Slashdot Mirror
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...
Says the AC with an axe to grind
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
...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.
Correction: Happy Birthday GNU/Linux. After all, GNU software makes up 75% of the codebase of any "Linux" distribution. Show some respect.
Some of that gnu stuff is a LOT older than 24 years. I was using some of it under CP/M back before Linux started school.
It's the LINUX part of it that's having the birthday.
You should write an angry letter to your congressman.
/* No Comment */
Like you, I use Linux professionally as well as at home, as a developer and user of many CAD and development tools. I've deployed it in embedded environments in a number of scientific intsruments. I simply don't recognise your experience. So I guess YMMV, but you need to take some anger management classes or change career.
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
Which really, the headline should not be identifying Linux as an OS.
/* No Comment */
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.
As soon as the system gets under 100% CPU or memory
I think I found your problem.
Curious as to why you would run Xubuntu at home if you hate Linux so much.
Wow - remind me not to invite you to my birthday...
Title is accurate: The original announcement refers to an operating system, so this is the birth of the linux operating system.
But...but...I'm so fun at parties! :-)
Correction: Happy Birthday GNU/Linux. After all, GNU software makes up 75% of the codebase of any "Linux" distribution. Show some respect.
Actually last year they shipped more than one billion NotGNU/Linux devices, BusyBox means there's many non-GNU embedded devices and if GNU vanished most the gaps left would quickly be covered by LLVM to replace GCC and the BSD userland. And it's not nearly 75% GNU projects, perhaps 75% (L)GPL licensed code but that's not why RMS wanted to call it that.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"basic data safety is not guaranteed"
Huh? You want a ricochet biscuit to go with that?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Depends how you define an OS. Many - usually embedded- linux installations have the busybox toolset which has nothing to do with GNU apart from its license.
"I still hate it as much as I did when I was 17 years old, for many of the same reasons."
Well you said you're using for personal stuff so you can't hate it that much. You might not have a choice at work but you do at home.
I agree, linux can be a PITA to install, but once installed its usually damn reliable. Windows OTOH is usually a cinch to install but a PITA from thereafter unless all you want it for is to surf and run Office.
If you work with Windows daily, you're going to hate it.
If you work with Mac daily, you're going to hate it.
If you work with Linux daily, you're going to hate it.
Because who the fsck cares about an OS when it's working? It's when you have a problem - and they all have them - you notice them. The question is not if it's flowers and sunshine, it's whether you'd really want to switch and I'd say that after working with Linux daily for 20 years you really don't. I'm pretty sure you could have gotten yourself a non-Linux position, then you can complain about the mysterious blob crashing and curse Redmond or Cupertino.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
heh .. Such problems with Linux.. Funny how theres a bunch of us out there that have been using it since FOREVER (Slackware/1995 here..) and have ZERO problems with it... If this AC is *actually* having these kinda problems, either he's got seriously crap hardware or more likely he's just trolling... And with what a spyware-fest Windows 10 is, I suspect a LOT more people are gonna say "FUCK MS" and come over to the Linux side...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Sure is interesting that all of the people posting about how bad Linux is are posting AC... Wonder why? Wonder if they're just trolls.. nah, couldn't be...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
gnu stuff ... under CP/M
Seeing as how I don't remember using any GNU software on my KayPro IV, or hearing of Unix-centric s/w able to be installed on 8-bit system, no matter the brand or whether CCP was replaced by ZCPR, that comment needs a lot of clarifying.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
I've been using Linux since about 1995, and am seriously impressed with how far its come since thern.. I started with Slackware and its bazillions of floppy disks and pulling my hair out getting XFree86 working, nowadays its easier to install something like Mint or Ubuntu than Windows, and in most cases the machine will be 100% operational after the install, nowhere NEAR always the case with Windows... 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... I for one will do everything I can to hurry it along..
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LINUX!!!!!
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
"Hey kiddo! You know I've always been there for you and I will always be there for you. But I've gotta tell ya, you were a disappointment as a kid and you're a disappointment as a young adult. Yet, in spite of all of that, I'm still holding out hope for you in middle age."
Life of the party indeed! ;)
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.
If you got a Z80 processor lying around, you can get a CP/M clone under the GNU license.
http://www.seasip.info/Cpm/Zinc/index.html
Not original with me, I started using it in '94 and a co-worker suggested it.
systemd is the future. Instead of getting your panties in a bunch, accept it and get on with your life.
you can get a CP/M clone under the GNU license.
That's not even close to the same as using GNU stuff under CP/M.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
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.
Yes it does, useful if you want to read old disks, but it also has many 21st century ones.
memory overcommit is not turned off by default, basic data safety is not guaranteed,
That's a two edge sword. In practice when running out of virtual memory Windows (without overcommit) comes to a halt, so it takes maybe 10 minutes to just bring up a menu. Linux (with overcommit) starts killing things. You are more likely to do a clean shutdown of the linux bits that havent been killed than of a windows box when this happens.,
and now with systemd it behaves like Windows more than ever before. ,
I haven't used it in anger enough to know. On a desktop it seems fine. I have a feeling that once I start serious server work it won't be nearly as flexible as init,
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.
grep, sed, make, more, I forget what all, especially since some were GNU and some were simply Unix ports to CP/M.
Just that when I first encountered Linux, the GPL wasn't exactly news to me.
386BSD, the BSD for PC's from which almost all, if not all modern PC variants of BSD are descended from, first appeared in spring of 1992, after Linux had already been around for some number of months, albeit still in a very alpha state. Even though 386BSD was vastly technically superior to Linux when it first came out, at the time, Linux had simply far too many minor features that made it more amenable to the prevalent existing PC's at the time. Linux had floating point emulation, where BSD required a coprocessor (which at the time was still considered relatively luxurious), and Linux could co-exist with DOS on a hard disk with multiple partitions, while BSD initially had no such capability. By the time BSD had added these features, Linux had largely caught up with it in terms of being far less alpha-state.
Linux isn't popular because it is faddish, Linux is popular because back in the beginning, it did what people actually needed it to do, while the alternatives did not... and by the time others could also do so, Linux simply had too much of a head start. Linux maintained the lead ever since.
But does having a head start make something a fad?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
Interesting. Thank.
You think that modern GNU utils could fit in 64KB? :)
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
You better believe I have an ax to grind.
I work with Linux every day, professionally. As soon as the system gets under 100% CPU or memory pressure it crashes. In Solaris (or any Illumos derivative), for that I have mdb, and I can debug a crashed kernel (and make it run again) with kdb. In Linux, that is science fiction.
At home I have Xubuntu. The piece of crap is so slow and bloated, it's become just like Windows. It started out relatively usable, and the more updates were applied, the slower it got. Many of the updates regularly had failure issues during boot. If I were not forced to (company policy) by idiots, I would never run Linux in production. What. A. Piece. Of. Crap.!
Virtualization technology in Linux? Crap.
GNU userland? Does not correspond to any industry norm or standard - crap (recursive grep(1), or TApe ARchiver, tar(1) which supports compression, anyone?) - crap.
Backward compatibility in Linux? Crap.
Post mortem debugging? Crap.
System startup, with million different solutions? Crap.
Crap, crap, crap! But hey, it's all the rage!!! Yes, you better believe I have an Ax to grind. And not just one ax!
That's epic. Curious, which distributions are you trying to deploy in your (claimed) professional usage?
The only time I have experienced random crashes, and lockups are with bleeding edge distros (Mainly *buntu/Mint, for some reason Mint always dead-locks for me regardless of the machine it's put on)
Meanwhile, If you are indeed using Linux professionally, then you need a professional/enterprise distro. Such as SUSE Enterprise Server or Redhat Enterprise server.
I've deployed these in VERY demanding environments before and they have almost always stood the test of time. Heck in one instance the CPU cooked before the OS gave up (Cooling system failed).
Now, if you're using xuBuntu, this is okay for general home use. But I wouldn't consider it for judging the stability of GNU/Linux at all.
CentOS/RHEL with XFCE would give you a good idea on stability however. Ever thought maybe you're using the wrong distro for the task at hand?
I tend to use which distro suites the task I need, for my workstation it's CentOS7 with XFCE, for servers it's usually RHEL6/7, for my personal laptop it's Arch Linux..
So tell me, what are you running that could possibly be so broken? Have you considered it could also be poor configuration?
(Slackware/1995 here..) and have ZERO problems with it.
Nostalgia has clouded your vision. I tried to run Linux on my primary system from around 1999 to 2002. (It as too flaky, prior to that, to be more than a curiosity) I spend far more time trying to get various things to work than actually using it. (Remember when getting sound to work was a major accomplishment?) It was a huge pain back then. It's a lot better today (my wife ran it with little trouble from 2008 to 2011) but it's still not quite ready for the desktop. (She abandoned it when she needed to use her computer for work.) The only reason to run it back in 1995 was because you enjoyed tinkering with it. It was completely unsuitable for daily use.
And with what a spyware-fest Windows 10 is, I suspect a LOT more people are gonna say "FUCK MS" and come over to the Linux side.
Given the popularity of Google Chrome, even among the privacy hawks on Slashdot, I'd bet against that.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Personally, I just remove it. Systemd has no future on my systems unless it grows up and learns to play nice with others.
I love over-reaching statements that are obviously wrong.
So, everything that comprises the whole internet is running a Linux kernel?
I doubt it.
SmartOS is very domain specific, it's never gonna be the new android or "crappy home router" OS.
"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?
ZERO problems with it...
Bullshit. You have problems with it, but like most zealots you simply refuse to acknowledge them, even to yourself. Linux is adequate as a kernel, assuming the drivers are working somewhat correctly. But each desktop environment you choose is a half-baked, cluster-fucked mess that screams, "I'M LEARNING HOW TO MAKE SOMETHING!" Linux is for people who LOVE to tinker constantly with their OS. For those of us who just want to run programs and get things done, Windows and OSX are superior choices.
I suspect a LOT more people are gonna say "FUCK MS" and come over to the Linux side.
Wrong. It would take one company the size of Google to hammer down and create a single, unified distro that has been polished to a tee and has all the thousands of little niggles ironed out and introduce some substantial changes to the kernel (finally, a stable driver ABI!). That's a massive undertaking for something that probably wouldn't be that successful. Why? Because the world doesn't love Linux like you do. And having a fat, bearded man-child who eats his own toe jam and doesn't even surf the web telling us what type of software we should be using is not helping either.
I disagree.
I use Linux daily, all day long. Close to 7 days a week. When I buy a new laptop I format it before first boot up, and install Linux. (I have a a pretty good collection of unused Windows licenses dating back to 2003.)
I no longer support friends or clients running Windows. By choice. My 73 yr old mother begged me to install Linux on not only her desktop, but to put it on her little netbook as well. She loves it! Converted my best non-computer-friend over to Linux, at least 6 years ago.
I work with and use Linux daily because I like it. I don't hate the other guys, I just don't like them as much.
So... assuming you're not just trolling... If you hate Linux so much, why do you use XUbuntu at home?
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.
If one of the BSD's were this popular, I would be fine with that...
I've done product development on the BSDs. Believe me, the grass is equally brown on both sides of that fence.
My argument is that I found Linux to be more of a joy to use in 2000 than I do now with such "user-friendly" distros as Ubuntu. Any mention of Linux not being perfect on here leads to being monstered by pathetic fanbois such as yourself. Linux had the potential to bury Windows at the turn of the millennium but the various factions spent more time fucking about in the name of "choice" than working together and now we have a horrible mess on the desktop. Server is great, Android is great, desktop is a joke.
So your grievance is with Ubuntu, not Linux, per se.... except perhaps to the extent that Ubuntu's influence has affected other distro's. Even then, your beef would be with the distros that had been so affected.
I understand that Slackware is still pretty pure
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Circa 1985, 48K would have been a fairly large program even for a minicomputer system (e.g., Unix).
You better believe I have an ax to grind.
I work with Linux every day, professionally. As soon as the system gets under 100% CPU or memory pressure it crashes. In Solaris (or any Illumos derivative), for that I have mdb, and I can debug a crashed kernel (and make it run again) with kdb. In Linux, that is science fiction.
At home I have Xubuntu. The piece of crap is so slow and bloated, it's become just like Windows. It started out relatively usable, and the more updates were applied, the slower it got. Many of the updates regularly had failure issues during boot. If I were not forced to (company policy) by idiots, I would never run Linux in production. What. A. Piece. Of. Crap.!
Virtualization technology in Linux? Crap. GNU userland? Does not correspond to any industry norm or standard - crap (recursive grep(1), or TApe ARchiver, tar(1) which supports compression, anyone?) - crap. Backward compatibility in Linux? Crap. Post mortem debugging? Crap. System startup, with million different solutions? Crap.
Crap, crap, crap! But hey, it's all the rage!!! Yes, you better believe I have an Ax to grind. And not just one ax!
Real neckbeards RUN SLACKWARE! A real OS, Ubuntu based OSes are for blind trogs who cannot write a shell script for shit or even mess with .config files for that matter. What a sorry state of affairs for linux when the pions start to become sysadmins, almost as bad as the so called MS sys admins that can't use Power-shell for shit, but not quite! Take a stress pill and take comfort in your crappy gui tools. Eventually you will figure it out why you can't get your shit done efficiently, either that or someone will for you!
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
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.
And with what a spyware-fest Windows 10 is, I suspect a LOT more people are gonna say "FUCK MS" and come over to the Linux side...
Oh you Year of the Linux Desktop people crack me up. Come on, even ME, Vista and 8 didnt drive people to Linux, in fact they sold (yes sold, despite Linux being free) more into the market and were more used than Linux ever has been on the desktop.
You think the privacy issues (which you turn pretty much all of them off in the Privacy settings anyway) are going to turn people off Windows 10? That must be why Diaspora is so much more popular than Facebook, why DuckDuckGo is so much more popular than Google, why people host their own email servers rather than using webmail like Gmail and Outlook, why everybody is using cash and bitcoin instead of credit/debit cards...oh right if you had experience in the real world you would know this isn't the case.
You are the very definition of the Linux nerd, the basement dweller who has demonstrably no knowledge of the real world. You are the reason the "Year of the Linux Desktop" is a running joke, it's still hilarious to see you scratching your head about why Linux isn't more popular on the desktop. You really have no idea.
Companies have begun to realize the value of collaboration and that working with the community is really advantageous. Sure they still have their proprietary bits and often that is where their competitive advantage lies but it means we get so much code collaboration and with open source and proprietary people working together. The exclusive - rather than inclusive - nature of Free software means it is now competing not just with proprietary software but with open source software as well (LLVM, busybox for example).
The special exemptions in Linux's COPYING file that allow it to work with proprietary software are what have made it so successful. And with proprietary people realizing the value of collaboration - and the Free Software people too interested in not working with anybody who doesnt share a compatible ideology - we are seeing a rise of more great active open source projects these days.
Some of us have been using Slashdot since the days of 28.8 dial-up, yet have never registered a username. Things like that might be important to you, but not to everyone. Grow up and recognize that because you felt the need to make a name for yourself makes you no more credible than the next person.
All these years and I'm still incredible. Incredible.
WALSTIB!