Linux 3.11 Officially Named "Linux For Workgroups"

An anonymous reader writes "Linus Torvalds decided to change the code name for Linux 3.11 and even submitted an alternate Tux Logo. Heise reports: 'For this release, Linus Torvalds changed the code name from "Unicycling Gorilla" to "Linux for Workgroups" and modified the logo that some systems display when booting: it now depicts a Tux holding a flag with a symbol that is reminiscent of the logo of Windows for Workgroups 3.11, which was released in 1993.'"

Comments

what?

[liamevo]

why?

Re:what?

[SQLGuru]

When I read the headline, I checked my calendar to make sure today wasn't April 1st........

Re:what?

[serviscope_minor]

Because it's funny?

And it really is. People have been cracking jokes for ages and it's nice to see it official. I like it when real projects are run by real people complete with sense of humour.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because funny!

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why ? Because Linus has a sense of humor. Remember it was Microsoft that gave Linus a lot of grief in years past. This is just Linus having a little fun at Microsoft's expense. Also, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 was the first truly good consumer level version of Windows.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

why?

Because Linux 3.11 is about as useful as Windows 3.11

Re:what?

[sabri]

Also, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 was the first truly good consumer level version of Windows.

I hope this does not mean that Linux is only 20 years behind Windows...

It is not. More people run Linux than ever, even if they don't really know it (think Android for example).

Re:what?

[pecosdave]

There are some uncomfortable comparisons here -

Much like Windows 3.11 the GUI in GUN/Linux isn't a core part of the OS - but a graphics server with window managers on top and all the real work being done by the OS under the manager.

On that note - has anyone ported Progman.exe to X? Would running Wine as the Window manager and Progman as the program count?

Re:what?

[war4peace]

hence why it's a bad idea to name it like that. For people unfamiliar with Linux, but familiar with Windows, this is exactly what they take out of this: that Linux finally reached the level Windows was, 20 years ago.

This is definitely a symptom of the Linux mindset: they don't care (or don't understand) that they need to keep it simple and explicit if they want to get out of the niche and reach the larger crowd of potential customers. It's the reason development doesn't talk directly to customers, as good business practice. They speak different languages.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

GUN/Linux

Is that the NRA distribution?

Re:what?

[Arancaytar]

Also, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 was the first truly good consumer level version of Windows.

Also the second-last, counting XP.

( :trollface: )

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Grow a sense of humor. It's obvious that you've failed to do so thus far.

Re:what?

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

Also, you just KNOW everyone was going to be calling it that anyway, so no point in not getting in on the fun.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

>>It's the reason development doesn't talk directly to customers, as good business practice. They speak different languages.

Ah.. All this time i thought it was because Sales, Product mgmt. and Middle management gain political power by being able to cut Development out of the loop.. Thanks for clearing that up, daddy-o!

Re:what?

[serviscope_minor]

For people unfamiliar with Linux, but familiar with Windows, this is exactly what they take out of this:

No, that's ridiculous. To most people outside the tech world Windows 3.11 for Workgroups is at most a very distant memory and probably something utterly unknown.

This is definitely a symptom of the Linux mindset: they don't care (or don't understand) that they need to keep it simple and explicit if they want to get out of the niche and reach the larger crowd of potential customers.

Keep what simple? It's a kernel. The only people who care about the kernel are distro maintainers, system administrators and hackers. Anyone else will at most see "Ununtu Various Vertibrates" or even less, "Android".

It's the reason development doesn't talk directly to customers

No one is a customer of the kernel development team.

And finally, I do not want to live in a world or community so ruled by corporate blandness that anything vaguely amusing is excised from life entirely. Thankfully the F/OSS community hasn't suffered from that.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, me too.

God damn it. What the hell?

Re:what?

[r1348]

No sorry, we don't wish to appease humorless morons.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

If people downloaded Linux and only Linux for use in a desktop environment, I would agree with you. However, the only exposure it receives with respect to the "larger crowd" is large, usually corporate-sponsored distributions such as Ubuntu, SUSE, and RHEL. You admit yourself that development doesn't speak with "customers." You're simply nitpicking to appear intelligent or insightful.

Protip: It backfired.

Re:what?

[kasperd]

Much like Windows 3.11 the GUI in GUN/Linux isn't a core part of the OS - but a graphics server with window managers on top and all the real work being done by the OS under the manager.

That is true, but the similarity doesn't go much further than that. If you look at the capabilities of the OS underneath, there is a major difference between Linux and DOS. (Even to this day some of the limitations inherited from DOS are still found in modern Windows versions. The last Windows user I came across wasn't able to open a command line window more than 80 characters wide.)

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot. This is the codename of a kernel. Most people don't even know the kernels had code names (I didn't until today, and I've been compiling them for a while now), most people don't even know what is a kernel. Are you some dumbfuck MS shill?

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

has anyone ported Progman.exe to X? Would running Wine as the Window manager and Progman as the program count

oh... oh god...

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love this. Between this and Pat Volkerding's extremely low key way of reminiscing that it's been 20 years since he first announced his distro (official release 20 years this Wednesday -- btw somebody better fricking submit this here or slashdot is totally jumped as people say) I'm tempted to stick with Slackware on my troublesome laptop instead of trying to get my favourite BSD going on it (I have no technical (or any non-fanboi) reasons for any particular choice and I'm fine with that).

Re:what?

[pipatron]

It's actually Eric Raymond's own distro: http://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/archive/gun-linux

Re:what?

[Hymer]

Because:

• - Linus is the Überpenguin so he can do it
• - WfW 3.11 was released 20 years ago
• - it is funny

btw. Why was that a Troll ?

Re:what?

[sjames]

Why uncomfortable? Keeping the GUI out of the kernel is the right thing to do. It's one of the reasons Linux has a better reputation for security and stability than Windows.

Re:what?

[pipatron]

I'd argue that Windows 98SE would fit in between somewhere. Otherwise I fully agree. :)

Re:what?

[beltsbear]

No. Windows actually seems to follow the Star Trek Movie approach and it has been quite uncanny. Every other MAJOR release has some merits.

Win 3.11 good
Win 95 bad
Win 98 good
Win me bad (yes, I know win 2000 pro is missing from this list but at the time it was expensive and most were burned with win me)
Win xp good
Win vista (the worst)
Win 7 good
Win 8 bad

Re:what?

[RabidReindeer]

Because it's funny?

And it really is. People have been cracking jokes for ages and it's nice to see it official. I like it when real projects are run by real people complete with sense of humour.

Actually, I get concerned when projects/products come from people without humor. Because my experience is that the more "serious" they are, the lower the quality of what they deliver.

Even stodgy old IBM's best products seemed to come accompanied by technical docs written with geek quotes in them.

Re:what?

[BitZtream]

No one is a customer of the kernel development team.

And the line where you show that you utterly fail to get it.

Re:what?

[liamevo]

oh my god... I didn't even click onto the 3.11 thing.... of course!

But, all those rating my original post as a troll.. wtf, I was really asking why, I had a proper woosh moment. And even then, how the hell could the words "What? Why?" be construed as trolling.

Re:what?

[liamevo]

Thank you for just giving the answer and not deciding I was trolling (wtf?). I totally missed the 3.11 connection, had a woosh moment.

Re:what?

[war4peace]

Humorless by your definition - again, a behavioral syndrome.
There's a lot of science specific jokes nobody else gets. Are they funny for a few people? Sure. Are they funny for everyone else? Not at all.
The behavior issue: "If it's funny to me and my colleagues, but not to you, you're humorless". This does not apply to the subject of this article, it's representative for a general mindset.

Re:what?

[war4peace]

While not strictly a developer, I am doing technical stuff (statistics, reporting, Business Intelligence). My customers are sometimes needing explanations and I simply can't make those explanations simple enough, because my behavior is defined by how much I understand and know in this area.

The gap between purely technical and layman language is what prompted the creation and large scale adoption of high level programming languages, for example. It's easier to (generally) work in C than ASM, and easier to (generally) work in WYSIWYG HTML editors (e.g. Dreamweaver) than in lathe HTML text filed directly.

I learned to value a "middleman" which can talk to both customers and developers and provide the link between them without pissing all off. Jokingly, I call them "human code interpreters". But I value them as such.

Re:what?

[ubersoldat2k7]

Right, like people are going to know/care the kernel version their smartphone is using. Come on! I've been working and developing software for/on Linux for 15 years and I don't know the version of the kernel I'm running. Hell, I didn't even know kernel versions had names.

Right, I'm running 3.2

Re:what?

[ubersoldat2k7]

Not sure about your comment about Win2K, maybe you weren't working within an enterprise at that time but I remember it being much better than Win982E and WinXP. Win2K Server was very good also (apart of having a GUI on a server).
Actually, it was the last version of Windows I touched for more than 15 minutes before inserting a LiveCD/USB.

Re:what?

[icebike]

Citation needed. Or, since you will never find correlation between quality and seriousness, how about some random off the top of your head examples cherry picked at random from unverifiable sources?

Re:what?

[Peter Simpson]

So...does this mean that this is the "year of the Linux desktop"? :-)

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Atari and BeOS might disagree with you there.

Re: what?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about decades of programming in various environments with blatant differences in quality based on work ethic. FYI there's a fuckton of information and research on this.

Re:what?

[Guy Harris]

There are some uncomfortable comparisons here -

Much like Windows 3.11 the GUI in GUN/Linux isn't a core part of the OS - but a graphics server with window managers on top and all the real work being done by the OS under the manager.

So in NT-based versions of Windows, how much work (if any) would it take to have it boot up with a 25x80 console accepting cmd.exe-style (or PowerShell-style?) commands and no GUI? I.e., to what extent are there any OSes where the GUI is a "core part of the OS" in whatever sense is meant by that? (If you think you have such an OS, try logging in as ">console" first. :-))

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I switched to UNIX back in the DOS days when I found it multitasked and I could run many terminal servers off of serial ports with roommates all logged into the same 386. It wasn't and isn't anything like DOS except they both have black screens with text.

I then used OS/2 as my primary OS for years later once I saw its multitasking and GUI. Maybe one of the few who really enjoyed the consistency of the workplace shell.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right that the subset of people who would understand a Linux for Workgroups joke is quite small.

But I'm pretty sure a large subset of the population already recognizes you as humourless.

Re:what?

[fnj]

As well as leaving 2000 out of that list for no reason whatsoever, you also left out 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 98SE, NT 3.1, NT 3.51, and NT 4.0. I used every single one on that list except for the completely useless garbage 95, 98, 98SE, Me, and 8. Yeah, I even used Vista. It deadlocked trying to update to SP1, so I was stuck on GA til the day I dropped it, but other than that it wasn't THAT bad.

I installed NT 3.1 the day it became available and give it a lot of credit for what in reality was a 1.0 version. It did have some crashes and bugs, every one of which was fixed in 3.51, which was rock solid, another install I did on day one. As well as 4.0, the last version that was not dumbed down a single iota to cater to dumbells.

The most reliable of the bunch? NT 3.51 without any question whatsoever. The best all-around? NT 4.0, 2000 in a perfect tie. XP was only very slightly behind and also gets a lot of points for simple longevity.

Re: what?

[jd2112]

I disagree. Windows 8 is far worse than Vista.

Re: what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Over a decade ago I had Wabi and wine both installed on a linux box. The wabi install had a full setup of the Win 3.1 binaries, because Wabi was an enulation layer that you ran a full copy of Windows binaries in top of. I used wine to launch the progman.exe. A whole Win 3 desktop popped up.

I believe it was a Caldera licenced copy of Wabi. Good times, the early days of commercial linux. I think I had Applixware licenced by Red Hat back then, too. Still do, I'm fairly certain.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

so we should all act dumb and unknowing because lots of other people choose to be ignorant of what's around them and how things around them work? That's sounds pretty dumb because it is.

Re:what?

[war4peace]

See, you're missing the point. My comment is not about behavior strictly within the context of naming a specific kernel release. Quite the contrary, it's about a general behavior applied by a technically-focused community, which is also reflected and shown within the context of kernel naming.

Eroding MS dominance is (also) being done by attracting MS developers into a Linux world. By telling them "Are you some dumbfuck MS shill?" (see below an anonymous reply to my OP) you will only manage to aggravate them.

Linux community is largely perceived as an elitist bunch of dudes who fart in the general direction of pretty much anyone else. They are perceived as egocentric, aggressive, hard to talk to, intolerant, etc. Just look at all the comments here, they're comprised of attacks and swearing and witty shitty comments. Yours was one of the least aggressive comments, a thing which I respect and prompted me to try to explain again.

I've sent repeated messages to Linux community over the years, trying to tell them time and again that they need to work on their behavior. They have the technical skills, the knowledge, the products. They really do. But in the end, it's their attitude which limits their market share. It's their unwillingness to mature (business-wise).

Here, I'm going to expose my (simplified) restaurant analogy, which was part of my speech on market shares some time ago:
When I go to a restaurant, I am looking for: good food, good employees behavior, cleanliness and location.
If the restaurant is too far away (location), I will make an effort and travel there if the other features are compensating. Translated in IT: hard to reach in terms of availability (e.g. limiting license).
If the food is average, I will go there if the other features are compensating. Translated to IT: there are some small bugs or it's a little bit slower that other products.
If the behavior of the employees is bad, I will avoid it, the other features will NOT compensate, no matter how good they are. The food might be great, even the best, but if the waiter yells at me or the chef swears at me for putting extra salt onto the dish, then I will never go there. Translated to IT: developer attitude, product maker attitude, etc. If I report a bug and get a reply saying "use this workaround, you worthless piece of shit" or if I ask a question and get "RTFM retard" - we're done.
Finally, if it's dirty, I'm off. Translated to IT: horrible naming conventions, mind-numbing file system structure, half-assed GUI, unintelligible documentation. No other features can compensate it.

Think of this as you wish, but I really think that attitude and dirtiness are the single two things that's stopping Linux from storming the MS dominance and crushing it fully. Android got it right to some extent and look where it is right now. They picked their target, understood it and molded onto it so that it feels like a warm cloth instead of an itchy rag.

If anything, I want Linux to better itself, because I like it (and use it for specialized tasks). Am I asking too much if I want the Linux community to stop cussing and antagonizing their would-be customers? Your choice.

Re: what?

[icebike]

How about decades of programming in various environments with blatant differences in quality based on work ethic. FYI there's a fuckton of information and research on this.

Brilliant!.

Your statement fits the bill perfectly: random off the top of your head examples cherry picked at random from unverifiable sources.

Well played sir! Well played.

And posting as AC to boot. Bonus points for style!

Re:what?

[war4peace]

You'd be wrong, but then again, you seem to know everything... again, typical behavior I would expect...

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent was stating that from personal experience, not from fact.

Re:what?

[Gr8Apes]

That was my first thought, but I still laughed. Great sense of humor there.

Re:what?

[Gr8Apes]

Also, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 was the first truly good consumer level version of Windows.

I do hope you're kidding.

Re:what?

[ichthus]

Yes, Atari and BeOS: What do you guys have to say about this?

...*crickets chirping*

Hello? Anyone there?

Re:what?

[cnettel]

Much like Windows 3.11 the GUI in GUN/Linux isn't a core part of the OS - but a graphics server with window managers on top and all the real work being done by the OS under the manager.

That is true, but the similarity doesn't go much further than that. If you look at the capabilities of the OS underneath, there is a major difference between Linux and DOS. (Even to this day some of the limitations inherited from DOS are still found in modern Windows versions. The last Windows user I came across wasn't able to open a command line window more than 80 characters wide.)

Yeah, opening the properties or using the MODE command is a terrible pain. By the way, Windows 3.1 in 386 mode didn't really put a fancy face on top of DOS. It is rather like a headcrab or something. It might rely on some of the services of the host, but it also modifies it beyond recognition. Virtual memory management and yes, some network services, lived almost solely in the Windows product, e.g. HIMEM.sys existed, but all the logic was in Windows.

Re:what?

[Drinking Bleach]

As much as the joke doesn't really apply to Trek movies, it doesn't really apply to Windows versions either.

Far as I'm concerned, on the DOS side, anything before Win95 was worthless. Windows 95 was alright for what it was, and I avoided W98 like the plague because of its instability. ME never saw enough adoption for it to have actually meant anything; and it really wasn't as bad as people make it out to be. Windows XP garnered a lot of flack for not being anywhere near as good as Win2K, but it went on for years without Longhorn being released and a couple service packs made it decent enough. Vista also has a reputation it frankly doesn't deserve, and W7 is just a renamed Vista.

Re:what?

[djdanlib]

Have you heard of Windows Server Core? It's almost console mode, since it boots you to a command prompt window with available GUI for applications like Notepad. I guess they accepted the fact that all the commonly-available monitors are at least SVGA-compatible by now, and built it accordingly.

Re:what?

[ericloewe]

Desktop Windows? Impossible without re-writing some stuff. "Reboot with command line" just opens a command line window.
Server? I think it's possible since 2008 R2, but I'm not sure about how far the GUI-free mode goes.

Re:what?

[djdanlib]

I beta tested and used the released version of most of those. ME was waaaay worse than Vista from start to finish, in my experience... it was far less stable. Vista was unstable on a lot of hardware predating its release, but it didn't hard-crash nearly as often as ME did.

Re:what?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Next Stop? Linux NT! Hooray!

BTW. This thread is dominated by a bunch of humor challenged sour-pusses. They'd NEVER have survived at Berkeley Computer Labs if the idea of "funny" began and ended with recursion jokes.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, everyone is just stunned how anyone could be stupid enough to bring atari and beos to the table in a discussion about operating systems.

It appears you do enjoy your total system crashes when something makes the gui go bananas though. Not enough of your sort around to be relevant though.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because he is batter than you are and has achieved more in his life so far than you and your children and your grand children will ever achieve.

Re:what?

[HighOrbit]

Already done, sorta. There is the "Server Core" mode for windows server where all config is through the command line. I've never seen one in the wild. It looks like the cmd.exe shell/interface actually runs in a window. However, most of the windows-shell is stripped out. Wikipedia has a discription and picture. To me, the picture looks like your desktop in safe-mode text mode only . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_server_2008#Server_Core.

Re:what?

[Belial6]

I'm pretty sure AmigaOS 1.0 - 3.1 would fit bill. It boots to a graphical screen first, and then loads the CLI on top of that.

Re:what?

[roc97007]

why?

Because it's funny?

Re: what?

[Gilmoure]

Because its funny?

Re:what?

[Belial6]

Telling a joke that other people don't get is not a "behavior issue" if it does not impact those that don't get it negatively. No one gets hurt by giving Linux 3.11 the name Linux for Workgroups. It's not even an insult to MS. Humorless is when you don't want the joke told irrelevant of whether you get it or not.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you shut down explorer.exe, you shut down the windows gui (or at least that used to be the way). Then (according to people who only know microsoft) you are suddenly running DOS, even if you were running NT or VISTA before. Shut down explorer.exe and you are suddenly running DOS. "Its a DOS window". Stupid.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you took your own advice, you would realize that you will never convince anyone by comparing their labor of love to having the shittiest low paid job in the country.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bla bla bla. Jesus christ STFU.
No wonder everyone ignores you.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I'm writing this from my Windows 7 install with VC# open in another window. I do a lot of work on windows, and am not a kernel developer. So now that we've got that out of the way. You're a humorless moron that has little understanding of how a system works, how development teams work, and most of all how business works. I'm rather insulted that you believe the kernel hackers or even anyone who does something with linux is under any responsibility to act like a retail store clerk and not "antagonize" their "customers". Please do slashdot's circling-the-drain self a favor and crawl back under the pile of business literature from whence you came.

I'm also insulted that you think the "linux community" is a single entity or some kind of hive mind. Further insulted by how you insist on calling projects "products", and nigh-infuriated that you think that the kernel is worse for not caring about market share. You don't care about linux bettering itself, nor do I care that you will pass me off as some asshole that fits your stereotype when I say this: You look like someone who has snapped after submitting one too many stupid bug reports and would like to ignore your lack of understanding and instead considering people's reactions a symptom of the "linux community".

Re:what?

[Zordak]

Yeah, I even used Vista. It deadlocked trying to update to SP1, so I was stuck on GA til the day I dropped it, but other than that it wasn't THAT bad.

While we're on the topic, my college roommate murdered me and everybody else in the house, but other than that little incident, he wasn't THAT psychotic. (If you're wondering, I post to Slashdot via IPoM (IP over Medium)).

Re:what?

[black3d]

All true. It's the reason I, as a developer, refuse to get involved. Why on earth would I want to work with such people?

Re:what?

[siride]

Recursion jokes never end.

Re:what?

[Dracos]

Only infinite resursion jokes never end.

Re:what?

[hvm2hvm]

I think this was Linus' plan all along when he set the main linux version to 3 and made the second number grow faster.

Re: what?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it wasn't GUIs out of the kernel that makes for stability (GUIs aren't specially buggy compared to webservers or daemons). It was 1) buggy drivers, and 2) minimal features necessary, that encouraged stability. Windows NT being buggy was because of closed source meaning that it couldn't be paired down to bare essentials (2)

Re:what?

[r1348]

Are you even aware of what we're talking about here? Do you really think Windows got so popular because its kernel development was kept "simple and explicit"?

Let me put it easier for you: it's a nickname to a kernel version that is aimed at all those who have a little interest in the Linux kernel development. No "Linux customer" is ever going to see it. If Android was to fork kernel 3.11 for its next version and consequently sell a billion devices with it, only a tiny percentage of the buyers would be aware of what Linux even is, and even less would be aware of this tiny joke. And if even one of them would interpret it as "Linux finally reached the level Windows was, 20 years ago", he would need his brain checked, by a good one.

Re:what?

[fisted]

sounds like they're Trying Too Hard(tm).

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

>that they need to work on their behavior

I'll tell you a secret: that has never worked for anybody. People resent that. Save yourself some trouble and try to influence people using other means.

Re:what?

[Silvrmane]

Sorta. It "boots" to running a startup script that executes a series of CLI commands (to mount various directories as aliases and to move some critical libraries to a RAM disk) before (usually) ending in a call to LoadWB, which prompts the system to load up the graphical workbench. When I had an Amiga I almost always left that step off my startup script because I did my work from, more often than not, the CLI, not the clumsy Workbench.

Re: what?

[sjames]

Webservers and daemons aren't in the kernel either.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can change the width of the command line easily. Also, even drives letter do not exist anymore at the kernel level. There is a lot of misunderstanding and ignorance about windows -- yours is a prime example.

Re:what?

[war4peace]

It definitely worked for me. Didn't say it was easy, or quick. But now I can refrain from snapping back when someone snaps at me. Among other things, of course :)

Re:what?

[Kjella]

Microsoft can control who speaks for Microsoft and give official support on their behalf, Apple can control who speaks for Apple and give official support on their behalf, but nobody can claim to speak for the whole Linux (or better yet, OSS) community nor is 99,99% of the support you get in any official capacity. Sure you can try to create walled off areas like Ubuntu's Absolute Beginners Section where moderators can use the ban hammer on douchebags but in general there's no telling what you'll run into. To use your analogy, it's more like a potluck dinner than a restaurant and in a large group there'll always be asshats. It doesn't help that just like you have community members that piss in the well you sure have users that piss in the well too, if you ever have to deal with any obnoxious, persistent, over-entitled twats you're likely to swear off offering support forever.

The other fundamental issue is that many of these people are essential to the software development, they just don't give a damn about your problems. Say what you will but if it comes down to a more-or-less savvy user or a key code contributor, most will side with the "not our problem, read the manual or code a patch yourself" attitude. A lot of projects have very poor separation between development and support and developers that don't want to be bothered by support, bad combination. And in the end you're not their boss so if you bring it up they might just take their ball and go home, start a competing fork or just make a giant mess of everything. Even so, some people still need to be evicted from projects - abuse of users is usually not grave enough though.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact in Windows Vista/7/8 GPU drivers run in user space (except for a very small shim) vs. Linux where GPU drivers run in the kernel. // b.

Re:what?

[linatux]

You get to keep a little more privacy than with the NSA version

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

3.2 isn't out yet. You still don't know.

Re:what?

[SolitaryMan]

Jeez, I bet you have never delivered anything good.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

More people run Linux than ever, even if they don't really know it (think Android for example).

That's kind of a hollow victory though. The vast majority of them are running it on locked down phones or other devices where modifying code is not possible.

For many of us, the whole point of rooting for Linux was that we wanted an open system to become the standard. Most Android devices make Windows look like a bastion of freedom by comparison.

Re:what?

[war4peace]

Well, let's say you try to sell a Linux-based distro to a large organization. They WILL ask a lot of questions, and one of them would very likely refer to how the kernel is named. Maybe they will find the joke funny. Maybe they won't. You can bet on the former, but if the latter happens, you risk losing large sums of money.

Yes, I know Linux is already used in many large corporations, but maybe the rather childish naming convention is one reason why it's not used by more companies.

Re:what?

[war4peace]

They pay your wage, albeit indirectly. Good enough for a reason?

Re:what?

[ReverendLoki]

if {parentPost == siride}
        Return 0;
Recursion jokes never end.;

Re:what?

[war4peace]

Heh-heh. You might fit right into the same community you defend. Ever considered it? :)

Re:what?

[SolitaryMan]

Anyone else will at most see "Ununtu Various Vertibrates" or even less, "Android".

Now I really hope they'll call 15.04 that!

Re:what?

[Wookact]

If you shut down (or it crashes) explorer.exe the GUI does stop functioning for the most part. You can though hit Win-R to get the run box. Then you type explorer.exe and it restarts. If Win-R fails, Alt-Crtl-Del then open the run box from the File menu. I have also seen explorer restart itself after a crash, so that may not even be needed. I have never seen a DOS prompt when explorer crashes.

Re:what?

[sjames]

GPU != GUI.

Re:what?

[war4peace]

You are right, however you missed the point, which is:
"Considering someone else humorless for not getting your joke is relevant from a behavior perspective".
I don't know how to make it clearer than this.

Telling a specialized joke: Right.
Not all people getting it: Right.
Thinking less of the ones not getting it: Wrong.

Re:what?

[nico60513]

Most large organizations these days have at least some familiarity with what Linux is, even if they don't make much use of it. If they ask what kernel you are using, you say 3.11 (as in three point eleven or three eleven). They're not going to ask "What is it's nickname?" They just want the version number.

Re:what?

[dbIII]

Having a graphical system outside the OS is a desirable feature and not a drawback. It means that people that don't like Gnome3, Unity, CDE (yes, the old Sun thing) or twm are not forced to use any of those if they don't want to. The main thing we learnt years ago about a Common Desktop Environment is that nobody wanted one if they didn't have a stake in it themselves.

Re:what?

[dbIII]

On Atari the operating system, known as TOS, was separate from the GUI, which was GEM. That meant that games could run without GEM even starting and that alternative GUIs known as "gemini" could run.

Re:what?

[black3d]

Linux developers are as closely associated to my wage as dairy farmers are, however I feel no compulsion to up-root and move to the countryside. I possibly could have been less brash in my reply, however I was agreeing with a portion of your post. I have considered working on open source projects before, but have found the majority of projects I'm interested in are dictacted by a small close-knit group of friends who really have no interest in the opinions or contributions of others (sure, if you can solve an issue THEY'RE having, you're welcome, but if you've got a usage issue which requires their collaboration then you can go hang). I'm sure you can imagine the much more colorful language used.

The two solutions to so many issues that are angrily presented are "if you're having that issue, then write a patch and recompile" or "if you want that functionality, then fork it and write it yourself". I can't count the number of times there's some obvious glaring bug with a package, but it works OK on the author's computer, and if you're not using his exact hardware configuration then you're "a fucking idiot and it's your fault". Sure, sometimes I *can* actually fix it - but what exactly is my motivation to do so? To help that jackass? To submit a patch so other people think that jackass is actually competent?

The community seems to be dominated by "little-Hitlers" who basically ruin the experience. A couple of projects I have actually contributed to have over the past 8-9 years magically had my attribution disappear although my code is still present. If the folks "in charge" don't clean up their act, there's good reason why so many of us will keep avoiding contributing anything meaningful.

Re:what?

[nurb432]

Why not?

Re:what?

[dbIII]

I'd have thought so too but then I booted up an old laptop found at work and was reminded of how incredibly shitty it was and what drove me to use linux in the first place.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

You got modded troll because you used Citation Needed and then followed it up with being a dick. This is yet another glaring example of people only wanting to use Citation Needed when they want to be a douche. Go ahead, reply with a [Citation Needed].

Re:what?

[jgrahn]

Right, like people are going to know/care the kernel version their smartphone is using. Come on! I've been working and developing software for/on Linux for 15 years and I don't know the version of the kernel I'm running. Hell, I didn't even know kernel versions had names.

They don't; not in any meaningful way anyway. There's a $(NAME) tucked away in the Makefile, and that's what changed from "Unicycling Gorilla" (never heard of it) to "Linux for Workgroups" in commit ad81f0545e. As far as I can tell, this string is not even included in a built kernel. You certainly can't make uname(1) or /proc/sys/kernel/ emit this name.

Re:what?

[JustOK]

Citation

Re:what?

[The Cat]

How about if you take the pole out of your ass?

Re:what?

[KGIII]

I am six other people actually liked ME. *sighs* I can't believe I just admitted that on /. but it is true. There are seven of us. We're a cabal, or something... If you had the right hardware, the right install date, sacrificed the appropriate amount of black chickens, and burned the right number of candles (it also helps if Mars is in retrograde) it was an awesome OS for its day.

Re:what?

[adolf]

I don't seem him defending a "community." The closest he comes is when he actively attempts to dismantle the very concept of "community" that you seem to think exists.

Just sayin'.

Re:what?

[Belial6]

Except he didn't think less of the ones not getting it. He thought thought less of the guy that said it was a bad idea to tell it because not everyone would get it. You stated that it was a bad idea for the joke to be told at all. Thus, by your own standards, you are in the wrong.

Re: what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. Windows 8 is even better than Windows 7, if you stay in Desktop Mode 98% of the time.

Re:what?

[war4peace]

Read again: he called one who didn't get the joke "humorless moron". No need to look any further.

Re:what?

[war4peace]

Yup, what you're saying pretty much sums it up... unfortunately.

Re:what?

[war4peace]

Fair enough. but just to keep on the safe side, seriousness (associated - wrongly sometimes - with professionalism) extends to product nicknames as well. And source code comments, while we're at it.

Re: what?

[RabidReindeer]

How about decades of programming in various environments with blatant differences in quality based on work ethic. FYI there's a fuckton of information and research on this.

Brilliant!.

Your statement fits the bill perfectly: random off the top of your head examples cherry picked at random from unverifiable sources.

Well played sir! Well played.

And posting as AC to boot. Bonus points for style!

Well, if you want specific examples, one of the items I was specifically thinking of the time was the IBM VSAM program logic manual circa 198x. Or do you have to have the actual IBM SCXX publication order code before you'll be satisfied? Prime Computer did some very entertaining documentation as well - being based in Massachusetts, they liked to spike their docs with references to HP Lovecraft's New England and Miskatonic University. The Commodore Amiga group had a lot of run as well. I have an A1000 computer with the paw imprint of Jay Miner's dog embossed on the inside of the lid.

On the flip side, SCO (before they changed owners and starting suing Linux) was so grim I turned and walked away from it. Intuit is no fun at all. Oracle and HP have abominable search engines, but your call is VERY important to them. And I have to be paid pretty well to sit and feel my life leaching away waiting for them to serve all their other customers because the documentation was written in Mordor and is neither entertaining nor informative.

There are a number of horribly expensive and unfunny program products I've dealt with and discarded over the years. I purposely refrain from recalling their names because I don't want to summon the other unpleasant memories that would rise like bile along with their names.

As to who has the better work ethic, I don't give a damn. All I care about is what they do to my work experience. And my experience has been that the more the developers enjoyed their jobs, the more enjoyable - and productive - my job becomes.

Re:what?

[armanox]

Ummm...what? He's running an outdated kernel - came out a while ago.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment makes no sense in this context. Kernel codenames are never seen by the user 99% of times. which is why you're getting so much negative backlash. Has nothing to do with the Linux community and very much with how stupid your comments are.

Re:what?

[mrchaotica]

Most of the people I knew pirated Win2K rather than used WinME.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you could think of the distributions as customers, or even everyone using linux as a customer. The nice thing here is that the customer is not right, actually the customer can be as damn wrong as they want, and kernel devs don't have to give a crap about it. Sounds wrong from a corporate viewpoint? Yeah, but that's what makes it F/OSS. And what makes you think they actually want linux to spread to everyone and their dog? It's not like they are making any more money if the number of linux users doubles overnight.

Every time I see these "linux devs don't get marketing, that is why they fail to spread linux to the crowds" it's someone who doesn't get how it all works, and doesn't get the devs might not give a damn if people use windows or osx instead of linux. Heck, they might be using windows and/or osx themselves.

Re:what?

[Blaskowicz]

Well it's a bit of a pain in the ass to type something like "mode 120,60" rather than just resize the window with the mouse, and applications you run are likely to only use 80 columns anyway.
I know about the "right click on title bar" thing, I would use it to set green on black text and the default size at 80x43 (and check the "quickedit" thing is enabled).

Another pain is you can't full screen a command prompt in Vista/7, that was useful to not be distracted, and to look at bigger letters in the familiar IBM text font. In linux, I often use a maximized terminal instead (with tabs if needed) ; there's no way to really maximize a terminal in Windows.

Re: what?

[Blaskowicz]

Incidentally, buggy and incomplete drivers make a linux desktop more unstable and buggy than a Windows desktop on the same machine (unless you only have Intel CPU/chipset/graphics and realtek sound/network, I guess).
For instance I've lived with crappy drivers for my Xonar DX sound card (haven't tried Ubuntu 13.04 / Mint 15 yet on that computer), which can give me little cracks sometimes, and the sound is always garbled in Wine (so I can't run that one Windows game that always worked on multiple wine versions since I first played it in 2007) and I have an intermittent sound bug in zsnes (so I don't play SNES games which used to be about the only other gaming venue for linux)

Re:what?

[Richard Dick Head]

NT 3.51 was stable? Yeah, until you installed an update or a service pack, then it would blue screen. Or until you tried to move the machine, then it would blue screen. Or until you connected it to your Arcnet network, then it would blue screen. Or you ran heavy machinery around it, then it would blue screen. Or until you dusted off the case, then it would blue screen. Or until you tilted the monitor, then it would blue screen. Or if you plugged a shop light into an outlet on the same breaker, then it would blue screen. Or until you sneezed, then it would blue screen. Or if you were walking around the machine with hard sole shoes that made sounds when you walked, then it would blue screen. Or if a house fly got near the case, then it would blue screen.Or...

Yeah, like every other piece of Microsoft software at the time it was developed and tested in a clean room walled off from background radiation with 5 feet of lead-studded concrete, and with 5-nines cherry-picked hardware provided by the mfg. Why else do you think that all of a sudden ECC memory was a requirement for all servers regardless of whether it was a financial. Put it in a production environment? HAHAHA. No.

I don't think NT 3.51 was stable, but I do think memories tend to get rose-tinted over time.

Re:what?

[kasperd]

There is a lot of misunderstanding and ignorance about windows -- yours is a prime example.

I think most of those misunderstandings are caused by two factors. Backward compatibility has lead to a fairly convoluted system, which is hard to understand. Microsoft's desire to hide the technical details and the remnants of earlier systems has lead to users having an incorrect impression of what is really going on behind the scenes. At some point Microsoft promised to deliver a Windows version, which was not built on top of DOS. When they couldn't truly live up to that promise, they instead tried to hide the existence of DOS underneath, they also crippled that DOS version by removing lots of the tools. If they hadn't done that, it could not only have been the best DOS version yet, but also the best of those Windows versions running on top of DOS.

I don't claim to know a lot about how Windows works. The last time I looked at any technical details around Windows was when it was called version 3.11. And the last time I touched Windows professionally, Windows XP was state of the art among Windows systems.

What I can tell is that people who use Windows daily have trouble with even such simple tasks as maximizing a window. They can't tell why the maximize button sometimes maximizes in one direction and other times in both directions. And nobody seem to know how to get complete control over it to the point where they can maximize in exactly the direction(s) they want.

I know enough about the history of Windows to realize that the different behaviour of terminal windows compared to other windows is due to its DOS legacy. Most Windows users don't even realize that and are just confused when the maximize button doesn't work as expected.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he isn't wrong, as demonstrated by all the comments telling you the same damn thing. You're a humorless moron, deal with it.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't call you a humorless moron because you didn't get the joke, he called you that because you got butthurt over other people having fun while you flail your arms in the hair whining because of a fucking kernel codename.

Re:what?

[gparent]

So you mean the kernel that every single Debian Wheezy box happens to run by default doesn't exist? okay.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

The most reliable of the bunch? NT 3.51 without any question whatsoever. The best all-around? NT 4.0, 2000 in a perfect tie. XP was only very slightly behind and also gets a lot of points for simple longevity.

Please, for the love of God, pass the crack pipe. Did you actually use any of those products? 3.51, open and close any office app 25 times without a reboot. Watch the BSOD after it leaked ALL memory into never-never land. No really, load it again and try. I have the fucking disk here, somewhere. NT4 got stable right the fuck around Service pack 6, not a second before. Though you had to put up with the changes to NTVDM required that you pitch all the old programs you had running in that damnable command shell.

Yeah, I remember those - take off the rose colored glasses. Talk to me about Citrix+WinFrame on NT 3.51 some day, I'll tell you stories about death and destruction. The whole family sucked ass until Win2KSP1, and then was just usable. For all the hell people gave it, Vista only sucked so much, Win7 much less. For the XP fanbois, it sucked too, just differently than Vista. Overall, Windows as a product line has been buggy as hell, poorly supported by the vendor, and a bit like running Sendmail or MMDF as your MTA. It works well enough, but you really have to not like yourself so much to do it...

Re:what?

[ichthus]

Admittedly, I never used TOS -- I owned an 800 and a 130XE, but moved to a 386 after that. Do I regret never having used an ST? Yeah, maybe -- in the same way I regret never having used OS/2. But, I'm sure I would have ended up with my current platform of PC+Linux either way.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. That'll hapen with Linux 95

Re: what?

[Testudo Kleinmanni]

Bump

Re:what?

[tom229]

Server Core is unfortunately pretty useless. Nearly everything of importance needs to be done using a remote server manager GUI, or MMC snap-ins on a desktop which, in my experience, are both slow and buggy. There's also not a snap-in for everything. For example: networking. Doing anything beyond setting the IP address for a network adapter (ie. disabling ipv6) has to all be done in the registry, and basic functionality like creating a PPTP connectoid is simply impossible.

There's many other basic server tasks you can't perform like installing exchange, even though 2010 can be entirely managed from powershell.

In short, Windows is entirely dependent on the GUI.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they're not going to ask what the kernel is named. Maybe in fantasy world where you appear to live in, but the reality is that they won't give a flying shit.

Re:what?

[dbIII]

Either way the point is the AC above doesn't have a clue and his example was false.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who wouldn't understand it is a joke would have zero clue what Windows for Workgroups 3.11 is and so wouldn't feel insulted or whatever your fucking panties are twisted over. Untwist them, drain out the sand and SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT.

And no, I am not speaking for the linux community or FOSS in general so you don't have to regurgitate you stupid fucking shit again.

FUCK OFF

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow you are truly a fucktarded corporate slave.

It is just a code name, everyone will refer to it as 3.11, just like 3.10...3.0,2.6,2.4...

ONCE AGAIN FUCK OFF!

Re:what?

[unixisc]

I somehow doubt that RMS shares ESR's enthusiastic support of the Second Amendment. One would have to comb Stallman.org to see what he says.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft? Oracle? Sony Online Entertainment?

Re:what?

[vilanye]

The gap between purely technical and layman language is what prompted the creation and large scale adoption of high level programming languages

Do you actually believe that drivel?

Re:what?

[vilanye]

Linux kernels are not known by their code name, they are known by version. No one asking a vender about Linux and Linux support is going to be asking such stupid questions like what are the code names. I don't know if you are trolling or just stupid, but you really need to pull that stick out.

Re:what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess all those incompetent serious people can name the kernel by its version then. The talented people don't give a flying fuck.

But will Microsoft sue?

[tepples]

As of Windows 7, Microsoft no longer uses the "flag" as a mark to identify Windows. But what claim would Microsoft still have against the use of the flag?

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[MetalliQaZ]

If they're smart they will simply smirk at the jab and do nothing. It's a small piece of free advertisement.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Trepidity]

It's pretty clearly a parody, not a trademark misuse that could cause confusion in the marketplace.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[gmuslera]

They aren't using the FAT filesystem anymore and still blackmail android vendors because they "own" it.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[pspahn]

eh?

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never read that Stevie Ballmer has a sense of humor.

I mean, I'm pretty sure "developers! developers! developers!" was dead serious...:-)

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[HideyoshiJP]

If I had to guess, most of the Windows team members would chuckle at it, while the legal department runs around screaming "fire!"

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I have never read that Stevie Ballmer has a sense of humor."

Then you clearly know absolutely nothing about ballmer

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can parody a logo, but I don't believe it's a 1st Amendment protection to be able to use a parody of another company's logo as a your own badging logo.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[A nonymous Coward]

Or Windows. Especially Windows. Especially Windows 3.11.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[jbengt]

As of Windows 7, Microsoft no longer uses the "flag" as a mark to identify Windows.

That's funny, because I'm sitting here and looking at a Windows 7 "flag" on my Windows 7 start button. (OK, there's no flagpole, but it still looks more like a waving flag than curved windows.)

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Immerman]

Not quite true - it's still the default file system for most flash drives. At least it's rare that I encounter a flash drive that comes preformatted with an NTFS or superior file system, though hard drives seem to have mostly made the switch. Just because it's not being employed directly by MS for system resources doesn't means it's unused - it's still heavily used for compatibility purposes and, as you point out, the strategic deprivation of such. Whether such conduct is *ethical* is a completely separate question...

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Anonymous Coward]

That didn't ever stop Apple from suing either. Even though Windows originally clearly was an OS 9 parody. Really Good Edition.

And since MS nowadays is hell-bent on becoming a bad Apple clone. (Not that Apple itself isn't the biggest danger to actual computer usage, average intelligence and human information processing power in the history of computing. MS Clippy and even MS Bob got *nothing* on iOS with autocorrect and a clickwheel.)

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Darinbob]

Not necessarily. One could argue that since both are operating systems that there could be confusion. As in the hint that this version of Linux provides Windows compatibility, or has some official acknowledgement from Microsoft that it's compatible, or that there are some included Windows components.

I agree that the Microsoft devs won't care but the Microsoft lawyers might be concerned.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[LinuxIsGarbage]

It's too bad UDF never really caught on as the defacto USB hard drive, flash drive, SDHC etc file system. Unfortunately XP has shaky support, and it can be hard to get it formatted to UDF.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Belial6]

No, they shouldn't just smirk. They should throw Linux a mock Bar Mitzvah. Send the entire development team pens as gifts and welcome them out of childhood.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Anonymous Coward]

MS has a fairly competent legal team who will doubtless realize that parody and satire are acceptable defences to trademark infringement. At worst they might send a toothless C&D letter to add to their file of "see! we take this trademark seriously!" activities.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[danomac]

If I had to announce it to Ballmer, I'd just duck right afterwards...

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Immerman]

Does UDF have some special features I'm unaware of that would make it particularly suitable? My impression is that it was specifically designed for write-once optical media, with the selected compromises likely being rather sub-optimal for more freely rewritable media. Compatibility would seem to be the only redeeming feature. I would perhaps have suggested ext2 myself as an industry standard - it's been tested to death, and has implementations on virtually every OS and platform on the planet, all it would need is official backing from the major OS powers - i.e. Microsoft and Apple.

I suggest ext2 rather than its successors or other more modern filesystem because it's still quite powerful, and it's long history has given it the all-important backwards compatibility benefit - I remember accessing it from win95 (admittedly with a custom file manager), so accessibility could be assured from virtually any OS - for maximum compatibility you could even include a tiny FAT partition with the necessary browser for every major OS - the hard work's already been done.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Trogre]

Perhaps, but that flag looks rather like a screen grab of the actual logo. Then we're out of trademark soup and into copyright fritters.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[c2me2]

Confirmed. I'm a 12-year Microsoft veteran, and I think it's just plain funny.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[hobarrera]

It's not 1st amendment, it's fair use (for a parody). It's ok to use stuff that other people own a copyright to if the sole purpose is parody (it's fair use). This is clearly the case.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Their legal department is probably still using windows 3.11 for workgroups.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Anonymous Coward]

No this is clearly not the case. Every distro had better stip it out before they ship it.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Jappus]

All the points you raised in your posting work just as well when you replace "ext2" with "FAT32" -- which is the current default amongst users and industry as well.

Let's see, your arguments for ext2 are:
    - It has been tested to death --> (check for FAT32)
    - It has implementations on virtually every OS and platform --> (double-check for FAT32)
    - It would need backing from major OS powers --> (FAT32 already has it)
    - Ext2 is powerful enough --> (so is FAT32, feature-for-feature actually)
    - It has a long history of backwards compatibility --> (FAT32 has seen several extensions; all of them backward-compatible)
    - You could access it from Win95 --> (true for Win95 since OEM Service Release 2.1; not that anyone cares.)
    - You could include a FAT partition to browse it on major OSs (implied: for those that don't support it) --> (Not needed for FAT32; even on DOS)

So if we take a rational look at your argument, we see that FAT32 wins even then. Why? Because it's exactly as you said: It is powerful enough, for the purpose.

As for the other niceties that ext2 has over FAT32; like native symlinks, support for larger files, slightly better permission concept, being more efficient on directories with many, etc. don't factor in, since on USB disks, these don't really come into play. And those that might (like the large directory penalty) are nowadays circumvent by aggressive caching.

The only point you could raise is that ext2 is fully open source and free (libré), while FAT32 merely has an open specification and a handful of minor features that still have patents on them. But as you see in the real world, that was no hindrance at all for its universal implementation.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Compatibility is an important feature that's suitable for portable media. You know ext2 wouldn't get full support from MS, meanwhile (at least new versions) of Windows have full UDF support. UDF unlike FAT/32 offer large file support, and it's not encumbered with patents.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[alexgieg]

so accessibility could be assured from virtually any OS

The problem aren't OSes, it's everything else that has an USB port. Try as you might, but your car MP3 player, old DVD player, TV etc. don't support anything except FAT32. Having flash drives come formatted in anything different would cause tons of support calls, returns due to them being "defective" etc. For better or worse, it's best to provide them in FAT32 and let the user himself reformat it to their preferred file system if he so wishes and doesn't need the device to work in legacy devices.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[davydagger]

might as well go with ext4 for performance, and modernitity.

a big concern with flash systems is also permissionlessness.

permission based file systems can be a big trip up on removable media used on many computers.

and fat32 is dogshit slow.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[petteyg359]

Really? Because when I start Windows 7, there's this flag animation in the middle of my screen, and there's a flag on the start menu button. The "Anytime Upgrade" in control panel also has a flag in the icon. The C: drive in "My Computer" has a flag in the icon. The "Windows 7" theme has a giant flag in the center of the desktop background. Even Windows 8 still uses a flag (not just the four-box grid thingy) in places (see the icon in setup.exe on the install disc).

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Shirley Marquez]

Support for larger files is also significant. Flash comes in sizes much bigger than 4GB now; video files routinely exceed that size, though some standards such as DVD avoid the problem by breaking the content into smaller files, and even live recording of high resolution audio can require files bigger than 4GB.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[tepples]

Please see my correction.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I am sure that will be an issue.

Parody is part of fair use as defined in US law(title 17 section 107) and affirmed multiple times in court including the supreme court. It even protects nasty jokes about public figures. See Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, unanimous supreme court decision, even Scalia was on board.

I think Linux is safe, even if MS stupidly decides to make a case of it.

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Anonymous Coward]

ext3 doesn't have a long enough history for you? You wouldn't be a Debian fan, would you?

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[walshy007]

As for the other niceties that ext2 has over FAT32; like native symlinks, support for larger files, slightly better permission concept, being more efficient on directories with many, etc. don't factor in, since on USB disks, these don't really come into play.

Bullshit, how are people supposed to transfer their 7gb movie rip on their 32gb usb sticks without resorting to some sort of insane file splitting?

Re:But will Microsoft sue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jab? wouldn't it be more accurate to call it an homage.

Does that mean that this release of Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

...is one of the buggiest OS's in the history of software?

Re:Does that mean that this release of Linux

[chromas]

I suppose, if you don't consider any of the other Windows releases.

So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait to see Linux 95. The Linux market will explode when that comes out.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

I could have sworn I'd already used Linux Vista...

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[MetalliQaZ]

Windows95 was really just a GUI running on top of DOS. Download GNOME and you've got it already!

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows95 was really just a GUI running on top of DOS. Download GNOME and you've got it already!

Compared to Gnome, Windows95 is lightweight and responsive.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows95 was really just a GUI running on top of DOS. Download GNOME and you've got it already!

So was Windows 3.11 (actually even more so: you started it from DOS by typing win, and it still used a lot of DOS resources directly).

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[pecosdave]

95C - with IE stripped out.

Windows 95 didn't get usable until after 98 should have already been out with the C revision. Then it was better by far than the original 98.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[jones_supa]

Windows95 was really just a GUI running on top of DOS. Download GNOME and you've got it already!

GNOME is just a GUI running on top of Linux.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

In much the same way that a Hot Wheels car is "lightweight and responsive" compared to a Lamborghini, yes.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Yes. Windows 95 was by far the lightest weight and most responsive of Operating systems. Unfortunatly, every other response was a blue screen...

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

I could have sworn I'd already used Linux Vista...

Nah with the GNOMETARDS we're full in the Linux 8 experience crapfest.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Windows 95 was by far the lightest weight and most responsive of Operating systems. Unfortunatly, every other response was a blue screen...

Yes. Windows 95 was by far the lightest weight and most responsive of Operating systems with the exception of every operating system that came before it save one (windows NT). Unfortunatly, every other response was a blue screen...

Fixed that for you.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[chrysrobyn]

I started using Linux with Slackware 96 running Linux 2.0 (2.0.4 by the time I started).

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[master_kaos]

Well all they got to do is taking a meeting with the Firefox developers and it shouldn't be a problem

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if crashing faster is your definition of lightweight and responsive.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[drinkypoo]

Windows 95 was capable of utilizing DOS BIOS calls in some drivers if you configured it that way, which you could do by installing some DOS drivers. Normally, though, it's not done after boot.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Darinbob]

I'd stand in line for that one.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows95 was really just a GUI running on top of DOS. Download GNOME and you've got it already!

You really don't know what you're talking about. Windows 95 was a preemptive multitasking protected-mode operating system that used DOS as a boot loader. There was no "on top of DOS" when running in Windows; it replaced DOS in every meaningful way.

It's akin to saying that Fedora runs on top of GRUB. A completely ignorant oversimplification of what's actually happening.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait to see Linux 95. The Linux market will explode when that comes out.

Wait a couple weeks and you'll see Firefox 95. It's an OS now.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Oh yeah, I prefered to use windows NT 3.51, but lets not kid ourselves, the requirements were much higher. Win NT 3.51 needed close to 64 mb of ram to work anywhere close to well. Windows 95 was ok at 32 mb ( still crashed like nobody's buisness).

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you consider GNOME a GUI.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

To this very day I see windows as a fancy dos shell.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Blaskowicz]

I did start Win95 by typing "win", actually. At home we had a habit of booting into DOS for playing games anyway and Windows was used to play solitaire and make drawings. That changed when games began requiring Windows 95.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Blaskowicz]

A similar argument can be made about Windows 3.x, which was more than a GUI as well.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[Common Joe]

Yeah, but after that, Linux 8 is going to suck and Linux 8.1 will be worse.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[unixisc]

I can't wait to see Linux 95. The Linux market will explode when that comes out.

You can have a wait for 95 years before it comes out, but have plenty of hype about it. Just like the hype that was there about Windows 95 when it was being promised.

Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows?

[LocalH]

Windows 3.1, when in Enhanced Mode, was actually a fully preemptively multitasking OS. However, it did not preemptively multitask Windows apps themselves. What it did preemptively multitask was the Windows apps as a whole with DOS boxes that you may have had open. Even in Windows 3.1, the Virtual Machine Manager was 32-bit protected code, so one could argue that Windows 3.1 was technically a 32-bit OS at its core. However, as we all know, individual 16-bit Windows apps were cooperatively multitasked, and it wasn't until Win32S that there was an official, MS-supported way to run any 32-bit code within a Windows app.

Linus has jumped the shark

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to retire.

Re:Linus has jumped the shark

[eyegor]

The term "Jumped The Shark" has jumped the shark as well.

Re:Linus has jumped the shark

[Anonymous Coward]

With which specific event?

"Jumped the shark" refers to a definite, specific event when something stops being good/cool.

What was the shark jump for "jumped the shark"?

Re:Linus has jumped the shark

[pjt33]

The first time it was used in a post on the web.

Re:Linus has jumped the shark

[HornWumpus]

It's now 'nuked the fridge'.

Only old farts (like me) have even heard of 'Happy Days'.

Re:Linus has jumped the shark

[foniksonik]

Nah it's "butthurt" which itself may already be butthurt.

Re:Linus has jumped the shark

[greg1104]

The Jump the Shark episode of the X-Files in 2002 was when Jumping the Shark jumped the shark. That added millions of people who started making these joke badly, and the average quality of such comments has slowly fallen of ever since. The alternate date to pick wasn't much later, which is 2003 when John Hein's book had come out. I thought it was clear we were into the boring repeat phase a little before then.

Re:Linus has jumped the shark

[Belial6]

That was always my take on it.

Hilarious

[Arker]

Good to see Linus still has a sense of humor.

I suppose shipping intentionally buggy IPX drivers with it might be taking the joke too far though.

Re:Hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

They can always implement NetBEUI and watch as we one by one shoot ourselves.

Re:Hilarious

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Who needs IPX when Linsock support is finally included out of the box?

Re:Hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

'tis was the only safe way to enable filesharing for windows upto XP. binding
fileshare to NetBEUI was waaayyy more better then using the netBIOS over TCP/IP
thingy. remember how one could "C:>net send msg hello world" spam whole public
ip ranges with computers with no firewall and connected via dial-up?

Re:Hilarious

[HornWumpus]

You enable netBIOS on IPX/SPX. and leave TCP/IP only for web browsing...I shouldn't remember this.

Re: Hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

Less is more.
Nothing is everything.
Life's too short.

And your signature is too long.

Also, /., go home, you're drunk.

Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment ... like the body or the subject!)

Re:Hilarious

[Darinbob]

What I really want to know is if Linux 3.11 has high memory extenders.

Re:Hilarious

[Arker]

Enable netbios over nbf only, dont let it bind with any routable protocols. Easy filesharing on your local network, no exposure past the first router.

Re:Hilarious

[Guy Harris]

They can always implement NetBEUI and watch as we one by one shoot ourselves.

2000 called; they want their software announcement back. This appears to be based on that code, from the references to Procom.

Re:Hilarious

[LinuxIsGarbage]

NetBEUI (NBF) was dirt simple to configure on a home network compared to IPX.

Re:Hilarious

[HornWumpus]

Once you've done IPX it's butt simple too. I ran Netmare back when it earned the name, but not recently when it has, again earned the name (I'm told, it was starting to suck again at v5, last time I touched it).

Re:Hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, it includes two different memory extenders, PME and PAE, available on selected processors, although you cannot run both at the same time ;-)

No third-party add-ons, though, so you cannot sing the "QEMM song" to the tune of Linux for Workgroups...

awww

[Anonymous Coward]

awwwwww how cute.

humor

[Anonymous Coward]

Good stuff

Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[tepples]

From the h-online article: "Zswap, a component that tries to compress and store in RAM memory areas that would otherwise need to be swapped, has now left the staging branch." It surprises me that it took this long to implement swapping to a compressed RAM disk. Or were they waiting for patents related to Connectix RAM Doubler to expire?

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[Anonymous Coward]

1) It has been *implemented* for quite some time now, all that has happened now is that it has been marked ready for the masses.
2) It works dynamically, taking up system ram as needed it does not need a ramdisk.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[Anonymous Coward]

With larger amounts of RAM installed in most computers nowadays I think a RAM disk is much more useful than it might have been when people had 1-4 GB.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[xaxa]

Implementing that (more or less) was the main piece of coursework [pdf] for my (2nd year) C programming course. I wonder if they still do that...

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[devent]

Sadly it's not true. I really wish we would already have 32GB RAM or more as default for desktop or laptop computers. But (in my opinion) Windows stopped the progress with their inability to implement Windows 64 bit. Only Windows 7 got finally 64 bit as the norm.

As far as I understand, Windows XP 64 was developed in 2001 for the Intel IA64 arch., not the AMD64 (x86_64) arch. Then later came Windows XP Professional x64 Edition in 2005 for the AMD64 arch. But of course being "Professional" most of the end-users does not got it from their OEMs. So almost all of the desktop and laptops have used Windows XP Home Edition.

Windows 7 came 2009 and brought finally 64 support for "Home" users. So from 2003 to 2009 most home users don't knew anything about 64 bit and could not use more then 4GB RAM. Of course Linux was the first kernel to support AMD64 in 2001.

Given the hard competition in the OEMs market for laptops and desktops, I think get a +12GB or +24GB edge would be really good to have. Since also Windows was not really know for performance and double the RAM would mean double the speed. Given the price for RAM it would costs the OEMs nothing. But the maximum was 4 GB for years and so the OEMs could not compete by increasing the RAM.

Now we still only get 6 or 8 GB in laptops, in "business" or "gamer" laptops. By now the standard should be 64GB RAM and more. Given that anything else have increased rapidly, like CPU and GPU speed, L1/L2 cache RAM, hard disk size.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[greg1104]

Most of the Windows laptops I look at are using 2 to 3GB of RAM. There is almost zero demand for RAM beyond 4GB among consumers, and that's absolutely correct. You have the cause/effect backwards. The migration to 64 bits wasn't slow because people couldn't get the software. It was slow because the faster hardware didn't help very much, making it impossible to cost justify putting any work into that.

Adding more RAM to machine that is only caching a few GB before a reboot will not increase its speed at all. Speed certainly wouldn't double by having twice as much RAM. The reason why people are spending money on SSD instead of RAM is because memory only helps once you've read data from disk once. There are some small uses of RAM for things like temporary files, but those are not common on consumer workloads either.

Back when all of the mass market machines were dipping into swap to run their normal application, adding RAM made them much faster. And that move was held back a little bit by the 32 bit memory limit. Those days are years in the rear view now though. I upgraded all of my laptops from 8GB to 16GB of RAM recently, and there was no responsiveness improvement for day to day work. I'm just not using more than 8GB very often, unless I get crazy with the number of web browser tabs going at once.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[Anonymous Coward]

zram (previously called compcache) has been around for a bit longer. This LWN article compares the three different memory/swap compression options in the kernel, each of which has its own pros and cons.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[cusco]

XP didn't start with 64-bit support because there were no 64-bit consumer-grade CPUs available at the time. DEC was working with MS to include support for the 64-bit Alpha CPU in Windows 2000 (the NT 4.0 port was supposedly already complete), until Compaq bought them and shut the entire effort down. I still think that was one of the dumber decisions in the history of computing, DEC was years ahead of AMD and Intel. DEC mostly needed the wholesale replacement of its useless sales staff and an infusion of cash to update their production systems and they could have been selling a ton of 64-bit Alpha chips before the word 'Itanium' was ever shat forth.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[devent]

Right. If it were true that there was no demand for faster hardware then why do CPU and GPU pushing for faster chips?

Hardware and software are always at a cycle, one pushing the other. You can have more RAM? You get software that uses that RAM. You get more CPU cores? You will get software that pushes for more CPU cores, etc. That was always so, and with every computer component. CPU, GPU, Hard Disks, Monitors, Resolutions.

But somehow it stops on 4GB RAM?
More RAM means _always_ more speed. It is a basic concept in IT that you can always trade RAM usage for speed. More RAM usage, the faster the algorithm and vice versa. Because RAM is so much more faster then hard disk access and that includes SSDs.

I'm a software developer and Linux user. If I could have 64GB RAM it would be a dream. I could put the whole Fedora Linux in my RAM, all applications would start at a blink of my eye. Other then to save data the hard disk would not be accessed. Battery life would improve dramatically.

Those days are years in the rear view now though. I upgraded all of my laptops from 8GB to 16GB of RAM recently,

Proves my point doesn't it? Because now finally you can get a Windows with good 64 bit support.

I'm just not using more than 8GB very often, unless I get crazy with the number of web browser tabs going at once.

Because you don't have the software today. Because of the 6 years gap of no progress. But imagine if you could have 8GB 6 or 8 years ego.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[devent]

Interesting. But does DEC had compatibility with x86?
Because of Windows you must have compatibility with x86, or you must be as big as Intel so that Microsoft partners and develop an extra Windows for you, like for the IA64 arch. That is also why AMD64 won, at least I think it was one of the main reasons.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[cusco]

No, Digital Equipment had a lab in Redmond where they worked directly with MS to port the Windows kernel to the Alpha CPU. At a time when my employer's fastest Intel server was a 166 mhz Pentium our database server was a DEC workstation with a 550 mhz Alpha CPU. They had ported both NT 3.51 and NT 4.0 to the 32-bit Alpha chip, and we were told that NT 4.0 was in final testing for the 64-bit Alpha when the Compaq purchase happened. Testing was fairly well along on porting Windows 2000 to to the Alpha when Compaq announced that they were shutting down the production of the Alpha CPUs and closing the Redmond lab.

Intel and AMD were not the only game in town then. There were ports to a couple of different RISC chipsets, IIRC the IBM RS-6000 could run NT 4.0 Server.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[dbIII]

I'm using some utterly braindead software that sorts stuff by dumping it to disk and then reading it in again even if there is plenty of RAM. Fooling it into using a 20GB ramdisk sped it up by more than an order of magnitude, which is a big deal when things take hours or days to run.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[Anonymous Coward]

There never was a 32-bit Alpha processor, they came straight out of the gate as 64-bit monsters. It's just that when running Windows NT on one, it only ran in 32-bit mode. If you ran another OS on one, Ultrix, Tru64, *VMS, even Linux they ran in 64-bit mode.

The reason that Windows on Alpha died, was that even Microsoft would not bother to compile natively for them (If memory serves, SQL Server was the only serious application that Microsoft provided natively), leaving most people who had them relying on FX!32 that did binary translation of x86 code to AXP code. FX!32 was pretty smart though as after a few runs it actually optimised the code.

So, if you bought an Alpha workstation, but could not get native software, what is the point of not buying an x86 PC? That is why Alpha died as a Windows desktop platform and DEC's obsession with being a Windows platform is why DEC died.

MIPS, Alpha, SPARC, PA-RISC and POWER were all mature 64-bit architectures before intel and HP decided to head down the Merced path.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[bingoUV]

More RAM means _always_ more speed.

Very wrong.
A. 1+1 on a system with 512 MB RAM and at least 100 MB of RAM available
B. 1+1 on a system with 32 GB RAM and at least 100 MB of RAM available

Both A and B above take EXACTLY the same time.

Now for more complex operations, you CAN mostly design faster algorithms when no thought needs to be paid to conserving RAM. But that is irrelevant for most people. They don't design the algorithm Outlook uses to fetch mail before using Outlook. They just use Outlook. Outlook fetches mail. As long as memory is available, it runs in exactly the same time.

So more RAM means more speed for users IFF they are short of RAM in their current usage, OR they are reading cached data. This condition is not "_always_" true.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[Anonymous Coward]

This condition is not "_always_" true.

Especially on a NUMA type system when the memory that your process might be working with is not connected to the local CPU.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[devent]

Just ignore my whole point of my post, that software and hardware are at a cycle and are pushing each other. Why are you not using DOS with Lotus 123 on a 128MB box if all you need is to fetch your emails?

Ok true, I should have written "more speed _and_ more features". Because with more RAM you can have either more speed (even by just caching) or more features, like indexing of your emails.

To say that "the user don't need more RAM because even with 8GB RAM you have xxxx GB free RAM" is like saying "No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer."

The simple fact that RAM access is an 2 orders of magnitude faster then any hard disk or SSD will make your computer faster if you have more RAM. Even the SSD trend is an extension of that argument, because SSDs are basically RAM chips (of course their memory is not destroyed after power off and they are connected through the SATA interface, instead of the much faster BUS).

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly it's not true. I really wish we would already have 32GB RAM or more as default for desktop or laptop computers. But (in my opinion) Windows stopped the progress with their inability to implement Windows 64 bit. Only Windows 7 got finally 64 bit as the norm.

As far as I understand, Windows XP 64 was developed in 2001 for the Intel IA64 arch., not the AMD64 (x86_64) arch. Then later came Windows XP Professional x64 Edition in 2005 for the AMD64 arch. But of course being "Professional" most of the end-users does not got it from their OEMs. So almost all of the desktop and laptops have used Windows XP Home Edition.

Windows 7 came 2009 and brought finally 64 support for "Home" users. So from 2003 to 2009 most home users don't knew anything about 64 bit and could not use more then 4GB RAM.

That's actually bullshit and MS knows it. 32bit Winders has no issue addressing more than 4GB RAM, becuse it doesn't directly address memory, it uses pages and has since Dos 3 (or before, don't recall the exact timeline - Get off my lawn - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_GB_barrier#Windows_version_dependencies). There's a better article written by one of the sysinternals guys (Russonovich. maybe ?sp).

Microsoft imposes the limit because they are douchbags, plain and simple. Incompatibilities, my ass. Douchebags I tell you. Talk to me about the MS reliance on "virtual memory (pagefile.sys use) in a 64-bit system with 60/64GB RAM free, sometime. Assclowns. Truly assclowns. I think it's in part 2 or 3 of http://windowsitpro.com/systems-management/inside-memory-management-part-1 ), could be worng or a similar article...

Of course Linux was the first kernel to support AMD64 in 2001.

Given the hard competition in the OEMs market for laptops and desktops, I think get a +12GB or +24GB edge would be really good to have. Since also Windows was not really know for performance and double the RAM would mean double the speed. Given the price for RAM it would costs the OEMs nothing. But the maximum was 4 GB for years and so the OEMs could not compete by increasing the RAM.

Now we still only get 6 or 8 GB in laptops, in "business" or "gamer" laptops. By now the standard should be 64GB RAM and more. Given that anything else have increased rapidly, like CPU and GPU speed, L1/L2 cache RAM, hard disk size.

That isn't true. Memory prices have been horrendous until recently. Putting 8 GB of PC-133 RAM in a system in 2003 would have cost $624. 8GB of DDR in 2004 would have cost 1,424. (source http://www.jcmit.com/memoryprice.htm). MS has continued to cling to an assclown attitude about "above 4G" (really 3+ a video card, but hey...). That has nothing to do with the affordability or availability of cheap RAM. RAM , like CPUs is FAB dependant. You don't lower price or increase output until the FAB is paid for.

Captcha: sings (as in "sings like a bird" and to piss off anal assclowns who whine about "captcha" posts that are worth a laugh or relevant)

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[bingoUV]

Because with more RAM you can have either more speed (even by just caching) or more features, like indexing of your emails

Only if your software does that. Which is the whole point of my post - vast majority of people are not going to add features to their programs.

To say that "the user don't need more RAM because even with 8GB RAM you have xxxx GB free RAM" is like saying "No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer."

Maybe. You can reply this when I do say this. I haven't said it yet.

So no, you shouldn't have written "more speed _and_ more features". That is for people able and willing to write their own programmes.

You could have written "More RAM means _sometimes_ more speed."

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[devent]

Why are you assume that I expect for people to write their own programs?
Software will catch up and push the limits if more RAM is available. That was always the case. The problem is that the standard amount of RAM in laptops and desktops is sadly still 4GB, because of Windows. That is why your software is not making use of more then 4 GB RAM even if you upgrade to 8 GB.

My argument was, if not for Windows and their policy on 64 bit, we would have by now a standard of 32GB or more RAM in laptops and desktops, because of market pressure. And also, we would have software today that would use that amount of RAM for speed or features.

But sadly, because of Windows and their policy on 64 bit, the current standard is still 4 GB RAM. And that is why you don't have software that leverage more then 4 GB RAM, even if you have more available.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[devent]

For example, there is still no 64 bit build for Firefox or Chromium, for Windows. Why? Because of the 64 bit policy of Microsoft. If Microsoft would came in 2001 with a Windows XP 64 bit for home users, so that every consumer could upgrade to 8GB RAM and more, then we would see a lot more 64 bit software that can leverage the available RAM for speed and features.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[unixisc]

Intel and AMD were not the only game in town then. There were ports to a couple of different RISC chipsets, IIRC the IBM RS-6000 could run NT 4.0 Server.

NT was born on the i860 as well as initially developed on the DECstation 3000s, which were based on the MIPS R3000. While the DECstations in production supported only one OS - Ultrix and never sold with NT, they were the platform on which NT was developed. So when Windows NT 3.1 was first out, the platforms initially supported was the Pentium and the R4000s: the Alphas followed a few months later. RS-6000 never supported or ran NT, and it was much late in the process - in NT 3.51 - that Microsoft added PPC - Motorola's PREP platform - to the list of supported platforms. Intergraph mulled porting NT first to Clipper and then to UltraSPARC, but ultimately decided to go with Pentium. So in the end, NT was only supported on MIPS, PPC and Alpha, all of which were dropped in that sequence by Microsoft.

AC above is right - even though the MIPS R4000 and the Alpha were both 64-bit CPUs, NT was unfortunately never a 64-bit OS. Which is a shame, b'cos Microsoft could have developed on those platforms their win64 ecosystem long before they came out with Vista - it would just have been a parallel development.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[unixisc]

I think that even if native NT apps existed for all RISC platforms, Alpha wouldn't have survived today. Reason? Today's CPUs are totally about running cool and saving power, which is why ARM won the RISC race. Alpha was completely at the other end of the heat curve, until Itanic beat it.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[tepples]

Chrome uses a process per tab (or per group of tabs). This means it has slightly less of a need for a 64-bit build and the additional testing it would require. Besides, a lot of sites are still not pure HTML because plug-ins have historically been needed to implement I/O features missing from HTML, such as audio and video output, audio and video input, and real-time 3D display, and a lot of these plug-ins are 32-bit.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[cusco]

That's right, it was the R4000. Forgot we had one of those, just remembered that one of our Unix servers could have run NT 4.0 server instead, and we probably would have done that if the DB had been supported since the software maintenance cost was exorbitant.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[tepples]

all that has happened now is that it has been marked ready for the masses.

Perhaps marking something "ready for the masses" before the patents expired would have caused Linux distributors to incur liability in countries with software patents, such as Dice's home country.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[unixisc]

You mentioned above that there were no consumer grade RISC CPUs when XP came out, but that's not quite right. One of the platforms that NT lived on was on consumer grade versions of the R4000 - namely the R4600 from Quantum Devices/IDT, which was used in the DeskStation Tyne. Microsoft could have used that as their platform for RISC XP - after all, their initial Windows CE/PocketPC versions supported the MIPS as well - it's only later that support for it was dropped.

Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler

[bingoUV]

Why are you assume that I expect for people to write their own programs

I am not assuming that. But your statement that "more RAM _always_ means more speed" is only true if people write their own programs. So, while making that statement, YOU made that assumption.

My argument was, if not for Windows and their policy on 64 bit, we would have by now a standard of 32GB or more RAM in laptops and desktops, because of market pressure. And also, we would have software today that would use that amount of RAM for speed or features.

But sadly, because of Windows and their policy on 64 bit, the current standard is still 4 GB RAM. And that is why you don't have software that leverage more then 4 GB RAM, even if you have more available

But that doesn't mean more RAM _always_ means more speed.

Finally

[etash]

Linux is catching up with windows. 20 more years to go! yay!

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

You getting it wrong, windows is catching up with Linux. On how many devices linux is running this days, and on how many windows? Desktop that people throw out of the windows this days (Windows). Tablets, phones, 90% of servers facing the web run on linux/unix based OS.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet good old DOS would run pretty well on all of the same hardware if they had kept compatibility up.......so really, it's not saying much.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

You should have said that it is catching up with GNU/windows.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait for Linux 95.

The big technological advancement will be the addition of the Start button to the kernel. Then Linux will have caught up to windows, unless MS manages to add that technology to windows 8 much earlier.

Re:Finally

[AvitarX]

As a regular user of Cygwin, I can honestly say GNU/windows is pretty awesome.

Re:Finally

[AvitarX]

should be out in 2096

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows cannot be playing catch-up when there were in the lead. Linux is still catching up because no one is throwing their desktop out (despite popular belief) and at least Android, far as I know, only uses bits of the Linux kernel (not exactly a Linux OS).

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugh. You can tell Cygwin was written by Linux users based on what horrible things it does to Windows. I have to sit up all night soothing ACLs that have been molested by Cygwin on a semi-regular basis.

Re:Finally

[BitZtream]

As a regular user of Cygwin, I can honestly say GNU/windows is pretty awesome.

Are you kidding me? Cygwin tools are the buggiest, bloated, slowest piece of crap I've seen in a long time. The entire tool chain is crap produced by people who shouldn't be allowed to call themselves developers.

Use a native toolkit rather than that cygwin crap and you'll learn how its supposed to be done.

Re:Finally

[NJRoadfan]

MinGW or Visual Studio? Does VS support autotools/autoconf scripts?

Re:Finally

[Darinbob]

Toolkit? I use cygwin for the command line tools. There really is nothing comparable to it. The whole reason for its existence is Unix compatibility of the command line tools and ability to compile Unix programs for Windows. The reason the it can be slow is because the Windows process model does not adequately support the Unix style of processes and so some emulation and workarounds are needed. If you want to build native apps then you can use Cygwin along with MinGW.

Re:Finally

[AvitarX]

I like having access to the GNU utils, and to Bash. they work pretty well for my needs. None of it appears noticeably slower than downloading the native tools (though perhaps because they are just compiled against cygwin often, and it's easier to deal with paths doing it all from cygwin).

I'm open to suggestions for a native toolkit, any significant scripting I use Python for, but find iPython a nuisance to use as an interactive shell.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to Missing The Joke, Population: You.

Re:Finally

[lavacano201014]

MinGW or Visual Studio?

If memory serves, MinGW is just gcc, GNU make, and assorted friends compiled natively for Windows. I'd say go with that if you're already familiar with GNU things.

Does VS support autotools/autoconf scripts?

I strongly doubt it.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Does VS support autotools/autoconf scripts?

Thankfully no.

Re:Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 3.11 probably still has more market share than linux

Re:Finally

[Ash-Fox]

Are you kidding me? Cygwin tools are the buggiest, bloated, slowest piece of crap I've seen in a long time.

You clearly aren't very experienced with development tools in many different languages then.

The entire tool chain is crap produced by people who shouldn't be allowed to call themselves developers.

To be honest, I think their implementation decisions they made on POSIX layering on top of Win32 fairly decent. I don't think they're incompetent.

Use a native toolkit rather than that cygwin crap and you'll learn how its supposed to be done.

From my understanding, Cygwin is native. All compiled code runs within the Win32 subsystem with a support library (not much different from MSVC etc). It's even more native than say .NET.

How many get the reference

[sl4shd0rk]

without reading TFA.
get off my lawn. ha

Re:How many get the reference

[Anonymous Coward]

That's real retarded, sir. That's real retarded to do that, sir. You don't know Trayvon. He would tell me to get off the phone if he was gonna get hisself into a fight.

Re:How many get the reference

[steelfood]

Obligatory xkcd.

Linux 8

[tepples]

I could have sworn that some netbooks a few years back shipped with Linux 8. The netbook market was GNU/Linux's big chance to shine, but Xandros on Eee PC, Linpus on Aspire One, and Ubuntu Moblin Remix on Inspiron mini had to spoil it.

Re: Linux 8

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux got great reviews when the first netbooks came out. In fact they sold quite well right up until Microsoft made shipping windows with ALL PC's mandatory for any hardware vendor that wanted a better price on windows licenses.

Re: Linux 8

[bhtooefr]

No, it didn't. Well, maybe by Linux fans.

It got panned for not running Windows software, and Linux netbooks had something like a 25% return rate, when their Windows counterparts were much lower.

Re: Linux 8

[BitZtream]

Right, cause they weren't very recently fined like a son of a bitch and still under government watching when netbooks came out ...

Your conspiracy theory is absolutely silly considering they were being watched for just such behavior.

Re:Linux 8

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't spoil it for me. I moved on from Xandros to eeebuntu (still grateful to you guys) and then Ubuntu, occasionally branching out to Mint and lately to Crunchbang just to keep things lively.

Re: Linux 8

[LinuxIsGarbage]

No, the preloaded Linux distributions listed stunk. Crappy repos, and limited updates. Aftermarket Linux distros (eg: Ubuntu-based distros, I found Crunchbang worked great, with full repo support) had a really good experience, and would have done well if they were preloaded.

I maintain that OEM's wanted cheap licences from Microsoft, and their approach was to sell Netbooks that shipped with Linux to scare Microsoft. Half my Xandros-preloaded EeePC 701's manual was about how to install XP, and it is what I'd consider "the first Netbook", back when Microsoft was cutting off XP support.

Unfortunately the whole thing went into a death spiral. Microsoft provided cheap licences (XP-Home, then 7-Starter), but eternally limited the platform specs (1GB RAM, 160, then 250GB Hard drive, and crappy Atom-class processors), in collusion with Intel who wanted to sell Ultrabooks at 4x the cost of a Netbook and claim they are what people really want. Over the course of 4 years (2008-2012, the mainstream life of the Atom-HDD-based netbook), the specs didn't improve appreciably. There is a certain niche of an ultraportable, ultralow cost full fledge PC (not a tablet) that Netbooks did indeed fill. And they could have thrived if allowed to grow. If you look around you can find decent low cost ~12" laptops eg This C$370 11.6" Core i3, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/acer-acer-aspire-v5-11-6-laptop-silver-intel-core-i3-2365m-500gb-hdd-4gb-ram-windows-8-v5-171-6815/10223555.aspx

Re:Linux 8

[dbIII]

The Xandros on the Eee PC doesn't seem too bad to me since you can still easily install Debian packages onto it and the GUI seems to make sense for newbies. I had mine booting off USB sticks into various distros at different times but now I just use it with the stock Xandros with a few extra applications installed (eg. inkscape).

Re: Linux 8

[schitso]

It got panned by people who didn't know what they were buying, but knew enough to not like something different. It's that treacherous middle-ground of kinda-sorta-ish knowing what they're doing and hating anything that isn't exactly what they learned on. High- and low-level users got exactly what they wanted.

He said he'd do it in 2011

[intermodal]

and how he has. Good show, old man!

I still think KDE 3.11 should have been emblazoned with custom splashes reading "for WorkKroups" or something by default. Version 3.11 has become something of a running gag in software circles.

Re:He said he'd do it in 2011

[jones_supa]

There was never KDE 3.11.

Re:He said he'd do it in 2011

[Anonymous Coward]

There was if you photoshopped the splash screen.

Not cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, haha, cute joke.

I hope he reverts this before release. The last thing I need is clients calling me up and demanding an explanation as to why their diskless terminals are booting to the usual penguin + the windows logo (they're too stupid to realize it's not technically the exact logo from 3.11).

And yeah, before anyone tells me how stupid that is, I'm aware I can disable that feature entirely- it's still handy to see the number of CPUs during boot because the APIC stuff scrolls off the screen almost instantly. And yeah, I'm aware I can change it. The point is that I shouldn't have to because Torvalds thinks he's being funny. It's really unprofessional to pull something like this. A few admins will laugh at it, but for those of us in Serious Business (TM) it's not very funny.

Re:Not cool.

[tepples]

they're too stupid to realize it's not technically the exact logo from 3.11

It is the same, just flipped horizontally. Colors in the same order and everything.

Re:Not cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

skip 3.11 then ...

Re:Not cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, haha, cute joke.

I hope he reverts this before release. The last thing I need is clients calling me up and demanding an explanation as to why their diskless terminals are booting to the usual penguin + the windows logo (they're too stupid to realize it's not technically the exact logo from 3.11).

And yeah, before anyone tells me how stupid that is, I'm aware I can disable that feature entirely- it's still handy to see the number of CPUs during boot because the APIC stuff scrolls off the screen almost instantly. And yeah, I'm aware I can change it. The point is that I shouldn't have to because Torvalds thinks he's being funny. It's really unprofessional to pull something like this. A few admins will laugh at it, but for those of us in Serious Business (TM) it's not very funny.

GET A LIFE.
Damn I forget we're on ./

Re:Not cool.

[jones_supa]

It's really unprofessional to pull something like this. A few admins will laugh at it, but for those of us in Serious Business (TM) it's not very funny.

I have to agree. If I suddenly came across that logo I might think that the machine is compromised by some script kiddies.

Also freaked out a bit when GROMACS (molecular dynamics package used by Folding@Home) started to display those random "Good ROcking Metal Altar for Chronical Sinners" messages every time it started the simulation.

Re:Not cool.

[greg1104]

Serious Business (TM) users are going to see the boot screen of their Linux distribution. The only people who see Tux at boot right now are ones who will appreciate the joke.

Can't possibly be true

[Anonymous Coward]

It can't be true. It would be an incredibly juvenile stunt, not to mention a tacit admission of Windows envy. Why would Linus do such a thing?

Re:Can't possibly be true

[lister king of smeg]

its not windows envy it a joke. loosen up man

Re:Can't possibly be true

[verbatim]

Considering it's open source, it's not terribly difficult to verify the veracity of the article.

https://www.kernel.org/diff/diffview.cgi?file=%2Fpub%2Flinux%2Fkernel%2Fv3.x%2Ftesting%2Fpatch-3.11-rc1.xz;z=367

Re:Can't possibly be true

[Anonymous Coward]

The previous name was "Unicycling Gorilla".
It's not like they were going for the business corporate naming scheme anyway.

Re:Can't possibly be true

[1s44c]

The previous name was "Unicycling Gorilla".
It's not like they were going for the business corporate naming scheme anyway.

No, they were naming them after Ballmer. Only he can't unicycle.

Too bad they mucked with the logo

[Anonymous Coward]

Now suddenly it's not funny anymore. Jokes are funny when they're subtle, like smart double entendres. Not so much when it's rubbed into your face.

Re:Too bad they mucked with the logo

[Anonymous Coward]

Most linux programmers have ass burgers, so you kinda HAVE to rub it in their faces, otherwise they won't 'get' the joke. I mean, they're practically mouth breathing otakus that suck their own dicks. You could show a linux programmer the funniest movie in the world and they will never laugh while watching it. They will look at you while you are laughing, and they will say "why are laughing?"

The fact that anyone even thinks the "Linux 3.11 for Workgroups" thing is funny speaks to a level of retardedness equal only to Rachel Jeantel's IQ. On an unrelated note, I hope I don't have to deal with any retards "flash mobbing" tonight. I know I'll fucking stand my ground if I'm assaulted by any of those blacks. What makes them think that chimping out all over the USA is a good idea? Do they not know that most people have guns?

Re:Too bad they mucked with the logo

[richpoore]

It is funny, and I know funny. I'm a clownfish.

Re:Too bad they mucked with the logo

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a lame troll even by GNAA standards. Go back to troll school.

Re:Too bad they mucked with the logo

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing that is a reference to Finding Nemo but I couldn't help but read it in Eddie Murphy's voice, which has been ruined with years of repeated abuse being force to watch Shrek. Anytime he speaks, I just see a donkey. In this case, a donkey claiming to be a clownfish. PREPOSTEROUS!!

This is Awesome! Linus gives a nod to Windows 3.11

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Awesome!

Linus gives a nod to Windows 3.11 with a sense of humor . This will create some buzz in the open sauce world. I thought it was pretty clever, too bad no one else did. I just wonder how Emballmer will react os...er I mean react to this. Another chair gets thrown in Redmond? The MSFT legal team files suit against Linus? Or maybe Ballmer will laugh it off and actually thank Linus for this tribute? Laughter is much needed in Redmond now!

did they add 64 bit disk and file access

[Anonymous Coward]

Win 3.11 added 32 bit

Re:did they add 64 bit disk and file access

[fnj]

Win 3.11 added 32 bit

No it didn't. Windows 386 added 32 bit. For user mode. The DOS "kernel" was still straight 16 bit all the way in both, though there were some 32 bit drivers that superseded the DOS drivers that were still there, for some IO.

Re:did they add 64 bit disk and file access

[cusco]

Windows 3.11 added networking (thus the "for Workgroups"). Network support was available for DOS, but the combination of the GUI, multitasking and networking on commodity hardware put MS leaps and bounds ahead of all their competition.

Reminds me of a different OS.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

I hope the experience will be better than MS Windows for Workgroups.

Re:Reminds me of a different OS.

[Solandri]

I thought 3.11 was Windows for Warehouses?

JUCK

[Anonymous Coward]

I now have a real reason to replace the kernel-logo ...

yo dawg, I heard you like jumping sharks...

[Thud457]

In capitalist Hollywood, shark jumps YOU!

Re: yo dawg, I heard you like jumping sharks...

[jd2112]

in Hollywood, sharks fleeing hurricanes get caught in a tornado speaking havoc on Los Angeles. (despite that hurricanes and tornadoes are both extremely rare in Southern California. and if never heard of a shark being sucked up in a tornado...)

Lest we forget...

[AliasMarlowe]

If you used the Windows calculator[*], then the result of the calculation 3.11 - 3.1 would give zero, exactly. MS initially claimed it was just a display bug, but backed down later, and even fixed it after 10 years or so (Win 95). Even if you multiplied it by 1000 it still remained zero. With linux, the difference 3.11 - 3.1 is likely a tad larger.

[*] All Windows versions from Win 386 to WfWg 3.11, and possibly earlier but I did not check with Windows 1 or Windows 286. It even did this in WinOS2 (OS/2 versions 2.x, 3, and 4) and was touted as proof that WinOS2 used the same source code as Windows; it even had the same bugs.

Re:Lest we forget...

[jfdavis668]

IBM had access to the Windows source code, and the right to use it. Yes, OS/2 would have the same bugs.

Re:Lest we forget...

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

The MIRACLE of legacy .DLL code!

Re:Lest we forget...

[Zan Lynx]

Microsoft got so sick of those calculator jokes that in Windows 95 it was rewritten to use arbitrary precision math.

Re:Lest we forget...

[yuhong]

I think it was released as an update for 3.1 too.

Re:Lest we forget...

[bjb]

Actually, I think the problem was only on Windows 3.1. I can't say if it was on 3.0, but I've tried this in the past on Windows 2.03 (386) and even 1.0x and it returns the correct 0.01 result. My question is how did they screw up something as simple as a standard calculator application? Isn't that almost a standard programming assignment in computer science 101 courses?

Re:This is Awesome! Linus gives a nod to Windows 3

[Anonymous Coward]

Laughter is much needed in Redmond now!

There's plenty of laughter around there - from people who pass by - because of their Windows 8, Windows Phone 7 and 8, the ugly as ass Nokia phones, Surface RT, Surface Pro, Xbox One, and now the latest non-sensical restructuring of the company.

And despite all this, MS are still laughing all the way to the bank. I'm waiting for the inevitable reality kick when they just crash and burn, and wake up from their delusions.

ooh! so it now has SOCKETS!

[swschrad]

magic, we can install that Web thing in Linux now! I can dig this! does it allow me to use two modems to get 96K speed?

Yo Linus!

[stox]

It is supposed to be Open Source, not Open Sores. Some of us are still scarred from the nightmare of WFW.

Re:Yo Linus!

[Greyfox]

No kidding. I was working the OS/2 support line at the time. Rumors at the time had it that Microsoft introduced that version entirely to force IBM to play catch-up with their Windows support. I seem to recall they started their biweekly releases of DirectX drivers shortly after that, as well.

Re:Yo Linus!

[yuhong]

I know. It was hardly the worst thing about the MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco though (for which I have a very bad opinion against MS).

Re:Yo Linus!

[Greyfox]

Oh lord don't get me started on that. That was the single most crippling flaw in the operating system! And they COULD have fixed it! Someone posted a problem related to that on my queue one time, and I went out of my way to locate a quad processor machine running a multi-processor version of OS/2. The multi-processor version still had the problem mind you, but it had an input queue per processor. I was able to demonstrate that the system would continue working even with one (or up to three) input queues not being processed. All they really had to do was instantiate multiple input queues and one misbehaving app couldn't bring the entire system down! *sigh* Fuckers...

This made OS/2 ironically better at multitasking windows and DOS applications than it was at OS/2 applications. Windows apps couldn't lock the input queue and could be run in separate instances of Windows so that if one crashed, you wouldn't bring the others down. If you opened a command prompt you could do multi-taskey things like format a disk and print something at the same time. The trick was you had to use the command line format and not the pretty GUI one.

Ah IBM. Always reaching for awesome and always falling just a little bit short. The problem with them was they viewed the PC line as toys. You didn't use a PC to multitask. You used it as a dumb terminal to a mainframe. If you wanted to multitask, you dropped 5 digits on an AIX machine. Shitty CDE gui and all. I discovered Linux shortly before they announced they were killing OS/2, and Linux was really what I wanted anyway -- UNIX on my PC without having to pay SCO several thousand dollars for the OS (Which was something like $1200) TCP/IP (Which IIRC they wanted another grand for) and a goddamn C compiler.

Ahh the good ol days...

Re:Yo Linus!

[yuhong]

As I mentioned in the blog post I think they ended up hacking in a way to get out in a later FixPak for Warp. An even better workaround would be window ghosting on a timeout similar to the one used in XP and later. But yea 2.0 would have been a good opportunity to fix the problem properly.

Re:Yo Linus!

[yuhong]

See this page. I will probably add this link to my blog post soon.

Two different flags

[tepples]

Windows 7 uses the Windows XP flag, not the different flag used for Windows 3.1 through Windows 2000. The XP flag has two curves in it and no dots; the Windows 3.1 flag has one curve in the flag and one curve in the dots.

Godwin's law anyone?

Re:Two different flags

[pspahn]

That much is obvious, but you stated:

As of Windows 7, Microsoft no longer uses the "flag" as a mark to identify Windows.

I guess what you meant to say was, "Since Windows 7, Microsoft no longer uses the flag as the a mark to identify Windows."

Re:Two different flags

[tepples]

As I posted elsewhere, I made a mistake. I meant 8 and typed 7. There is no flag in 8; the flag in XP through 7 differs from the flag in 3.1 through 2K/Me, and Linux 3.11 uses the 3.1 flag.

Re:Two different flags

[Anne Thwacks]

Maybe they now use the evil bit instead?

Disclaimer: I still use XP on the few occasions I dont boot OpenBSD

Guess.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because open source geeks remain among the most maturity-challenged engineers in the industry.

Re:Guess.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, because they have a sense of humor. Something sorely lacking in most MS apologists.

Re:Guess.

[bonch]

Because thinking this is juvenile makes you an "MS apologist".

Re:Guess.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, your long history as part of a Burson Marsteller sockpuppet team makes you an "MS apologist"

Serious Sandwich, aka Bonch, Sharklaser, Tech* etc is one of a number of sockpuppet accounts established and maintained by Burson Marsteller on behalf of Microsoft.

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/07/06/1525240/ubuntu-cant-trust-fsfs-secure-boot-solution

Available on floppies?

[Freshly Exhumed]

Anyone have a spare Disk 8? Mine is corrupted.

Re:Available on floppies?

[Megane]

I know you're trying to be funny, but you're bringing back bad memories of trying to install Slackware back in '93 or so.

Re:Available on floppies?

[fat_mike]

Do you have a spare Disk 35? I need E3.

Re:Available on floppies?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have.

all the way

[JediJorgie]

If they had wanted to go all the way, they would have picked "Snowball". :p

Ninnle for Workgroups!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you imagine just how good Ninnle for Workgroups could really be?

CORRECTION

[tepples]

Typo. I meant Windows 8, whose logo is no longer a flag. And even Windows 7 doesn't use the Windows 3.1 flag seen in the article.

Re:CORRECTION

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe there's not a flag any more--but it does flop around.

Re:CORRECTION

[petteyg359]

The main logo may not be the classic wind-blown flag, but who said a flag has to be wind-blown to be a flag? There's still other flags around, if you look. See the icon attached to setup.exe on the installation disc. For whatever reason, that's the wind-blown version rather than the flat version used in most of 8.

Linux netbook return rate

[tepples]

I too ended up installing plain Ubuntu (now Xubuntu) on my netbook. But you and I are outliers; I seem to remember that return rates were far higher for Linux PCs than for comparable Windows PCs.

Re:ooh! so it now has SOCKETS!

[NJRoadfan]

TCP/IP didn't ship with Windows for Workgroups. It was a separate installation.

Trumpet Winsock

[Timothy Chu]

Let me know when Trumpet will release a network stack, so I can load up Netscape in all its glory.

Can you replace Gnome 3 with Bob?

[jfdavis668]

That worked out well the first time.

Re:This is Awesome! Linus gives a nod to Windows 3

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't they send a cake to Linus for Linux's 20th?

Geek Humour in Big Co.

[Anonymous Coward]

And how about the turboencabulator from General Eletric:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turboencabulator

Re:ooh! so it now has SOCKETS!

[cusco]

For a short period of time there was actually a portion of the Internet that used IPX/SPX (the Novell networking protocol). Never did get it to work, but my boss at the time claimed to be able to. WFW came with NetBEUI, IPX/SPX and one other (DECNet? Banyan Vines?) protocol. TCP/IP was a simple add-on, less than one floppy disk. Most offices that had less than 50 computers just used NetBEUI and were happy with it.

wait, so Linux For Workgroups, what's next?

[Virtucon]

Linux NT?
Linux 2015?
Linux XP?

Waiting

[mu51c10rd]

I'm waiting on Linux ME...I hear it will be much better...

Thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you all perkeleen vittupäät for making it happen...

What happened to my Ninnle comment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ninnle 4 Teh WIN!

LOL!

[Anonymous Coward]

You think I'm a Microsoft apologist. Cute!

Re:LOL!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're just a fucking moron. He was taking the opportunity to comment on MS apologists like bonch.

WFWG Trivia

[linebackn]

Not that anyone cares, but there was also a less common "Windows 3.1 for Workgroups" that bundled Microsoft's DOS network client, as well as a non "Workgroups" version of Windows 3.11. There was even a patch that updated the core Windows 3.1 files to the 3.11 versions. And on top of that, Windows 9x basically used the same protected-mode network stack as WFWG 3.11, just with a whole new UI so people thought it was completely different.

In a way, WFWG and Win9x was revolutionary at the time, as it meant people could easily share files and printers across a network without paying $$$$$$ for some big dedicated file server.

Funny?

[1s44c]

Is this funny or is Linus cracking up?

Is he going to codename kernel version 4 "New Technology" and have it blue screen every 30 minutes?

Re:ooh! so it now has SOCKETS!

[danomac]

Yep. They should rename networkmanager to winsock too. :-)

What about LinuxWare?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it only me thinking LinuxWare (for Novell NetWare 3.11) would have been more appropriate attribution?

Re:ooh! so it now has SOCKETS!

[dbIII]

IPX was hard but the carrot of being able to play multiplayer doom drove some of us on to success :)

Re:ooh! so it now has SOCKETS!

[The Cat]

NetBEUI

Oh fuck. The horrors. Oh fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Re:ooh! so it now has SOCKETS!

[NJRoadfan]

He likely tunneled IPX-over-IP. I have also seen the opposite in use to connect IPX networks to the internet. Novell called it TCP/IPX. These setups didn't last too long though, eventually Novell gave up and switched to IP.

Work Group = Planet ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the range of computers/devices that run Linux and the size of some of the "computers" ( Beowolf et al ) doesn't this imply that the work group in question is most of the world?

Re:ooh! so it now has SOCKETS!

[cusco]

Horror? Small, simple protocol with low overhead and a tiny memory footprint, it was pretty much perfect for small networks where the staff had little to no network experience. One major restaurant POS system still uses it, because since it's not routable it's really hard to attack from the Internet.

Next Linux naming progression.

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux 95
Linux 98
Linux 98SE
Linux ME
Linux XP
Linux Vista
Linux 7
Linux 8
Linux Metrosexual

Finally!

[ignavus]

Finally we can see that Linux Road Plan that Microsoft claims the open source world has never had.

* Linux 3.11 for Workgroups
* Linux 95
* Linux 98
* Linux 98 SE (one of the better kernels)
* Linux ME (Linus should be ashamed of this one)
* Linux 2000 (aka Linux 2K)
* Linux XP - which people will use for years to come)
* Linux Vista (like Linux ME only worse on a bigger scale)
* Linux 7 (the one they'll get right)
* Linux 8 Metro edition - the first one to run on ARM chips?
which takes us so far into the future that the road plan disappears.

Microsoft always knew that the open source world was derivative - just ripping off the commercial innovators.

Linux Roadmap

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux 95: make Linux pretty good, but standardize the desktop.
Linux 98: Make Firefox handle the entire system, including the file manager. No way to remove it.
Linux ME: Crashes as soon as you start typing.
Linux XP: combines the unpopular Linux NT line's stability with ME, Er... 98's compatibility. Makes everything have a weird new theme.
Linux Vista: See Linux ME, but with more transparency.
Linux 7: Like Vista, but stable and half-usable.
Linux 8: Replace the whole thing with Android.

Re:ooh! so it now has SOCKETS!

[zipn00b]

I rather miss Banyan Vines and Streettalk...... It actually made networking simple for the time.
I actually used very little NetBEUI though as there was quite heavy Novell usage in the environments I was in. Most of the other environments I was in used 3720 or 5250 emulation........

Re:ooh! so it now has SOCKETS!

[zipn00b]

I remember the days of IPX over token ring running Doom with ops vs. dev - we kept it one of each on each team to even things up so us ops didn't stomp the devs... :)

UDF 1.02

[tepples]

I thought old DVD players didn't accept anything but UDF 1.02, the DVD-Video file system, because they don't have USB ports.

Re:UDF 1.02

[alexgieg]

I thought old DVD players didn't accept anything but UDF 1.02, the DVD-Video file system, because they don't have USB ports.

Some do. I have an old Samsung model with such an USB port. It supports playing MP3 files, viewing JPEGs and watching video files in a small list of supported formats.

Once XP dies

[tepples]

It's too bad UDF never really caught on as the defacto USB hard drive, flash drive, SDHC etc file system. Unfortunately XP has shaky support

Fortunately XP is within a year of its expiration date. You could start using UDF on USB flash drives sometime in mid-April 2014, once all Windows XP machines connected to the Internet have been either retired, Linuxed, or 0wn3d.

Re:Once XP dies

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Can't tell if you're serious or not, but there will still be plenty of WindowsXP machines in service come April 2014. I saw an article saying "15% of medium and large enterprises will still have Windows XP running on at least 10% of their PCs after Microsoft support ends in April 2014." I know our large company still has 80%+ PCs on Windows XP (IT-managed PC standard is still XP. Some non-IT managed PCs run 7). Our facility is supposed to be the pilot location to deploy Windows 7. We were supposed to have migrated over by the end of 2012. Windows 7 is still a long way off here. We just migrated off Novell Netware.

Anyways, compliance risks aside, it won't suddenly be the end of the world. Most attack vectors these days are through crappy browser plugins (Java, Adobe Flash and Reader), and since XP-SP2, Windows networking hasn't been exposed to the internet by default, and most people run behind a router anyways. So given IE6 and IE8 on XP will lose support, Firefox and Chrome will continue to support XP as long as there is a userbase, as will these plugins likely. So will AV software.

Restart to switch between RAM and peripherals

[tepples]

The real problem is that too many 32-bit device drivers were incompatible with PAE, the way that x86 CPUs address memory above 4 GB. Microsoft could turn on PAE in Windows Server because drivers for server peripherals supported PAE. But in the case of desktop versions of Windows, it would have taken a restart to switch between using the extra memory past the PAE barrier and using whatever desktop peripherals happen to have PAE-incompatible drivers. I guess Microsoft decided that such a user experience would have tarnished the Windows brand, which had already developed a reputation for needing frequent restarts.

Ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Parody or not, it's a dumb idea. Putting that old, old Windows moniker on a new Linux version is just asking for jokes not in Linux' favor. WfW is just way to old to be doing a parody, it just doesn't float.

Great...

[mgcarley]

So now the computing public can think that us Linux-ites are ~20 years behind, comparing modern-day Linux to a system released in 1993. Just what we need to encourage widespread adoption! /s

Re:Great...

[mgcarley]

But what I really want to know is... does it come with SkiFree?!

Really

[Anonymous Coward]

"Dont windows me"

Sincerly,
Your linux kernel