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Linus Torvalds Celebrates 20 Years of Windows 3.11 With Linux 3.11-rc5 Launch

Posted by samzenpus on from the check-it-out dept.

hypnosec writes "Linus Torvalds released Linux 3.11-rc5 yesterday wishing that it would have been a lovely coincidence if he were able to release final Linux 3.11 as on the exact same day 20 years ago Microsoft released Windows 3.11. 'Sadly, the numerology doesn't quite work out, and while releasing the final 3.11 today would be a lovely coincidence (Windows 3.11 was released twenty years ago today), it is not to be,' notes Torvalds in the release announcement."

12 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. I feel old by philip.paradis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've got many memories of evenings spent with Windows 3.11, although I spent far more time in DOS back then. Later on, I spent a few few years with Linux (starting with Mandrake) as my primary desktop OS, and wound up with Mac OS X for the last few years.

    I'll still raise a toast to over a decade of Debian or FreeBSD on the server side for anything I care about.

    --
    Write failed: Broken pipe
    1. Re:I feel old by Hatta · · Score: 4, Informative

      For those feeling nostalgic, Windows 3.11 works in Doxbox quite nicely. Grab the microsoft entertainment pack and play some skifree.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    2. Re:I feel old by serviscope_minor · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Grab the microsoft entertainment pack and play some skifree.

      No need!

      http://ski.ihoc.net/

      It's been recompiled for modern Windows and it runs great under wine as well. It also works fine on the largest monitors you're likely to have.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  2. Linus still even come up with an original version? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    What a loser. Just let your project stand on it's own instead of always trying to copy everyone else.

  3. Re:More of a party pooper by jones_supa · · Score: 5, Funny

    At least he didn't insult anyone.

    That is party spirit in Finland.

  4. What?? by Dishwasha · · Score: 4, Funny

    I thought Linux added on networking to the OS a LONG time ago.

    1. Re:What?? by philip.paradis · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hey man, don't rain on the parade. Better late than never, right? I mean heck, I call Linux finally getting networking a win. If you're gonna be such a Debbie Downer, you should just put a sock in it. I bet there's a stack of users rejoicing right now.

      --
      Write failed: Broken pipe
  5. Re:Linus still even come up with an original versi by powerlinekid · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hes no thinker or dreamer like that Steve Jobs was. Incrementing by the name of cats is a much more agile system.

    --

    can't sleep slashdot will eat me
  6. Re:there are no coincidences by BitZtream · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Actually, it shows he does understand the word, as he would never plan a release time based on something silly like that, he would always do it based on quality and readiness ... in which case, it would be a coincidence if it happened to be released today.

    It didn't happen, and thats why its not a coincidence.

    --
    Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
  7. Re:mad libs by rhyder128k · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Bolivian Navy on manoeuvres in the South Pacific.

    --
    Michael Reed, freelance tech writer.
  8. Re:This was a triumph! by Entropius · · Score: 4, Informative

    Lattice gauge theory simulations, so there's actually an excuse for the bloat. It runs on a 24*24*24*48 grid, so you need buckets of memory to store everything; this isn't as bad as the more ambitious groups, who are up to 192^3*384 (I think). It's pretty obscene how much computing power goes into this field -- the computation I've just started will take two months on 100 GPU's (which is about 10^18-10^19 floating point operations), and it's a small one compared to some of the things people do. It's also very heavily memory bandwidth bound, so I don't think we could do ASIC's like the Bitcoin folks do.

  9. It was inevitable. Linus has forseen it. by VortexCortex · · Score: 3, Funny

    Linux 3.11... So, it's actually happening. I thought it was sarcastic, but now I see the prophesy was self fulfilling.

    In other words, we'd have an increasing level of instability with an odd release number, depending on how long-term the instability is.

    - 2.6.<even>: even at all levels, aim for having had minimally intrusive patches leading up to it (timeframe: a week or two)

    with the odd numbers going like:
    - 2.6.<odd&gt: still a stable kernel, but accept bigger changes leading up to it (timeframe: a month or two).
    - 2.<odd&gt.x: aim for big changes that may destabilize the kernel for several releases (timeframe: a year or two)
    - <odd>.x.x: Linus went crazy, broke absolutely _everything_, and rewrote the kernel to be a microkernel using a special message-passing version of Visual Basic. (timeframe: "we expect that he will be released from the mental institution in a decade or two").

    - Linus