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Happy Birthday, Linux! An OS At 24
prisoninmate writes: It has been 24 long years since the first ever release of the Linux project on August 25, 1991, which is the core component of any GNU/Linux distribution. With this occasion we want to remind everyone that Linux is everywhere, even if you don't see it. You use Linux when you search on Google, when you use your phone, when buy metro tickets, actually the whole Internet is powered by Linux. Happy Birthday, Linux!
Except for where it is powered by Windows.
And I really hope Linux will last at least another 24 years (2039: they'll have to fix that 32 bit time since the Epoch, though).
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Because of Linux, Solaris is no longer #1 OS. Meanwhile, Linux still has filesystems out of 20. century, memory overcommit is not turned off by default, basic data safety is not guaranteed, and now with systemd it behaves like Windows more than ever before. What a piece of crap OS.
If one of the BSD's were this popular, I would be fine with that, but in IT, it seems like biggest piece of crap always becomes the latest fad. Good job guys, the whole lot of you. Good job. Pat yourselves on the backs, idiots.
Correction: Happy Birthday GNU/Linux. After all, GNU software makes up 75% of the codebase of any "Linux" distribution. Show some respect.
...when I had my first experience with the Internet in 1996. And, all in all I have probably used more bytes downloading Linux related stuff than Pamela Anderson GIF:s, which sort of gives hope for the future.
I've been using Linux, in varying capacities in both my personal and work life, since that fateful day in fall of 1996 when I popped a Slackware CD into my Dell Latitude P-133 laptop. Yet, I still don't love it as much as I should.
Why? Because, as I found out this week when I installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on a VM to power a SAS installation at work, it still sucks in so many ways. Is it better than it was 19 years ago? Not really. I still had to think; still had to work to get the damn thing to run; and grub still gave me a rash and a shit to get up and running.
Yeah, the Debian install I originally made back in November of 2002 is still running, after many a dist-upgrade, and it's going strong; however, I still have my love/hate w/Linux after nearly 20 years living with it daily.
I've always been excited for the next big thing. The next moment when it would be that system I could easily use on my desktop or laptop and interoperate w/the rest of the world; yet, here I am, typing this on a machine, provided to me by my company, I never thought I'd use (a MBPr), ever.
Yeah, Linux runs the Internet and many of our phones, yet, I still hate it as much as I did when I was 17 years old, for many of the same reasons.
I'll be happily waiting for another 24 while it continues to grow and do its thing but, unlike the visions many of us saw for Linux back in the day, it has not shaped up like we thought it would. Successful? ABSOLUTELY. But as successful and brilliant as it should be 24 years later, ABSOLUTELY NOT.
So there!
The internet is powered by electricity you insensitive clod
1991: Linux torvalds pulls a fresh cup of coffee off the pot and announces hes got an idea. Little does he know this idea will mean 24 years of shepherding a child through a forest of shady characters from Hans Reiser to Leonart Pottering.
1992: not even a year old and Linux is caught messing around with windows despite very specific instructions to practice her POSIX. she gets good at CIFS, confusing most of the parents around her and once she starts pretending to be a domain controller at the Active Directory dance its gloves off for the Microsoft PTA.
1998: Linux finishes her ALSA class and in 2 years starts singing the chart-toppers in mp3 format, much to the dismay of the RIAA.
2010: in a rebellious phase, Linux stops doing one thing and doing it well and starts hanging out with SystemD, who convinces her she can do anything all the time so long as hes in charge.
2011: Weird emo/goth/Gnome3 phase means Linux wears a lot more bling than she used to...Parents of Unix long since departed now sigh and stare at the shelf where the pictures of little Linux dressed in Bash rest alongside her achievement for learning computational fluid thermodynamics and wonder where they went so wrong.
2015: at 24 Linux flies planes handles social media, and directs traffic. She knows windows inside and out, and can hang out with everyone from stuffy government types to the art crowd. She composes music, builds cars, and even folds proteins when shes bored. Old man Torvalds still shows up from time to time to remind parents not to be lazy, friends not to be greedy, and people not to expect him to be around for every little thing Linux may or may not choose to do.
Happy 24th, Linux.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Title is accurate: The original announcement refers to an operating system, so this is the birth of the linux operating system.
will go in the Groupon bid for birthday cakes.
...and dead at 25, killed by systemd.
I think I'd seen a photo booth at the mall once that had "kernel panic" on the screen. So, I assume it is/was Linux.
Correction, "actually, parts of the internet is powered by Linux".
We decided to repurpose one of our shiny new 486DX2 (at 66Mhz!!) to a web server. The hard drive was not large enough to hold windows and the downloaded floppies for slackware. I stayed up all night, finding an open NFS export (at UIUC I think), and downloading each slackware floppy direct to disk one at a time using one of the NeXTs.
That doesn't even count the time trying to get X running right (which wasn't even needed for a web server!) Heady days I tell you!
Silence is a state of mime.
You are apparently at the age where you can't tell the difference between kernel and OS...
Not original with me, I started using it in '94 and a co-worker suggested it.
I remember getting a copy of it in the very early 90s for my Atari ST!
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
nt
I love over-reaching statements that are obviously wrong.
So, everything that comprises the whole internet is running a Linux kernel?
I doubt it.
Systemd goes against the UNIX philosophy of doing one thing and doing it well. Imagine 10 years ago if you proposed this monstrosity of programs and system hooks along with binary log files (so now you need a different set of text manipulation tools like grep, awk, or sed to do the same thing as the old tools). Why should a window manager or "desktop environment" need dependency on something to manage system startup? I can't wait until it becomes full Windows style with a registry.dat file to contain everything from mount points to audio volume.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
"I strongly suspect, with what a spyware-fest Windows 10 has turned out to be, Linux is gonna get a BIG boost in users in the not-too-distant future, once joe-six-pack figures out all of *his* data is now Microsofts... "
The eternal wishful thinking of "The year of Linux on the desktop".
Most people already keep their personal communications in Hotmail or Gmail already, so I don't see too much of a fuss going on. Concerned people will just stick with Windows 7. If anything, Joe Sixpack will pick up a tablet* for his casual consumption once his laptop or desktop becomes too sluggish or dies. Things are going in a simpler direction, rather than more fiddly.
So, unless you want to qualify Android as Linux...
(*I'm not talking about business computing/gaming/enthusiasts, so calm down.)
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
The OS is of very unspecific date, both older and younger. But media likes everything simple.
The song just wouldn't work with "It was 24 years ago today" so I'll just keep posting this every year. http://iki.fi/teknohog/music/c...
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Every time Microsoft releases an update to Windows I make a sincere effort to convert over to Linux. So far I just don't understand how people do it. The latest trial was Kubuntu 14.04. Almost every application I tried to use - Firefox, Amarok, LibreOffice - crashed at least once an hour. The next day I tried 15.04 and after the OS recommended updating my video driver the system wouldn't boot anymore, and KDE's version of safe mode didn't work. Ain't nobody got time to figure out the reason for a half dozen different crashes and driver issues. Back to Windows 7, which runs fine.
Perl is older, and more gooder.
I think this is one of those things to celebrate. one employer once told me Linux was to play at school. When if asked of to choose an operating system for our mail servers . I'm glad we have an endless support for it resources and love. without love nothing is worth. So happy Birthday !