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The 2008 Linux and Free Software Timeline

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the year-in-review dept.

diegocgteleline.es writes "Here is LWN's eleventh annual timeline of significant events in the Linux and free software world for the year. As always, 2008 proved to be an interesting year, with great progress in useful software that made our systems better. Of course, there were some of the usual conflicts — patent woes, project politics, and arguments over freedom — but overall, the pace of free software progress stayed on its upwardly increasing trend. 2008 was a year that saw the end of SCO — or not — the rise of Linux-based 'netbooks,' multiple excellent distribution releases, more phones and embedded devices based on Linux, as well as major releases of software we will be using for years (X.org, Python, KDE, ...)."

24 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. 2009 by RMH101 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...is presumably the Year Of Linux On The Desktop?

    1. Re:2009 by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Funny

      The last thing i want is Linux to be windows. Thats why i don't use windows.

      You don't use Windows to stop Linux from being windows?

      Is Linux following you?

      You did give him some food, didn't you? Told you not to feed the OSs.

    2. Re:2009 by von_rick · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You don't use Windows to stop Linux from being windows?

      If you were to go merely by looks, Windows 7 is now practically identical to KDE4 interface. In fact they are so frightfully similar, you'd get the impression that they have same GUI developers.

      On the positive side, if they looked alike, people would have no problem transitioning to the *nix+KDE side

      --

      Face your daemons!

    3. Re:2009 by LingNoi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why do you care about a native client so much?

      Having a native client doesn't make it better, in fact it'd probably be worse because it would be a crappy port of the windows version.

      If this mythical port existed then running the windows client via WINE would most likely be better because WINE is very strictly tested where as a developer doing a crappy port wouldn't take as much care. The Linux client would also most likely lag behind the windows version.

    4. Re:2009 by w0mprat · · Score: 2, Informative

      KDE4 and Win7 are only superficially similar in looks. There are similarities, but not enough to even justify the implication that someone copied someone of course.

      Both seemed to have drawn ideas by looking at the popular themes from the OS skinning community associated with each interfaces. It's a shame that this wasn't done back in the Win9x+WindowsBlinds days when Microsoft thought Luna would impress everyone.

      --
      After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
    5. Re:2009 by SombreReptile · · Score: 2, Informative

      It is in Vietnam!

    6. Re:2009 by StormReaver · · Score: 3, Insightful

      1999 was the year of Linux on my desktop. And 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, to infinity and beyond.

      You got modded as funny because people who were raised on Microsoft desktops just can't imagine anything else. But remember that Linux doesn't have to destroy Microsoft to win. Linux just has to even the playing field, something that is occurring slowly but steadily. The moment that Microsoft loses its ability to dictate something because Linux provides an alternative, Microsoft has lost something. Over time, those little losses add up.

    7. Re:2009 by LingNoi · · Score: 3, Informative

      There are plenty of good reasons why cross platform is an impossibility right now. One is that major game developers have already invested in making a game engine which relies heavily in windows API calls. Oblivion's Engine was used in Fallout 3. Valve has spent millions on their Source engine which they license to other game companies.

      From your post I can see you either haven't used wine for a long time or invested any real time in learning how to use it.

      emulation just doesn't work as well as running native code

      This is just simply wrong. WINE doesn't emulate anything. The very name WINE stands for "Wine is not an emulator".

      What wine does is redirect API calls so that windows programs run.

      If for example your windows program calls a d3d9 function example(x,y,z) then all wine does is implement this function as so..


      HRESULT WINAPI example(x, y, z) {
      (do whatever this function does on windows via linux libraries)
      return WHATEVER;
      }

      There's no emulation (in the virtual machine sense) going on at all, it's all API redirections.

      Yes, "calc" probably runs very well under WINE

      I don't know about that but users of Fallout 3, Left4Dead have no problems running wine. In fact if you visited wines appdb there's a whole load of games which run.

      Fallout 3, Team Fortress, WoW, are all marked as Gold.

      The majority of games (especially anything DX10, I'd bet) DON'T, or don't very well.

      Like I said earlier they do, so you're just lying about the majority of games not working. There are no games that I know of apart from 2 (both microsoft games) which are DX10 only and I very much doubt there will be any outside of Microsoft which are for a very long time. When that time comes DX10 will probably be almost finished in wine.

      DX10 support in wine is already progressing. If you download the latest version of wine you'll see implementations of D3D10 already there, however a lot of the functions are stubbed.

      I don't quite understand how you got to that reasoning however like the rest of your post, it is all based on false assumptions.

    8. Re:2009 by LingNoi · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's nice, and all, that you found a few games marked as "Gold" -- strange, however, that you decided not to mention any of the games I specifically named.

      I didn't realise I had to however ok..

      Age of Empires 3 - Gold rating
      D&D Online - Platinum rating

      I think I'll stick to the information I've received from the CGA club on campus

      Blind leading the blind. Good luck with that.

  2. As always by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just a funny way to phrase it: As always, 2008 proved to be interesting... It sounds like 2008 happens all the time, and it is usually interesting...

    --
    Palm trees and 8
  3. Re:Correction by CannonballHead · · Score: 4, Funny

    I am fairly certain that they still run on electricity... I could be wrong, but last time I checked...

  4. Re:Correction by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 3, Funny

    Actually, they are based on electricity, and powered by Linux.

    --
    Palm trees and 8
  5. Stand back, we're doing science! by girlintraining · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yes. Our community has made excellent progress this past year. We created our first undead corporation. We shall now replicate this process to form legions of unkillable tech companies that are immune to lawyers, governments, and fanboys. And Microsoft outdid themselves... We thought Microsoft Bob was their rock bottom, but Vista proved that our expectations were, perhaps, not low enough. Wonder twin powers of Vampirism and Suck unite!

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
  6. most exciting thing for me: Wine 1.0 by je+ne+sais+quoi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The most exciting thing for me that's happened in free software in the last year was Wine 1.0. The "1.0" is not itself as important, but the usability in wine of many apps has improved dramatically in the last year. I can remember that wine in principal was a fantastic idea, but in practice it was so difficult to get anything to run your time was better spent dual-booting. E.g., this time last year, I was still having to run a patched version of winex from cedega to get the map editor in neverwinter nights to run and even then it still crashed periodically. This year, that app runs using the stock wine code.

    The thing is, I'm no longer playing nwn because I can run Civ IV, Medieval 2 and a bunch of other newer games using wine instead. Yes, I still have to dual-boot into windows to run the newest games at high resolutions and good frame-rates, but older games are getting very playable using wine and the number of hacks you have to do to get them to run is decreasing. It's great! Just about the only one that you have to install on a regular basis is the no-CD hack, but that's a useful thing to have anyway. Some stuff just makes me laugh, like when punkbuster runs for Far Cry 2 and bitches at you because it thinks you're a punk, you just close the window and the installation continues. (Unfortunately Far Cry 2 is one of those that doesn't run very well at high resolution.)

    --
    Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
    1. Re:most exciting thing for me: Wine 1.0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Fuck you. Because of you I now have to reinstall a large bunch of old games on Wine to see if I can make them work again.

      I hope you are proud of yourself now, asshole.

    2. Re:most exciting thing for me: Wine 1.0 by Hatta · · Score: 3, Informative

      And yet, bug 6971 is still outstanding. It's the second highest voted bug on their bugzilla, and it's been open since 2006. They call it a "normal" severity bug, yet it clearly meets the definition for a "major" severity bug. That is: "Major loss of functionality for a wide range of applications." Just about every Unreal engine game is unplayable because of this bug. It was supposed to be fixed for 1.0, but it keeps getting deferred. I don't see why this isn't a higher priority for them. It obviously affects a lot of users, just look at all the duplicate bug reports for this one!

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    3. Re:most exciting thing for me: Wine 1.0 by David+Gerard · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The answer is, of course, "so code it please kthx." Or buy Codeweaver Games and ask they get onto this one.

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
  7. Ah Yes... by lymond01 · · Score: 5, Funny

    As always, 2008 proved to be an interesting year

    Yes, I remember the last time 2008 rolled around...we celebrated until dawn, frolicking in our pantaloons, firmly supported by our onion-garnished belts...

  8. Re:linux kernel: a year of standing still? by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is a GOOD thing. A major issue facing Linux concerns the availability of drivers, especially for obscure hardware, and one of the reasons that smaller hardware vendors shied away from driver development early on was that the kernel changed too many times, and those changes required constant work on their drivers. The Windows driver API was static for so long that small hardware vendors became comfortable just releasing a driver for Windows and not touching it much for years on end. If we finally have a stable Linux kernel that just gets maintenance fixes, that will go a long way toward increasing hardware support and Linux use.

    --
    Palm trees and 8
  9. Re:linux kernel: a year of standing still? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_24
    http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_25
    http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_26
    http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_27
    http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_28

    Those are the 2008 kernel releases. They look exciting to me...

  10. Re:linux kernel: a year of standing still? by ianare · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Linux code base has done anything but stall, it is growing, and has been growing even more rapidly in the last couple years.
    looky here

    As far as quality of code, good news there as well, 2008 saw some nice updates to kernel scheduling, better virtualization, a completely new kernel-level graphic manager, and the EXT4 filesystem. These are all 'big deals' in both difficulty of coding and improvements they bring.

  11. 2008 timeline by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 4, Funny

    Jan: Linux conquers the desktop!
    Feb: No, wait...
    Mar: OK, now!
    Apr: Nope. Hang on...
    May: Linux conquers- no, wait.
    Jun: Vacation
    Jul: Staycation
    Aug: OK, conquering in 3... 2... wait...
    Sep: Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnn...
    Oct: ...nnnnnnnnnnnn...
    Nov: nnnnnnnnnnnnow!
    Dec: No, wait...

  12. I switched, that's worth something, right? by Palal · · Score: 3

    I switched, that's worth something, right?

    --
    -Palal
  13. Re:linux kernel: a year of standing still? by David+Gerard · · Score: 2, Informative

    Ticklessness is very interesting to me, because it's why I get 3.5 hours' battery life in Linux on the same laptop that gets 2 hours booted into Windows.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk