Linus on Linux's 25th Birthday (zdnet.com)

The creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds, posted his famous message announcing Linux on August 25, 1991, claiming that it was "just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu." ZDNet's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols caught up with Linus Torvalds and talked about Linux's origins in a series of interviews: "SJVN: What's Linux real birthday? You're the proud papa, when do you think it was? When you sent out the newsgroup post to the Minix newsgroup on August 25, 1991? When you sent out the 0.01 release to a few friends?

LT: I think both of them are valid birthdays. The first newsgroup post is more public (August 25), and you can find it with headers giving date and time and everything. In contrast, I don't think the 0.01 release was ever announced in any public setting (only in private to a few people who had shown interest, and I don't think any of those emails survived). These days the way to find the 0.01 date (September 17) is to go and look at the dates of the files in the tar-file that still remains. So, both of them work for me. Or either. And, by the way, some people will argue for yet other days. For example, the earliest public semi-mention of Linux was July 3: that was the first time I asked for some POSIX docs publicly on the minix newsgroup and mentioned I was working on a project (but didn't name it). And at the other end, October 5 was the first time I actually publicly announced a Linux version: 'version 0.02 (+1 (very small) patch already).' So you might have to buy four cakes if you want to cover all the eventualities." Vaughan-Nichols goes on to pick Linus' brain about what he was doing when he created Linux. In honor of Linux's 25th birthday today, let's all sing happy birthday... 1... 2... 3...

Comments

Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Android being a practically closed system for most people and devices now, can we actually say that GNU/Linux as free software failed?

Re: Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Android is certainly not GNU, just based on Linux.

Re:Meh

[armanox]

No. First you have to have an actual goal in order to fail.

Re: Meh

[nobodie]

agreed: "OS X is not Unix, just based on BSD."

Just wanted to say "thank you"

[inode_buddha]

Just wanted to say "thank you" to both Linus and GNU for giving me a system that I can appreciate, grow with, and live with. And slashdot too, for a forum to celebrate it on (I remember when they created the logins, the moderation, and the meta.....)

Re:Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? It's a piece of shit. The NT kernel will always be better in both design and in function.

Re:Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wanted to say "thank you" to both Linus and GNU for giving me a system that I can appreciate, grow with, and live with. And slashdot too, for a forum to celebrate it on (I remember when they created the logins, the moderation, and the meta.....)

OOooooohhhhh yeah I just love to watch a skilled dick-sucker like you in action! So hot. What a thrill! Do you mind if I cum right in your mouth?

Re: Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol. Slurp slurp!

Re:Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? It's a piece of shit. The NT kernel will always be better in both design and in function.

Someone has a weak command prompt!

Re:Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? It's a piece of shit. The NT kernel will always be better in both design and in function.

I remember when MS said it was worthless now what are they saying?

Re: Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Anonymous Coward]

You meant, "Someone has a weak command prompt" this morning. 0-)

Re:Just wanted to say "thank you"

[damaki]

Both statements are true.

Re:Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Anonymous Coward]

And rude jerks making pointless negative comments will always be part of slashdot, it seems.

Re:Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Anonymous Coward]

With Windows breaking entire classes of common hardware and its own applications with every update, Linux is more important than ever.

Re: Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't talk with your mouth no where near full

Re:Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, no it isn't. The NT kernel puts all threads in the system into a shared scheduler, so pretty much every thread switch causes a process switch as well. The Linux kernel puts processes into the scheduler, and schedules threads within that process, so most thread switches do not causes a process switch.

This is why Linux can handle 10,000 of threads in a single process while Windows shits itself at about 2,000 threads in the entire system.

So no, sorry, the NT kernel is worse in both design and function than Linux.

The filesystem is also slow as fuck too, and nearly impossible to extend, which is why you don't have anything remotely modern like ZFS on Windows, until you wait for MS to implement some of the features in NTFS over a long, long, long time. Part of the problem here is the retarded async I/O model, which Windows only needs because it doesn't support large numbers of threads properly (see above).

The Windows desktop, OTOH, is way better than anything on Linux. But the kernel? You must be smoking some serious crack to think the NT kernel is in any way better than Linux.

Re:Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Ol Olsoc]

Just wanted to say "thank you" to both Linus and GNU for giving me a system that I can appreciate, grow with, and live with.

Hear! Hear! A fine alternative to the update tyranny of an OS that shall not be named!

Re: Just wanted to say "thank you"

[cyber-vandal]

Cool I can have stuff that will never work on Linux rather than stuff that won't work until there's a fix in a few weeks.

Re:Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Hylandr]

Shall we even start with network performance with Netbeui?

I remember trying to transfer files with that. Matter of fact, I think that 1k file from 1997 is still transferring, let me jump in a Tardis and check...

Re:Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly makes a Windows desktop better? The past 3 patches in Windows have broken entire classes of devices and software, never mind that forced upgrade stuff and ads on the lock screen. Oh right, software developers for some reason keep writing for it.

Re: Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Anonymous Coward]

That it's improved enough to no longer be worthless?

Re:Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Anonymous Coward]

(I remember when they created the logins, the moderation, and the meta.....)

Sure you do, as evidenced by your super low UID.

Re:Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why Linux can handle 10,000 of threads in a single process while Windows shits itself at about 2,000 threads in the entire system.

You must be young enough that you don't remember the bad old days of LinuxThreads

Re:Just wanted to say "thank you"

[0ld_d0g]

Well I must be using some alien version of Windows. I just created 100,000 threads on Windows as I'm typing this comment. Seems to work just fine.

http://imgur.com/a/sBK5M

Re:Just wanted to say "thank you"

[JackieBrown]

Post the iso of the version you are using so we can verify.

Oh wait; you aren't allowed to.

Re:Just wanted to say "thank you"

[0ld_d0g]

I don't have an ISO because this is an upgraded system from Win8. I don't know what your point is, or if you even have one. But it doesn't take a genius to disprove the GP's absurd claims. If you understand basic OS architecture, you'd know that the hard limit on the number of threads is the size of the stack (approximately, because you have other associated bookkeeping data structuresm but they are usually very tiny) , which ultimately means you're limited by the physical memory, paged pool and virtual memory. So creating 100,000 or even 200,000 threads is not a big deal. Threads are the "basic unit" of work in the NT design. Now as far as the scheduler goes, threads have discrete priority levels, thread quantums, as well as numerous strategies like temporary bumps and downgrades in priority/quantum lengths (esp on desktop workloads) so that for e.g. the UI threads dont get starved. (The balance set manager prevents priority inversion) So not only can you schedule a large number of threads, you can do so without locking up the system. Obviously this is a simplistic explanation but it was part of the NT kernel's original design 20 years ago. The idea that NT can't schedule a measly 2000 threads is not really tenable (with the caveat that you have enough memory for the stacks). Since then there have obviously been lots of additions like NUMA support to schedule threads optimally per-processor, etc, etc, etc

Re: Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Anonymous Coward]

Here here. Wrong 'hear'

Re: Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're being serious, you're wrong - look it up.

Re:Just wanted to say "thank you"

[Bengie]

If you have a single process using more than 2-4 threads per core, you're a horrible programmer. I have a few application that use more than 1,000 threads and my quad core stays about 5%. I had to contact those devs and tell them to start doing some async programming.

Congrats Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Now is a good time to turn over a new leaf and drop being a dick.

The world will appreciate it. Thanks!

Re:Congrats Linus

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Nah - the attitude is half the reason we got on board in the early nineties, and it's why Linux remains relatively cruft-less today.

Related: here's why the University of Chicago is one of my favorite universities I never attended:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-university-of-chicago-safe-spaces-letter-met-20160825-story.html

Re:Congrats Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive," the report states. "Although the University greatly values civility, and although all members of the University community share in the responsibility for maintaining a climate of mutual respect, concerns about civility and mutual respect can never be used as a justification for closing off discussion of ideas, however offensive or disagreeable those ideas may be to some members of our community."

Ahhhh. Fuck yeah.

Re: Congrats Linus

[fferreres]

Likely, for Linux to be good, it needs to be good. How Linus is, and how he operates, determine to a large extent what Linux is. In other worlds, you need to encourage Linus to keep being himself to preserve Linux - he can't be some other politically correct moron and still achieve what he did. Just like Steve Jobs, Einstein and many ither geniuses, just learn to accept that you cannot get it both, and for good reason. Btw, I really like how Linus leads, a lot. Should be worth 75 Hardvard case studies if not more.

Re: Congrats Linus

[Zontar The Mindless]

Yeah, it's a bit sad how reality never seems to be be a good match for $ideology.

Re: Congrats Linus

[jandersen]

...Steve Jobs, Einstein and many ither geniuses, ...

There is no doubt that Linus Thorvalds is clever, and he is certainly successful; likewise Steve Jobs. But comparing them to Einstein is absurd; Einstein being clever was when he invented a fridge with no moving parts (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., it wasn't successful, incidentally). But he was far outside the league of those two, and most of the other brilliant scientists throughout history. One of his brilliant achievements was the explanation of the photoelectric effect, which won him a Nobel price (and made him one of the founding fathers of QM) - and that was one of his smaller achievements, just think of that. He was right up there with the likes of Euler, Gauss and Newton.

Yes, Linus is clever, and when linux came out, it was a true revelation to all of nerdkind, because where we had been used to DOS and Windows, or to paying hugely for a real OS, suddenly we had a real OS for free. It was great, and it has got better ever since. But I don't think we do Linus or linux a service by exaggerating.

Re:Congrats Linus

[AmiMoJo]

Hmm, they don't seem to understand the terms they are upset about, do they? Ironic censorship in the name of freedom.

Trigger warnings: You know the bit at the start of the TV show where they say "viewer discretion advised, contains flashing images and scenes of a violent nature"? That's what they want to block, the thing that warns people with epilepsy that they might be triggered, and that people like soldiers suffering from PTSD might want to avoid it. They say they won't support lecturers saying "we are going to look at photos of soldiers who lost limbs today", because... screw vets trying to get an education?

Safe spaces: While claiming to not support them, they actually do. They state that they won't condone harassment or a lack of mutual respect. Well, if a guy wants to talk about, say, his experience of being raped and how to handle it, having an open debate where people are free to call him a fag and a pussy for "letting" it happen would seem to contravene their rules. I note that they do, in fact, have safe spaces for people to report such crimes and receive support in. If they were to remove those things it would likely limit people's speech, not protect it.

Quite astounding ignorance from people who claim to support freedom of speech.

Re: Congrats Linus

[Ol Olsoc]

Likely, for Linux to be good, it needs to be good. How Linus is, and how he operates, determine to a large extent what Linux is. In other worlds, you need to encourage Linus to keep being himself to preserve Linux - he can't be some other politically correct moron and still achieve what he did. Just like Steve Jobs, Einstein and many ither geniuses, just learn to accept that you cannot get it both, and for good reason. Btw, I really like how Linus leads, a lot. Should be worth 75 Hardvard case studies if not more.

This should be at +5 and quickly! The innovators of great note are not wired for political correctness.

Re:Congrats Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

What does it say about our society that they have to explicitly state these things, and that they become internet-famous-for-15-minutes for saying them?

I remember when whining kids were basically ignored by their elders. Now their elders spend all day whining about their kids.

Re: Congrats Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like you were a loaded weapon ready to pop off that response if and when anybody brought the off-topic up in a thread here.

Well done!

Re: Congrats Linus

[hideki.adam]

You're absolutely right.

I must say Einstein was by no means perfect though or right about everything (though he was one of the greatest minds the world has ever seen, I /might/ compare Hawking to him for example but there's not many who would measure up).

1: Called the cosmological constant 'his greatest blunder' but it turned out he was right all along
2: Refused to accept QE calling it 'Spooky action at a distance'

That said, when he said 2 I think he'd been boning Marilyn Monroe for a while so his mind was likely mostly on other things -.o;

Re:Congrats Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Trigger warnings: You know the bit at the start of the TV show where they say "viewer discretion advised, contains flashing images and scenes of a violent nature"? That's what they want to block, the thing that warns people with epilepsy that they might be triggered, and that people like soldiers suffering from PTSD might want to avoid it. They say they won't support lecturers saying "we are going to look at photos of soldiers who lost limbs today", because... screw vets trying to get an education?

I am in awe of your ability to build a strawman. A weaponized strawman really.

Go read what the U of Chicago wrote, and it is not "screw vets trying to get an education". They are fighting the Millenials trend of trigger warnings on everything, and of treating different opinions as triggers.

If something is truly triggering (you gave two examples) then put a trigger warning on it. The college freshmen of 2016 are demanding trigger warnings on everything:

For the rest of the semester, I gave trigger warnings before every scene I screened. Every. Single. One. This wasnâ(TM)t enough.

I donâ(TM)t know about trigger warnings outside classes that deal with race, gender and sexuality, but I do know that if you promote trigger warnings in subjects that are supposed to make people feel uncomfortable, youâ(TM)re basically promoting a culture of extreme privilege, cause Iâ(TM)m pretty sure that the trans women who are being murdered weekly, the black men who are victims of police brutality daily, and the neighborhoods in America that are plagued by everyday violence, arenâ(TM)t given any trigger warnings. Letâ(TM)s be honest: life is a trigger.

And the part about "we won't uninvite someone we invited just because he might say controversial things" was in response to multiple occasions recently where a university uninvited a conservative speaker after liberal students said they cannot bear to be exposed to opposing viewpoints. U of Chicago took a firm stance in favor of open debate and in opposition to forming a bubble to shield students from the "wrong" opinions.

So great job conflating a stance for open intellectual debate with hatred for veterans. You just showed us how to argue dishonestly at a high skill level! Unless you were speaking from the heart, in which case you need to read about this more and think some more. If you truly are deeply and passionately devoted to stamping out free intellectual debate, then fuck you, but I can't imagine you really want that.

Re:Congrats Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

"suffering from PTSD might want to avoid it."

Umm... Only if you want to make sure the PTSD gets worse and they are never cured.

https://psmag.com/hazards-ahead-the-problem-with-trigger-warnings-according-to-the-research-4f220f7e6c7e#.f8rvp8kg6
"Trigger warnings are designed to help survivors avoid reminders of their trauma, thereby preventing emotional discomfort. Yet avoidance reinforces PTSD. Conversely, systematic exposure to triggers and the memories they provoke is the most effective means of overcoming the disorder. According to a rigorous analysis by the Institute of Medicine, exposure therapy is the most efficacious treatment for PTSD"

google the rest yourself.

Re: Congrats Linus

[cyber-vandal]

You know very well that that isn't what trigger warnings and safe spaces are used for. They're used to silence dissenting voices and create one dimensional echo chambers. Besides, calling a guy who was raped (which rad fems wouldn't give a shit about anyway) a fag or a pussy would come under "a climate of mutual respect" would it?

Re: Congrats Linus

[AmiMoJo]

Either you believe in privacy and the right to have a private conversation, or you think that everyone should have to listen to you no matter what.

The former option is vital for preventing echo chambers and allowing ideas to develop. Few people give a running commentary of their thoughts, they develop them first, then start with people they trust before going public.

Is your mind a closed echo chamber?

Re:Congrats Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Linus was less of a dick back then. As he's gotten older and his hideous wife has gotten even fatter, he's become a giant asshole, perpetuated by the fact no one is his inner circle (the other Linux developers) would jeopardize their paychecks by telling Linus to go fuck himself.

Re: Congrats Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Linus is clever, and when linux came out, it was a true revelation to all of nerdkind

I was with you up until this point. Now you need to go fuck yourself for stereotyping. Not all of "nerdkind" hails Linux as a true revelation. Hell, many of us who cut our computing teeth on Unix fucking hated Unix. Why? Because it's Unix! Oh boy, a guy created a free Unix wannabe. He's your hero, and that's great for you, but don't you dare claim that he's everyone's hero.

Re:Congrats Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you even read the article? I mean, I know the answer, but I feel compelled to ask.

They said they won't require them. Individual lecturers are free to add them if there's some good reason to think they need it. Epilepsy warnings are medical and something else entirely that's gotten thrown into the mix to give cover to the nonsensical warnings.

I understand saying this will cover rape or lost limbs or something, but most of the 'warnings' aren't even that specific. I remember getting some during the sexual harassment training. I've been sexually harassed and the guy who did it was fired. There was nothing there that even remotely required a warning.

Further, in actual practice, 'safe spaces' precludes more than just harassment. We've long seen that the bounds of what gets considered 'harassment' eventually converges towards 'this person disagrees with me'. So the problem there is really that you're using a tilted definition of the words. In your example, it would mean that people were free to openly question the story about being raped without leveling insults. In safe spaces, as actually practiced, any questioning would be considered 'harassment' and because people don't realize that some people are actively changing the meaning of that, they would associate such things with much more severe behavior.

Re: Congrats Linus

[cyber-vandal]

And what you want is that only those with the "correct" opinions are allowed to speak at all. That includes critics of certain religions, certain political viewpoints or just anyone who has wrongthink.This is the sort of thing I'm talking about.

Re: Congrats Linus

[AmiMoJo]

You clearly know nothing about me. All religion is open to criticism, much of it from me. In fact it's often religious people telling me I can't criticise them, e.g. when they are homophobic.

I follow Mill, in that I think all ideas must be up for debate. However, if you can't state your position without doxing and organising a mob, don't expect me to listen.

Re: Congrats Linus

[jandersen]

:-) No-one's perfect, but I think Einstein's particular genius was to somehow produce a theory, that is at once mindblowing and so incredibly simple (apart from the tensor gymnastics of differential geometry); and which has turned out to be nearly perfectly bullet-proof. The other great theory, QM, is unbelievably complex and frankly unconvincing in comparison, were it not for the small matter of its astonishing success in practical terms. GR is very interesting, not least because in a sense, where SR threw away the old ideas about the ether, GR reintroduced it as space itself. It is also remarkable that GR takes a scalar field, gravitation, and turns it into the metric tensor; seeing how the electro-magnetic field is so similar, I feel sure that somewhere along the line, we will find a way to include it into a generalised metric tensor - I look forward to that.

1: Called the cosmological constant 'his greatest blunder' but it turned out he was right all along

I think we are going to see a lot of twists and turns in that end of the story - there has been a tendency to explain away everything as fields and then looking for particles that act as vector bosons; I don't think it explains much, really. All these fields are really just placeholders, and hopefully we can find a way to put them into geometry or something better.

2: Refused to accept QE calling it 'Spooky action at a distance'

To be fair, this is really where QM and GR clash in a big way. It is very difficult to imagine how entaglement could be possible if information cannot travel faster the the speed of light, although maybe that particular limitation is due the the fact that we choose to discount the idea, that information can be exchanged without exchanging energy. I'm not up to date on entanglement, so I don't know if entanglement has been seen to involve a transfer of energy between the entangled particles.

TECHNICALLY, THE COPIER OF MINUX

[Anonymous Coward]

and all that. He swiped the old that old brown tree guy did for academia learners and change the M to L.

Re: TECHNICALLY, THE COPIER OF MINUX

[Anonymous Coward]

No. He used Minix as a tool and example. Linux is monolithic and Minix is a micro kernel. As such, one cannot be a copy of the other - not even closely related.

All of this is easily verified, including public discussions between both authors where they debate the design merits. They are not even similar operating systems.

I suspect you're trolling but the truth needs to be told. I would log in but I am not supposed to be online. But, the facts are out there. Just install both in virtual machines and then compare the two for yourself. I have...

Re: TECHNICALLY, THE COPIER OF MINUX

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly from a software security perspective the Linux kernel should have been designed as a microkernel instead of a monolithic kernel. With all the corporate "contributions" to Linux the ideals of GNU/Linux are slowly being pushed aside.

Re: TECHNICALLY, THE COPIER OF MINUX

[Anonymous Coward]

"I would log in but I am not supposed to be online. "

Don't worry I won't tell your mommy

Re: TECHNICALLY, THE COPIER OF MINUX

[Anonymous Coward]

Security is irrelevant if nobody uses your software. In order for a microkernel to be more secure than a monolithic kernel, you need to have all the drivers be in their own process spaces, which means every device IRQ now causes a process switch. That's not remotely viable for performance reasons. So no, Linux "should" not have been designed as a microkernel. If it was, you would never have heard of it, and it would be perfectly secure ... through obscurity.

Re: TECHNICALLY, THE COPIER OF MINUX

[Ol Olsoc]

I would log in but I am not supposed to be online.

Part of your probation?

Re: TECHNICALLY, THE COPIER OF MINUX

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't buy that at all. I can remember when Linux was so bare and tiny it could fit on four floppies and that included gcc. He definitely knew about minux at the time, and was starting his own to learn about operating system design. If anything he wrote the program monolithic because he didn't need the extra complications. To say he didn't peak inside minux to see how they were doing things is a stretch.

Re:TECHNICALLY, THE COPIER OF MINUX

[Anonymous Coward]

Failed trolling attempt. Always amusing. Well, not always. But the really bad failures are. Like yours.

*thump*thump* "Is this thing on?"

[TigerPlish]

*ahem*

"Feliz, feliz en tu dia,
Amiguito que dios te bendiga,
Que te pase un camion por encima,
Y QUE CUMPLAS MUCHOS MAS!!!"

It's Puerto Rican for Happy Birthday. We kinda have a gallows humor down there ;o)

But seriously, yes, Happy Birthday, Linux, it was you who sent me down the professional IT path. Before that, it was just tinkering. Oh who am I kidding I'm still tinkering XD

Re:*thump*thump* "Is this thing on?"

[Anonymous Coward]

*ahem*

"Feliz, feliz en tu dia,
Amiguito que dios te bendiga,
Que te pase un camion por encima,
Y QUE CUMPLAS MUCHOS MAS!!!"

It's Puerto Rican for Happy Birthday. We kinda have a gallows humor down there ;o)

But seriously, yes, Happy Birthday, Linux, it was you who sent me down the professional IT path. Before that, it was just tinkering. Oh who am I kidding I'm still tinkering XD

Do you suck dicks with that shit-eating grin?

Re:*thump*thump* "Is this thing on?"

[TigerPlish]

Do you suck dicks with that shit-eating grin?

Nope. But I did snog the tonsils outta yo momma last night.

She also gave me her number.

Re:*thump*thump* "Is this thing on?"

[Zontar The Mindless]

And to think that you French-kiss your mother with that same foul mouth...

Happy Birthday!

[chromaexcursion]

(sung in a monotone dirge)
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday
Now you've reached the age you are
your demise can not be far
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday
Doom and Gloom and dark despair
Death and dying everywhere
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday
cities burning in your wake
burn like candles on your cake
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday
...

Re:Happy Birthday!

[FatdogHaiku]

(sung in a monotone dirge) Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday
Now you've reached the age you are
your demise can not be far
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday
Doom and Gloom and dark despair
Death and dying everywhere
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday
cities burning in your wake
burn like candles on your cake
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday ...

Jeez, I'll pay the copyright to Warner/Chappell for the other song... even though I don't have to...
On the up side you could use the song above to end the practice of food servers singing to people in restaurants!

Re:Happy Birthday!

[chromaexcursion]

I couldn't copyright. prior art.
it's not my fault

google it. there are 20 or so verses

Re:Happy Birthday!

[Anonymous Coward]

Another year older
Another year closer to death
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday

Re:Happy Birthday!

[AmiMoJo]

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun
But it's sinking
Racing around, to come up behind you again

The sun is the same in a relative way
But you're older
Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death

Re: Happy Birthday!

[bestweasel]

Maybe Roger Waters wrote both.

Happy Birthday Linux, immortal operating system, never to die.

None of Linux's choice quotes?

[UnknownSoldier]

25 years and they couldn't even include some of the best quotes by Linus over the years?
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/...

* Only wimps use tape backup: real men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it ;)
* If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won.
* In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people.
* My name is Linus Torvalds and I am your god.
* Dijkstra probably hates me.
* This is why we don't compile with "-W". Gcc is crap
* GCC 4.9.0 Seems To Be Terminally Broken
* (the spill is insane, btw, since it's spilling a constant value!)

No mention of how Linux used to be stuck with gcc 2.7.2 for years until egcs became stable?

Pfft, kids. :-)

Re: None of Linux's choice quotes?

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

"If Darl McBride was in charge, he'd probably make marriage
unconstitutional too, since clearly it de-emphasizes the
commercial nature of normal human interaction, and probably
is a major impediment to the commercial growth of prostitution."

Re: None of Linux's choice quotes?

[houghi]

So why isn't Darl running for president? I would vote for legalizing prostitution.

Re:None of Linux's choice quotes?

[CastrTroy]

If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won.

Looks like he won.

Re: None of Linux's choice quotes?

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

So why isn't Darl running for president? I would vote for legalizing prostitution.

Because everyone on slashdot hates him!
Darl was the CEO of SCO. You should be old enough to remember the SCO vs IBM debacle (too old?).
One of his more amusing claims was that the GPL is unconstitutional because communists or something
like that, which led to Linus stating the above.

Re: None of Linux's choice quotes?

[ChunderDownunder]

Then again, Carly ran for the Republican nomination and has very few fans on here.

Re:None of Linux's choice quotes?

[fritz1968]

soon after saying "just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu," Linus also said "and 640K ought to be enough for this new OS".. or something like that.

Copyright

[radoni]

We should be singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" considering the copyright status of "Happy Birthday" puts it off-message.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Copyright

[chromaexcursion]

See my slightly prior post of the birthday dirge.
and I believe the copyright status of "Happy Birthday" was deemed invalid, due to prior art. free to use and abuse.

doesn't it just suck when the old song you acquired rights to happens to be documentably older than the copyright date you have.

Linux is obsolete! :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Already for 25 years. Fascinating! :)
Congratulations for all involved!

Who's Jealous? You are, apparently

[Anonymous Coward]

25 years and they couldn't even include some of the best quotes by Linus over the years?
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/...

* Only wimps use tape backup: real men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it ;)
* If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won.
* In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people.
* My name is Linus Torvalds and I am your god.
* Dijkstra probably hates me.
* This is why we don't compile with "-W". Gcc is crap
* GCC 4.9.0 Seems To Be Terminally Broken
* (the spill is insane, btw, since it's spilling a constant value!)

No mention of how Linux used to be stuck with gcc 2.7.2 for years until egcs became stable?

Pfft, kids. :-)

Pfft, jealousy. When (if) you accomplish something grand, then anyone will care about digging up various quotations of yours without full context. Until then, understand that there's a reason why you are posting this about Torvalds while he likely has no idea that you exist.

Re: Who's Jealous? You are, apparently

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares. Linus did a lot, but you know, so did a lot of other people. So did a lot of very large companies. Linus isn't our God; we jumped on his bandwagon because we needed a cheap system that was hackable. If we hadn't used his, we would have jumped on another. It's hard to believe anyone can think Linus a God for essentially copying 1970-1980s technology.

Happy Birthday

[kangpaper]

Let's all sing happy birthday... 1... 2... 3... The best Magento 2 Affiliate - Magento 2 One Page Checkout - Magento 2 SEO and Magento 2 Blog - Magento 2 Vtiger - Magento 2 SugarCRM and Magento 2 Odoo - Magento 2 Tutorial - Magento 2 Order Manager - Magento 2 Product Feed developed Mageplaza.com Magento 2 Events Magento 2 get collection Magento 2 System Configuration Magento 2 Add Command Line Setup Script in Magento 2 Magento 2 Admin ACL Magento 2 Indexing an bình city

Re:Happy Birthday

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's all watch the smoke rise from the crater that was once mageplaza.com... In 3... 2... 1...

Re:Happy Birthday

[Anonymous Coward]

Has been rather long since somewhere got slashdotted, innit?

25th post

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t

Re:Who's Jealous? You are, apparently

[UnknownSoldier]

/whoosh

Your humor detector is broken. It's all in good fun.

No, let's all sing

[Black Parrot]

"DMCA Takedown Notice".

Re:No, let's all sing

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I'm thinking that a chorus of Slashdotters sounds like Vogon poetry:

Happy Birthday to you,
You live in a zoo,
You look like a monkey,
And you smell like one too!

Personal Disclaimer: I sang in the church choir from when I was old enough to walk up until I went off to a university. I was not religious, but sang in the choir, because that was a requirement to be in the Whitechapel Handbell choir. Now, handbells are a hoot and a half, and if you have never tried it, put it on your bucket list!

Re:No, let's all sing

[antdude]

But it is public domain now: https://www.google.com/search?..."happy+birthday"+"public+domain"

Re:No, let's all sing

[TeknoHog]

obligatory http://iki.fi/teknohog/music/c...

Not like GNU

[Trogre]

"just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu"

Which is funny, since there are likely more devices running Linux now than GNU/Linux, thanks to Android.

Re:Who's Jealous? You are, apparently

[Zontar The Mindless]

If you can't tell the difference between jealousy and admiration, then you're a very fucked-up individual and I feel badly on your account.

birthdayd

[Anonymous Coward]

Birthdays are now handled by birthdayd and candles on celebration cakes must be arranged in binary.

Re:birthdayd

[shutdown -p now]

Aren't birthdays handled by systemd these days? ~

The famous post for those inclined....

[wbr1]

https://groups.google.com/foru...

For me I didn't start in 1991. I hopped on NeXt in college in 1993, then threw slackware on a couple boxes in 1994/95. I hate being late to the party... almost as much as I hated downloading slack floppy sets of 56k ISDN

Re:The famous post for those inclined....

[Mjlner]

... I hate being late to the party... almost as much as I hated downloading slack floppy sets of 56k ISDN

56k? Luxury! I had to download the download the entire distribution (source code included) on a 2400bps modem, write a utility to split the files into 720k chunks, because my family couldn't afford HD floppies and write everything to the floppies by hand.

Re:The famous post for those inclined....

[wbr1]

At the time the lab computers I was using to test on were shiny new 486dx2 (66mhz). They did not have enough drive space for OS (win 3.11) and the floppy sets so I had to FTp direct to floppy, I think this slowed it down. Later when I needed updated floppies I took my existing box and found an open NFS mirror (probably spent 2 hours probing nfs servers) and downloaded direct to floppy again. I think this was faster, and the back of my brain says it was sunsite, but maybe it was UIUC that I was downloading from. I was at a little community college in VA. That box became our first webserver as a test and was quickly moved over to one of our neXt boxes with more drive space. Ahhh compiling mosaic on motorola.. how I miss thee..

Re: The famous post for those inclined....

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol. I can still remember downloading the TAMU set on my 1200 baud usr modem.

Many happy returns of the day.

[Anonymous Coward]

The title says it all.

I'd like to say thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, I know Linus is bad-mannered (there are even videos to prove it), and that may be bad to some developers.

But , at least to the extent he can voice his opinion, he's shown that he cares about everyone who _uses_ Linux. That's what I need in a benevolent dictator for life. Compare that to the modern tendency on the desktop of abandoning 32-bits to become 64-bit only and relying on some special instructions not previously available (to get more bling!).

So, Linus, thanks not exactly for Linux (which is the work of lots of aficionados, not to mention giants like Alan, Greg and ), but for:
- believing we could do something about the Windows bug and thus making us believe in ourselves, too, in a true "stone soup" way (to this day, some idiots still think Windows must be better because it sells more);
- refusing to break whenever possible the user space, while others would care more about technology and costs (and even otherwise great folks are making such a mistake).

I hope you keep being that way for some decades (as I myself am older than him and like to believe I'm productive).

SJVN?

[lucm]

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, here's an advice for you. When you go over 3 initials, maybe it's time to take a cue from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Days Saints and pick the 3 most significant letters (LDS) as your usual initials.

Re:SJVN?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, here's an advice for you. When you go over 3 initials, maybe it's time to take a cue from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Days Saints and pick the 3 most significant letters (LDS) as your usual initials.

What about "lcm"? (since "luc" may be, erm, already taken) >8-)

Android hosted on Linux, not based on Linux

[perpenso]

Android is certainly not GNU, just based on Linux.

It would be more accurate to say that Android is hosted on Linux not based on Linux. Android is in no way a Linux derivative. Android is essentially its own operating system (Java based API) and the majority of Android app developers never even see anything Linux. Android is not a Java wrapper for Linux, its something entirely different. As for users, they certainly never see anything Linux and few are probably even aware its there.

Re: Android hosted on Linux, not based on Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Can android be infected with systemd?

Re:Android hosted on Linux, not based on Linux

[ilguido]

Beside the fact that Android Terminal Emulator was downloaded over 10 million times, so some Android Users did undoubtedly see something Linux on their Android Phone, even if they did not downloaded stuff with curl like I did on my Android tablet, but this Android is not Linux is quite annoying now. What is Linux? If I set up a firewall with a Linux kernel, busybox/toybox(like Android by the way) and a few application is it Linux or is it not in your opinion? What about my Sony bluray player? It uses Linux and other GNU stuff, but I'm sure that you'd dismiss its Linuxness as well. Probably for you Linux is Linux only when it is not as successful as other OSes, like on the desktop, but I'd like to inform you that Linux is used and was used because it is very scalable and works on everything from microcontrollers to supercomputers, obviously in different forms given the different hardware.

Re:Android hosted on Linux, not based on Linux

[perpenso]

I'd like to inform you that Linux is used ...

And how Linux is used in Android is that it hosts Android. Android is not "based on" Linux. Android is something very different. CentOS is based on Red Hat, Ubuntu is based on Debian, etc.

Happy system day

[Anonymous Coward]

Happy system day

Thank you for breaking the OS hegemony

[Anonymous Coward]

It was nice to have a choice, then, and now.

BUSTED!

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent post is proof that Emacs has gained sentience and has its own slashdot login.

Re:BUSTED!

[hideki.adam]

Wonder when someone is going to write a decent text editor for that OS.

Cue the Linus rant in ....

[Anonymous Coward]

"You guys need to get fucking laid. A OS birthday? Crock of shit."