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How Open Source Advocates Celebrated The 26th Anniversary of Linux (linux.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the 26-years-young dept.

To celebrate Linux's 26th anniversary, the Linux Foundation tweeted a picture of Tux on a birthday cake, and linked to an essay on OpenSource.com by FreeDOS founder Jim Hall: My first Linux distribution was Softlanding Linux System (SLS) 1.03, with Linux kernel 0.99 alpha patch level 11. That required a whopping 2MB of RAM, or 4MB if you wanted to compile programs, and 8MB to run X windows... To celebrate, I reinstalled SLS 1.05 to remind myself what the Linux 1.0 kernel was like and to recognize how far Linux has come since the 1990s.
"Getting X windows to perform was not exactly easy..." Hall writes, adding "the concept of a desktop didn't exist yet." Meanwhile Phoronix celebrated by republishing that fateful email Linus Torvalds sent on August 25, 1991. And Fossbytes shared the most recent statistics about modern-day Linux's 20 million lines of code from the Linux Foundation: During the period between the 3.19 and 4.7 releases, the kernel community was merging changes at an average rate of 7.8 patches per hour; that is a slight increase from the 7.71 patches per hour seen in the previous version of this report, and a continuation of the longterm trend toward higher patch volumes.

43 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. I'm sad to say it, but Linux is dead to me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I had been using Linux from very early on. Although I had primarily worked with SunOS/Solaris and HP-UX systems, a fellow programmer introduced me to Yggdrasil Linux. I started using it full time, and eventually moved to Debian, which I used for nearly 20 years.

    But today, Linux is pretty much dead to me. Systemd and GNOME 3, among other changes, have effectively ruined it for me. Nothing ruins a Linux user's experience more than having their system not boot fully due to some obscure, and usually stupid, problem involving systemd. The GNOME 3 desktop is, in my opinion, totally unusable. The other desktop environments aren't much better.

    When I use Linux today, it feels more like I'm using Windows than it does I'm using a *nix-like system.

    I know that I can use an archaic distro like Slackware, or an inconvenient one like Gentoo, or a hobbyist distro like Devuan. But none of those really meet my needs. All I really want is the Debian we had just a few years ago, right before the switch to systemd and GNOME 3: stable, reliable, trustworthy and fun to use.

    After systemd prevented my Debian system from booting much too often, I switched to FreeBSD. It gives me everything Linux used to give me, but now it gives me so much more. Its excellent ZFS support is a game-changer. Its reliability is truly amazing. It performs very well. Most importantly, I trust its developers to do the right thing, and preserve the In hindsight, I wish I had switched to FreeBSD much earlier.

    1. Re:I'm sad to say it, but Linux is dead to me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I'm on Windows 10 right now (actually, as I type this) and I don't have any of the problems you're having. It boots flawlessly every time, updates itself regularly with security patches, and the user interface is industry standard and eminently usable. It never crashes, and if a rogue program does it is isolated and easily dispatched. I can sit down at any workstation either at my place of employment or a friend's house and get right to work - no acclimatization needed. And I know that any software I want or need will run natively on my OS - no tricks, hoops, or work-arounds. I couldn't be more pleased.

    2. Re:I'm sad to say it, but Linux is dead to me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This highlights not only what's wrong with the Linux community, but with humanity as a whole.

      What you've just witnessed was a typical example of tribalism, the same kind of tribalism that prompted riots and bloodshed in India when some guru was found guilty of double rape.

      Tribalism is not based on reason or reality, just on the need to belong to a group at all cost, and to defend that group against all foe, against reality itself sometimes.

      Because contrary to what many believe, human intelligence has not evolved to grant humans a better understanding of reality, of the world around them, It has evolved to better create and adhere to a belief system, to better defend and expand this system and, ultimately, to have it supplant and eradicate all other conflicting belief systems.

      This is what natural selection produced. Because, for humans, you have a greater chance of survival if you belong to a group, even with twisted screwed up views of the world, than if you're alone, no matter how rational and accurate your perception of reality is.

      And this post will probably quicly get dowmodded to hell by the same people that downmodded the OP, for the reasons stated above.

    3. Re:I'm sad to say it, but Linux is dead to me. by murdocj · · Score: 1

      I'm on Windows 10 right now (actually, as I type this) and I don't have any of the problems you're having. It boots flawlessly every time, updates itself regularly with security patches, and the user interface is industry standard and eminently usable. It never crashes, and if a rogue program does it is isolated and easily dispatched. I can sit down at any workstation either at my place of employment or a friend's house and get right to work - no acclimatization needed. And I know that any software I want or need will run natively on my OS - no tricks, hoops, or work-arounds. I couldn't be more pleased.

    4. Re:I'm sad to say it, but Linux is dead to me. by khz6955 · · Score: 2

      Some anonymous troll said: .. "I had been using Linux from very early on .. But today, Linux is pretty much dead to me .. The GNOME 3 desktop is, in my opinion, totally unusable. The other desktop environments aren't much better." ..

      You're talking total rubbish if you don't mind me saying so:

      Raspberry PI Desktop

      Linux Mint 18.1 "Cinnamon" overview

      KDE Plasma 5.X Review 2015

      Ubuntu Gnome 17.04 Review

    5. Re: I'm sad to say it, but Linux is dead to me. by buchanmilne · · Score: 2

      "But today, Linux is pretty much dead to me. Systemd and GNOME 3, among other changes, have effectively ruined it for me. Nothing ruins a Linux user's experience more than having their system not boot fully due to some obscure, and usually stupid, problem involving systemd."

      It is interesting that almost all the complaints about systemd seem to be from Debian users.

      I use a number of systemd-based distros, from desktops to productiom servers, and have never seen problems like this.

      Maybe you shouldn't be blaming systemd and assuming that all Linux users habe these issues, but rather file bug reports with Debian?

    6. Re:I'm sad to say it, but Linux is dead to me. by gustygolf · · Score: 1

      Frankly, if you're a "very early" Linux user, you should damn well know that there are other desktop environments around, and non-desktop environments too (just pick a window manager and that's it!)

      That said, there is some brain damage coming from the freedesktop crew that is really hard to avoid. Did you know that PolicyKit -- something that is pretty much needed to run X -- nowadays needs mozilla's javascript interpreter to run?

      Why, you ask? Well, they decided to make it user-configurable, give it hooks. Each hook is supposed to return either true or false, to either deny access or allow access.

      Do you know how many other basic system components require mozilla's javascript interpreter? Zero.

      --
      "Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 58 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment" -- slashdot, driving users away.
    7. Re:I'm sad to say it, but Linux is dead to me. by zdruid · · Score: 1

      There is so much ignorance in this comment. This guy seems to equate linux with a desktop environment. In the server side linux is the dominating operating system, and in the desktop side there are so many options to GNOME. I dislike GNOME too, I use LXDE or Xfce for that reason, but from that simple issue to say linux is dead there is a big distance. This comment is a complete nonsense.

  2. How they celebrated? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    All the guys met in one of the guys parent's basement. It was BYOC, (Bring Your Own Cheetoes), BYOM (Bring Your Own Manga), and drink of choice.

    They sat around saying how Windows sucks and how Apple couldn't exist without them.

    They then compared neck beards and shared secrets on expandable waistband pants.

    And then one asked, "Hey! Why do people think Big Bang Theory is funny? What's up with that?"

    Mumbles and grumbling around room in agreement.

    Then, they all say down and watched the new Star Wars and then they argued among themselves as to whether Star Wars or Star Trek is better than the other. Several play Wesley Crusher Jar Jar Binks dart games.

    1. Re: How they celebrated? by KGIII · · Score: 1

      My laugh for the day was an image macro that had all the ingredients for a cake. It said, "Happy birthday! I got you a cake, but you have to compile it yourself."

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  3. Ahhh... Linux and Open Source by wjcofkc · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've been at this long enough to remember when Linux and Open Source as a dev model where all but laughed at by industry as not and will never amount to anything. Fast forward to know and Linux runs on everything and the Open Source dev model rules the day. But does it run Linux? But what doesn't! I am satisfied that we have achieved "The day of Linux on the desk\laptop." Going back a few decades, I don't think most people suspected we would be surrounded by all manner of things running Linux.

    --
    Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
    1. Re:Ahhh... Linux and Open Source by Kjella · · Score: 2

      Linux is a great success, but it's also a fairly lonely success for the FSF. Pretty much none of the consumer devices running Linux can be altered in any practical way because they have locked boot loaders and only take signed updates. And the user space is pretty much all Apache 2.0, not GPL which doesn't really grant you any rights to the source code shipping with your device. Open source has made it pretty big, but I'd say Linux is an oddity.

      With Google's "Treble" interface they're moving towards a stable driver ABI for Android allowing Google to update the OS without the vendor updating their SoC code. Google is big enough to pull this off regardless of what the upstream developers think. They're also working on an alternative Apache-licensed OS called Fuchsia, in case the GPL becomes troublesome. I suppose it could be worse, it could have all been a proprietary blob but it's more of an industry revolution than a user revolution so far.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:Ahhh... Linux and Open Source by wjcofkc · · Score: 1

      No one said anything about FSF. FSF != the Open Source community or movement. Sure, they have done a lot for it and are a part of it. Something or other about mutual exclusivity comes into play here. I really do not follow your logic at all.

      --
      Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
    3. Re:Ahhh... Linux and Open Source by wjcofkc · · Score: 1

      Yes but Google is also a bastard company. I often wonder what their "Do no evil" motto is relative to. They have been falling out of favor with me for several years now. I am quite perturbed by their many monopolies on information. As a company, they are certainly the anti-FSF. Then again, the FSF so mired in impractical philosophy, their lack of relevance and influence is their own fault. All the same, they may yet see their day. Time will tell. People see ourselves as entrenched in wild computer\communications technology. In reality, this new pervasive tech culture and lifestyle is in its infancy - directionless despite appearances. I predict much drastic moving and shaking over the next couple decades as we grow out of our technological diapers.

      --
      Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
    4. Re:Ahhh... Linux and Open Source by LostMyBeaver · · Score: 1

      Linux is absolutely community driven. What has changed if the definition of the community driving it.

      Today, you can by a PC costing $35 and a case to put it in for $5 and power cable for $3 that will run Linux reasonably well. You would have to add storage and that can often be as expensive as $200, but it doesn't have to be. This is all possible due to wide community interest in Linux and open source and in many cases because of the grass-roots community surrounding it and driving it.

      I personally don't use Linux anymore. I was 100% GNUish down to the hair, sandels and poor personal hygiene for some time. Then I grew up and realized I was spending all my time fixing Linux and not getting my actual work done. These days, I'm pretty much all Windows and Mac and I can't be bothered with Linux as there are far too many problems with it now (far too many to bother listing). I'm simply more interested in running and OS and development toolchain written for me than by me now.

      Let's talk about intelligent though.
      1) The Linux Kernel is 20,000,000 lines of code. As if this is something to brag about openly. It almost sounds like when I was 7 years old and excited I could write a program which used 3 whole pages of printer paper and I hung it on my wall. I added code and printed and reprinted until my dad yelled and told me to stop wasting the ink and paper. 20,000,000 lines of code means :
      a) Someone doesn't know how to use libraries
      b) Someone doesn't know how to make a good way of downloading external code.
      c) Someone doesn't know how to make a modular system. And honestly people, we REALLY REALLY REALLY don't need every single driver to be in the Linux Kernel itself. Instead standardize a system for distributing kernel driver source across multiple sites. Then do something even smarter and make it so that if the system has the tools installed, it can connect online and download kernel module source for new device IDs if there is an available option. If Linus can make Git, I'm sure he or someone else can tackle that.
      d) Code review is no longer possible. When Cisco managed to submit their changes for the Cisco VIC adapter to the kernel and then I looked at the source for VMware's VMXNET3 driver, I refused to consider either of those repositories as worth of inclusion in a controlled code base. It took seconds to see how bad the code in each of them are. So then I started digging elsewhere and realized that the quality of the Linux kernel has either severely decreased or my standards have increased.

      2) SystemD is probably the best thing to ever happen to the Linux platform. There may have been better design choices that could have been made, but SystemD is absolutely frigging spectacular. As for talking about how you don't know how to use it and therefore can't troubleshoot or fix it. Sorry dude. That's clearly your fault for spending probably 10 times longer whining about having to learn a new thing rather than simply learning it. That is clearly your fault. If you're not smart enough to use SystemD, there are multiple forks already without SystemD and it's absolutely fact that no individual has ever forced you to use a distribution that runs SystemD. You have a choice.

      3) Gnome 3... Gnome is a victim of the entire "Look at me, I'm going to write everything in C no matter how completely stupid that sounds because only C is pure enough to write everything in... so I'm going to write it in C and I'm going to dance like a little princess telling everyone how I made a whole desktop in C.... even if I have to re-implement the entire C++ language as a series of unreadable and undebuggable define systems and call it GObject. But my C++ will be far superior to your C++ because my C++ is written entirely in defines and headers!!!!". In other words, people were so hellbent on the tooling that design and implementation came second. GLib and GTK+ and GObject are a horrible evolution of Xt and Motif which should have died

    5. Re: Ahhh... Linux and Open Source by KGIII · · Score: 1

      I'd also add that calling Android "Linux" is like saying you have a Ferrari because you taped fake paddle shifters to the steering wheel of your 1983 Toyota Carolla.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    6. Re:Ahhh... Linux and Open Source by khz6955 · · Score: 1

      @Anonymous Coward: "You're delusional .. Nearly all usages of Linux today are in name only."

      It's understandable why you would want to remain anonymous :)

    7. Re:Ahhh... Linux and Open Source by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Why would it have been a poor man's alternative, when 386BSD's forks - FreeBSD and NetBSD were introduced and have made a whole lot of progress despite all the efforts being focused on Linux? Had Linus not chosen GPL, the FSF could have just forked NetBSD into a GPLed OS of their own, put in all their own tools and run w/ it. In fact, they could have made HURD successful had they picked Minix or Amoeba for the microkernel

    8. Re: Ahhh... Linux and Open Source by Kjella · · Score: 1

      I'd also add that calling Android "Linux" is like saying you have a Ferrari because you taped fake paddle shifters to the steering wheel of your 1983 Toyota Carolla.

      I'm pretty sure Linux is still the name of Linus' project first and the collection of technologies that happen to like running on top of that kernel second. And they very much like to count Android and busybox when making statistics or the Linux is everywhere posts. People only get religious about GNU/Linux when it's time to make no true Scotsman posts.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  4. OK.... by McFortner · · Score: 1

    "...the concept of a desktop didn't exist yet."

    Um, there are some Commodore Amigas and Apple MacIntoshes outside that would like to have a few words with you...."

    --
    Beware of Sales Reps bearing gifts.
    1. Re:OK.... by Knuckles · · Score: 1, Funny

      I didn't know Macs and Amigas used X Windows, on Slashdot I learn something new every day

      --
      "When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
    2. Re:OK.... by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      The full quote is this:

      But this is X windows from 1994, and the concept of a desktop didn't exist yet. My options were either FVWM (a virtual window manager) or TWM (the tabbed window manager). TWM was straightforward to set up and provided a simple, yet functional, graphical environment.

      I'm not sure how those modes differ from a "desktop", but it's clear he's specifically talking about X Windows' implementation. The quote in the summary is taken horribly out of context.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    3. Re:OK.... by Entrope · · Score: 4, Informative

      Window managers (at least in those days) generally did not provide widget trays, launch menus, or other things you usually see on an empty modern-day computer desktop. They decorated each window with controls -- one or more resizing buttons, a frame on at least one side of the window, and usually a system menu -- and arranged icons for minimized applications. fvwm was notable for providing virtual workspaces.

      On the other hand, the Common Desktop Environment (CDE, whence KDE got its name) was first released in 1993, so there was not just the concept of a desktop environment for X back then, but even a shipping implementation. CDE was not very nice to use -- where I was introduced to Linux in the mid-'90s, fvwm2 was much more popular -- but it is clearly recognizable as a predecessor to modern computer desktops.

    4. Re:OK.... by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Not to mention SGI and Solaris systems that had rather advanced xwindows base UI. Even window 3.1 was out.

      I found that statement to be ignoring the fact that Linux has been lagging in the desktop UI. Until the mid 2000's where device plug and play started to work. And simple things today like all the apps available in the GUI window menu were actually installed on the system. Wasn't always the case.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  5. Back in 1997... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

    The first version of Linux I ever played around with was from a book with CDs about Slackware in 1997. Must have been an old version as it never worked with my Socket 7 motherboard with an AMD K5 processor. Back then it was compile and pray to get anything working. I later ran SuSE 5 through 10. Switched to Ubuntu for a while. Fedora and Mint are my favorite distros for work. These days I use Red Hat at home in case I ever get a job that required Red Hat experience.

    1. Re: Back in 1997... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm disappointed in you to not include such a link in a post about books.

      Check out Linux From Scratch. I go through the book once or twice a year.

      LFS: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/downloads/stable/LFS-BOOK-8.0.pdf
      LFS (SystemD): http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/downloads/stable-systemd/LFS-BOOK-8.0-systemd.pdf

    2. Re:Back in 1997... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      I find it highly unlikely you're running a Mint or Fedora desktop in a Windows environment, and anybody who's not a complete idiot would never run those distributions on servers for work purposes.

      When I worked at Cisco, I had to set up some laptops running Linux to test 11ac wireless cards. The engineers prefer Fedora for their Linux-only laptops. On some of the older laptops, I had to use Mint Linux instead because of hardware compatibility issues.

    3. Re: Back in 1997... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I've only built Linux From Scratch once. It was clearly something where you got as much out of it as you put into it. Any idiot could build a functioning system by blindly following the rules. Or, you could pay attention to what is going on, or deviate from the predefined recipe, and learn something.

  6. Slackware by spongman · · Score: 1

    I was installing Slackware with kernel 0.97pl3 while waiting for VisualC++ 1.0 to build. Could never get X to run on my video7 card, though...

  7. First distro by michael_cain · · Score: 1

    Manchester Computer Center (MCC) Interim Linux zero-dot-something. A boot floppy and IIRC four more floppies for a system capable of compiling the kernel. I didn't have enough memory for X, but found and installed the MGR simple windowing system.

  8. Re:Someone made a cake by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    You mean the compiling wasn't baked in already?

  9. I remember how it happened... by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    I was enjoying 2016, the year of the Linux desktop, on my Linux desktop and saw the news and thought, "Wow, after having the first black president, we're going to have the first woman president. Things are only going to go up from here!" I was so innocent back then.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  10. Now I am feeling old by thsths · · Score: 1

    Midlife crisis, anyone?

  11. Celebration by Nabeel_co · · Score: 1

    "Linux users celebrated the 26th anniversary by struggling to install nVidia drivers."

  12. FSF, Linux & HURD by unixisc · · Score: 1

    kjella - 2 posts above - was the one who brought up the FSF.

    But I don't fully agree w/ AC. Reason HURD failed was that they took forever, and are still not done! They kept experimenting w/ different microkernels - all except the one most openly documented - Minix - before returning to GNU Mach. Microkernels have advanced a whole lot in concept, and Minix illustrates the possibilities. Given all that, it's a disgrace that HURD is where it is.

    1. Re:FSF, Linux & HURD by wjcofkc · · Score: 1

      Agreed. Looking back I remember being a big believer in Hurd as maybe not THE next big thing, but an upcoming major player. As I grew to understand the internal politics of the FSF, I ultimately dismissed it. They should swallow their pride and have their way with the Linux kernel, they are all about GNU General, and it's already there. It's not like they can't overhaul it to their hearts content and call it GNUHurd\Linux. They already have Debian GNU/HURD - Debian with the Hurd kernel. I get it that they are all about microkernels, but if they are ever going to get anywhere, they are going to have to take a hard look at their own dogma and bias and make some changes.

      --
      Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
    2. Re:FSF, Linux & HURD by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Actually, Stallman did throw in the towel and embrace Linux, but that was not my point. My point was that since HURD was a GNU project to create a microkernel based kernel, they should have explored what was out there. The best documented microkernel OSs were Amoeba and later Minix 3.x. So they should have explored using those kernels as their basis. As it is, those microkernels are BSDL licensed, so GNU could have forked it under GPL3, and built on that. Instead of trying unheard of microkernels like L4, Coyotos and Viengoos.

    3. Re:FSF, Linux & HURD by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Yeah, given RMS' hostility to the 'Open Source' movement, a whole bunch of them would not have touched HURD w/ a bargepole had Linux never existed. They'd probably have flocked to one of the BSD projects or Sun.

    4. Re:FSF, Linux & HURD by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Maybe, but the Minix of the 80s/90s wasn't a microkernel. Amoeba was, but that wasn't what was being considered. Minix got the BSDL in version 3, which was also the first microkernel version of the OS. Since HURD was exclusively looking for microkernels, they should have considered Minix.

  13. Android, GPL & Linux by unixisc · · Score: 1

    In fact, Google could probably swap out the Linux kernel for the FreeBSD kernel or some other kernel, and Android developers and especially users would have no idea it had happened!

    In fact, given how Google doesn't like the GPL and goes out of its way to remove GPL 3 components - which is why they've been removing GNU parts - why don't they just swap out Linux for either Minix 3.x or FreeBSD/NetBSD? Preferably Minix. That way, they'll have a minimal kernel, and they can pack all their services on top of it as a part of the subsystem.

    1. Re:Android, GPL & Linux by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Will the result be a Unix-like OS, using, maybe, instead of Linux, one of the BSD's? Or is Google building this whole thing from scratch?

  14. Re:Someone made a cake by antdude · · Score: 1

    "The cake is a lie" if no one (compil/bak)es) it for us. ;)

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  15. Re:X Windows by khz6955 · · Score: 1

    @Anonymous Coward: "One thing I'd always been told is that it's not X Windows, and not to call it that. There are plenty of alternatives like X, X11, and the X Window System. All of those are fine, but it is incorrect to call it X Windows. I'd totally understand it as a newbie mistake, but not from a tech news site for nerds."

    Except, that's a direct quote from the SLS install file: 'Getting X-windows to run on your PC can sometimes be a bit of a sobering experience'