to turn back the clock and try a very early version in chroot environment. Is this even possible on modern hardware? Or would I have dig out the old 386?
mitomac
It's interesting to note that the interview conducted by the publisher of the first Linux Journal - Bob Young, who left his own mark of history of linux. Namely as a co-founder of RedHat.
Evolving? What planet is this that you speak of???
"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds !"
FreeBSD celebrated its 10th anniversary this past november .
:)
Cool, I have occasionally wondered how old the free BSD's were, because I first learned of Linux when trying to learn Unix to help my chances of getting a particular job back in 1994. (I got it, by the way.) I had a couple of "UNIX emulators" which were really just simulators to learn the commands. Linux was the only free real-life Unix I found. At the time I thought BSD was for pay only. I didn't expect much when I downloaded Linux, but after trying it I thought it was the most awesome thing because it let me learn IT concepts at very low levels, and it was fully 32-bit.
Frequently I ready FreeBSD'ers talk about how they've been around longer than Linux, but that puzzled me since I was in on Linux before I heard of FreeBSD. So, did I just not read the right places, or did Linux take off faster than the free BSD's? I keep wondering if I'm not a FreeBSD user by luck or because Linux was available first.
(My first Linux was Slackware downloaded to floppies. It was Slackware 2.something; I remember Slackware 3.0 was called Slackware95
I propose saying how free linux is and that that is what makes the big difference at the end of the day in how it is good as a system and in how it is good as a community.
No one cares how "free" Linux is aside from people like us. Windows is free to normal people because it comes with the computer. But I do tell people how bad Windows is. Its probably the 2nd worse OS I've used, next to DOS (if you can count that as an OS). And I'm not picking those because they are from the same company, I'm saying it in terms of reliability and usability (I know many will disagree with me here). People know I'm a computer person, and they come to me with Windows problems, and I tell them that they are Windows problems, and that is why I don't use it, nor know too much about it anymore. I don't tell them to run Linux either. I would never do that. I recommend for "normal" people to buy a Mac. Unfortunately, they are expensive.
One of the most memorable parts of that evening was when my Linux NFS [Network File System] server died, to the point that the console seemed completely dead (the load of all those Doom WAD files obviously got to it). I was about to press reset when Linus stepped in and said he wanted to work out why it had crashed, so he could fix it. I then watched in complete amazement as Linus exploited a remote file truncation bug he knew about in the NFS server I was running which allowed him to peek into the proc filesystem on the apparently dead server and work out enough to find the bug. Up till then I had considered myself to be a pretty good programmer, and quite good at debugging system crashes, but that incident taught me that I would always be an also-ran who just isn't in the same league as people like Linus.
I think that Linus's achievements definitely make him a world treasure. But that's just my opinion, and you are most certainly entitled to your own.
My blog
I guess I vaguely agree with the sentiment you and the grandparent poster expressed. Yes, there are some vocal zealots in the Linux camp who do more harm to their cause than good. But being a nerd/geek/whatever you should look past the ideology and concentrate on the geeky aspects: it's powerful, it's educational, and it's free.It doesn't take eight hours. There are pretty GUI installers (Mandrake, SuSE) that will guide you through everything, including partitioning and hardware configuration. You don't even have to RTFM (but it is a good idea). The only instance you would seriously have to devote time to study would be installing LFS. Does it take you 8 hours to (re)install Windows? No, it takes...what, 1-1.5 hours from start to desktop?Must have taken you days.
That's probably uncalled for but exaggeration bothers me.Yes, this attitude is quite wide spread and it does put people off. If you think someone is more or less intelligent based on their IT skills, you need to step back and evaluate just how much you've integrated them into your own ego. But Linux users do tend to be more knowledgeable about computers generally than their Windows brethren because:-
Then they should do just that. I have Windows using friends and, believe it or not, I don't shout at them all the time for using Windows. For their (non-geeky) needs, switching to Linux wouldn't be worth it.
For geeks though, it is. Like that poster's sig says: I use Linux because it's like having a chainsaw instead of a penknife. Not always necessary but more fun.
"The number of Unix installations has grown to ten, with more expected." (Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd ed.; june 1972)
Linux has created two classes of people. Those who can, and those who can't
Linux didn't create those classes. I notice the same classes when it comes to many other things: fixing things around the house, working on cars, making things in a wood shop, etc.
It looks to me like there is a growing class of poeple out there that want everything handed to them on a silver platter sans any sense of understanding.
Today, the schism between these two classes is so great one views the other with hostility and mistrust.
Yeah, I see that too. But I think you misidentify the cause. And, once again, I don't think Linux has much to do with this.
Case in point: I was called by a Windows user the other day. He couldn't connect over the phone to a new AOL account. When I picked up the phone I could clearly hear just way too much noise on the line. I demonstrated how even a known good external modem would fail exactly the same way and told him that he had to have the phone line fixed. He treated me like I was lying to him, simply would not believe that there was anything wrong with the phone line and basically threw me out because I couldn't resolve his problem.
The source of his hostility and mistrust was not my preaching at him (I didn't) or any kind of complexity in Windows (the probelm was elsewhere). It was more likely situated in the fact that his problem couldn't be fixed right now, goddamnit, with no effort on his part! He didn't understand what was going on, I did, and why couldn't I just make the magic so it would work? Sorry, that's not how the universe works.
Understand that Linux is superior to Windows, but Linux users are not superior to Windows users.
Sorry, that's just not how I see it and I see a lot of both Windows and Linux users. Face it, there is a certain minimum knowledge about computers required to use Linux and, right now at least, it is higher than that required to use Windows. So, from that one particular standpoint - a basic knowledge of how computers work, the average Linux user is almost certainly superior to the average Windows user.
As another point in passing, I notice that Linux users are also the same people that fix things around the house, work on their own cars and have woodworking as a hobby. In general they understand that some things are possible only after acquiring a certain skillset and, God forbid!, actually put some effort into learning something new instead of just having everything handed to them on a silver platter.
Yeah, but the danm toy of an operating system is used by the US to do nuclear weapons testing (and we know the US defence department has 0 budget so must use Linux as opposed to winders). It's used heavily in motion picture animation (LOTR 1,2,3, Shrek 1,2, Star Wars 2,3...), control critical pieces of equipment (Pratt & Whitney Joint strike fighter engine test stands), system control... you know, toy stuff like that.9 S0048s /os/lin ux/story/0,10801,90327,00.htmls tory=20 040216160920417
click on this:
http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/OEG2004020
or this:
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopic
or this:
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php?
There are (more than just a few dozen) more. Scratch you head, go ahead. There must be some reason why all these people are using Linux for their supercomputers... could it be that you get all three... good, fast _and_ cheap?
LJ 1st Issue
I thought about trying to sell it on eBay. I wonder if it would be worth anything. I did get some extra swag at LinuxWorld when I showed it to the people at the Linux Journal booth.
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eeww, I'll have a crab juice.
Linux gained popularity first because at the time, the free version of BSD was mired in a copyright dispute with AT&T.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.