Finally, It's the Year of the Linux... Supercomputer (zdnet.com)

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Finally, It's the Year of the Linux... Supercomputer (zdnet.com)

Posted by msmash on Wednesday June 27, 2018 @03:25AM from the finally-it's-here dept.

Beeftopia writes: From ZDNet: "The latest TOP500 Supercomputer list is out. What's not surprising is that Linux runs on every last one of the world's fastest supercomputers. Linux has dominated supercomputing for years. But, Linux only took over supercomputing lock, stock, and barrel in November 2017. That was the first time all of the TOP500 machines were running Linux. Before that IBM AIX, a Unix variant, was hanging on for dear life low on the list."

An interesting architectural note: "GPUs, not CPUs, now power most of supercomputers' speed."

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Linus by 110010001000 · 2018-06-27 03:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

Linus has created literally trillions in economic activity. Singlehanded. But techies worship Musk. Very odd.
1. Re:Linus by Riceballsan · 2018-06-27 03:35 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Welcome to the world of business. If you want to power the world you can... but if you can look good and speak with charisma you can get more fame regardless of knowledge level. Same reason why Jobs was center stage for so long.
2. Re:Linus by admin7087 · 2018-06-27 03:38 · Score: 2
  
  Most techies appreciate both of them, I'd suppose.
3. Re:Linus by 110010001000 · 2018-06-27 03:39 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah. It is pretty sad if you think of it. Github sold for $7.5 billion. The founder is now a billionaire. He wrote github in 3 months.
4. Re:Linus by Wookie+Monster · 2018-06-27 03:53 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The Github that sold for $7.5B wasn't the same Github that was created in three months. Hundreds of people, working for ten years made Github worth $7.5B. That initial version wasn't worth any more than the time spent developing it.
5. Re:Linus by 110010001000 · 2018-06-27 03:57 · Score: 1
  
  I'll bet some guy valued the initial version at $50 billion or so. The current version of Github isn't worth $7.5B either. It is just that Microsoft has too much stock and doesn't know what to do with it.
6. Re:Linus by orlanz · 2018-06-27 03:58 · Score: 1
  
  Do we even know the name of the guy who invented the wheel?
7. Re:Linus by 110010001000 · 2018-06-27 04:02 · Score: 1
  
  I know his name (Nisaba). But most tire guys only know names like Giovanni Battista Pirelli. I doubt Pirelli even gave Nisaba any credit for his invention.
8. Re:Linus by houghi · 2018-06-27 04:07 · Score: 1
  
  His name is Robert Paulson.
  
  --
  Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
9. Re:Linus by Anonymous Coward · 2018-06-27 04:13 · Score: 1
  
  Did Torvalds make a FLAMETHROWER?
  I think not...
10. Re:Linus by Oswald+McWeany · 2018-06-27 04:19 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Linus has created literally trillions in economic activity. Singlehanded. But techies worship Musk. Very odd.
  Singlehanded huh? So he wrote every version of Linux, every fork, every application, and every improvement was his idea?
  He is obviously the guy who kicked it all off, but to say he did it all singlehanded is selling thousands of people short.
  
  --
  "That's the way to do it" - Punch
11. Re:Linus by Oswald+McWeany · 2018-06-27 04:22 · Score: 1
  
  Do we even know the name of the guy who invented the wheel?
  Wasn't it Al Gore?
  
  --
  "That's the way to do it" - Punch
12. Re:Linus by CaptainDork · 2018-06-27 04:29 · Score: 1
  
  The spectra you are alluding to are two dimensional along an x-y axis, in a bell curve that does not support your negativity.
  
  --
  It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
13. Re:Linus by 110010001000 · 2018-06-27 04:29 · Score: 1
  
  No, I met Nisaba at a TED talk and he definitely invented the wheel. That was like 4000 years ago, but I still remember his name.
14. Re:Linus by mlw4428 · 2018-06-27 04:30 · Score: 1
  
  Because oftentimes the OS is just one piece of a solution. Musk has created solutions. Put another way - I don't necessarily care what OS powers my phone, my car, my TV, my toaster, my dog, etc. I do care, however, that my Tesla can go 0 to 60 in like 2 seconds. I do care that my phone can link up with my watch and my airpods to make managing my music experience more pleasant. That's why Steve Jobs was big and it's why Musk is big. Linux for all of its benefits is simply one piece to a solution...and arguably it may not be the most important piece.
15. Re:Linus by jellomizer · 2018-06-27 04:33 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  It is the difference of the creator of the infrastructure vs the creator of the implementation.
  It is like thanking the Firemen who saved your life from the burning building Vs thanking the guys who built the road to get to your home from the fire station, or the materials expert that allowed your home to maintain structure to allow the firemen to reach your home in time.
  The Linux Kernel really doesn't do anything useful, unless there are people who work with it and create with it. Linus may had made a kernel to help control these super computers but it was a team of other people who needed to work with the Kernel to make a super computer out of it.
  Does Linus deserve Credit? Yes. Do Techies worship Musk? Some may.
  However Linus is mostly focused on making the kernel better (a noble goal on its own). While Musk is trying to solve problems, and may choose to use the Linux Kernel as a tool in solving the problem.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
16. Re:Linus by 110010001000 · 2018-06-27 04:35 · Score: 1
  
  " I don't necessarily care what OS powers my phone, my car, my TV, my toaster, my dog, etc."
  
  You should care, because otherwise you have no idea what that OS is doing behind your back. But most people don't, hence the infatuation with hucksters like Musk and shiny headphones.
17. Re:Linus by CaptainDork · 2018-06-27 04:37 · Score: 1
  
  We do not know the name, but it was not a guy. It was a gal.
  She languished at the encampment, be it hut or cave, as the seasons came and went, and had access to a varying amount of small objects.
  As she laboured in her primitive lab, she had the intelligence, experience, opportunity and motive to experiment with combinations of adaptations and stumbled, early on, upon the idea that rolling was more efficient than dragging or pulling.
  
  --
  It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
18. Re:Linus by mlw4428 · 2018-06-27 04:42 · Score: 1
  
  Why would I care just about the OS when the entire solution may be proprietary and doing stuff behind my back? And no - I don't believe every piece of technology is going to be better/more secure by being open source. Security is only useful if *I* do the review, otherwise I'm still trusting other people. In which case I may as well trust people motivated by my wallet than those motivated by nothing more than their own ideology.
19. Re:Linus by CaptainDork · 2018-06-27 04:44 · Score: 1
  
  Exactly.
  And just how hard is it for mankind to make a fucking ball cap?
  That was certainly achieved well before the wheel.
  The brand names proposed above refer to TYRES, not wheels.
  The brand, "Boring," applied to an invention preceding the wheel by millennia, is an idea that's slicker'n deer guts on a door knob.
  
  --
  It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
20. Re:Linus by sconeu · 2018-06-27 04:47 · Score: 1
  
  Yes. It's John Michael Keogh.
  https://www.tuv.com/media/germany/50_trainingandconsulting/pdf/patente/Circular_transportation_facilitation_device.pdf
  
  --
  General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
21. Re: Linus by orlanz · 2018-06-27 04:48 · Score: 1
  
  Noooo. It was a guy! What would a woman who cooked and gathered berries have need for a wheel? It was the MEN that labored all day, rain or shine, cold or hot, to the tops of hills to roll stones down. The stone that rolled furthest was the king of the hill for that day and an aspiration to the youth.
22. Re:Linus by jellomizer · 2018-06-27 04:52 · Score: 1
  
  Mr. Axel Wheel.
  Using round things such as logs to help move heavy objects by reducing the friction coefficient was used before the wheel. But the invention of the Axel that was fixed which was the true innovation.
  I expect the Axel concept was figured out when moving heavy things for a long time, when the inside gets warn down and a bit more narrow. you were able to push the object further before having to pickup the log and move it to the front. Then they found a point where they can have it narrow enough to put in stops at the cost of more friction, but enough to be able to move it easier. However sturdy enough to hold the weight.
  Being the Wheel was considered to be invented during the bronze age. I Expect using Metal to strengthen and reduce friction was a factor as well.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
23. Re:Linus by 110010001000 · 2018-06-27 04:55 · Score: 1
  
  You should care about the OS and the entire solution as well to make sure it is not doing stuff behind your back. But you are a consumer, so I guess it makes sense that you only care that your car goes fast and you have expensive headphones. I think I now understand why people like Musk are your idols.
24. Re: Linus by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · 2018-06-27 04:57 · Score: 1
  
  while (true) { if (inside) begToGoOut(); if (outside) begToComeIn(); if (foodAvailable()) eat(); if (canHearNoises()) bark(10); if (canSeeMailman()) bark(20); sleep(60); }
25. Re:Linus by Drethon · 2018-06-27 05:02 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Linus has created literally trillions in economic activity. Singlehanded. But techies worship Musk. Very odd.
  I would say enabled, rather than created. But the work Linus and those who developed Linux did is seriously underrated.
26. Re:Linus by GodfatherofSoul · 2018-06-27 05:12 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  We don't worship competence in the US. We worship wealth and the gift of self-promotion.
  Musk has made a career pretending to be Tony Stark while never delivering.
  
  --
  I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
27. Re:Linus by GameboyRMH · 2018-06-27 05:16 · Score: 1
  
  Singlehanded huh? So he wrote every version of Linux, every fork, every application, and every improvement was his idea?
  By CEO compensation logic, yeah, pretty much :-P
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
28. Re:Linus by mlw4428 · 2018-06-27 05:25 · Score: 1
  
  > But you are a consumer
  
  No. I'm just not stupid enough to goad myself into thinking I'm some sort of 1337 haxx0r. You can't truly be safe unless everything in your solution stack has published source code. You also can't be 100% certain you're secure unless YOU review the code. You also have to have a 100% complete understanding of the code, its underpinnings, and the technical aspects of what that code is doing. Even then there's "always a chance". 99.9999% of people in the world will never do this. I choose to focus my technical efforts elsewhere. You've also seemed to have lost the point of my response. Few people care about Linus because his solution is just a piece of the puzzle.
29. Re: Linus by fuzznutz · 2018-06-27 05:29 · Score: 1
  
  Your code is incomplete. You forgot:
  
  void ShitAllOverYard (void);
30. Re:Linus by AlanObject · 2018-06-27 05:34 · Score: 1
  
  Woah. Where is that butthurt coming from anyway?
  Here is an idea: Acknowledge and appreciate Torvalds for achievements that Torvalds has made. Acknowledge and appreciate Musk for achievements that Musk has made.
  Can you do that? Or have you been so conditioned to take a "side" on everything that this just no longer works.
  Maybe this will help: Leave worship for your church and Fox News.
31. Re:Linus by WindBourne · 2018-06-27 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  Both have created trillions in economic activity. And was Linus single handed? Nope. Not even close. Many of us have contributed to Linux. And Linus was considered the top for many years. He, and many others, such as Richard Stallman, Bruce Perens, Ian Murdock, Matthias Ettrich, Miguel de Icaza, Federico Mena, and many many others, are all names that are associated with making Linux what it is. In fact, even Dr. Tanenbaum deserves a lot of credit for Linux and more importantly, shaping Linus. And do not forget en Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and Brian Kernighan, amongst others, who really were the gods that Linus stoood on.
  
  And as to ELon, he HAS created LITERALLY trillions of $ of economic activity.
  Prior to him, America's space program had become moribund. Europe, Russia, and China were running away with all commercial launches, so, they were no longer doing any real R&D. The reason is that they had no need to. Then along came Musk with SpaceX. Just his initial approach to launching was to keep it cheap. It was cheaper than all else. So, he helped restart not just American space, but now, we are looking at going to the moon and mars again. This was due to SPACEX. He has dropped the price SO LOW that every nation is trying to follow him. Then we have EVs. Had Tesla not come along, EVs would still be a joke. Leaf was created because of California regs as well as Tesla Roadster, at that time, but it was Tesla that forced them to get better. In fact, because of Tesla's constant growth, and they are only in about 1/3 of the world's population, they are forcing the entire INDUSTRY to switch to EVs. California and now Chinese regs really had little impact on that, other than the leaf. Li-ion batteries were R&D in America but again moved offshore and picked up by Japan. Now, it is Tesla that has not only lowered the costs of Li-ion battery, but has actually pushed the industry. Their new batteries in the M3 are a stepping stone to what is coming and yet, those batteries are better than anything sold on the market. Now, we have solar. Most Solar was/still is, R&D in America. However, China went to great lengths to get all of that moved to CHina since they want total control over it ( thankfully, trump is finally addressing this). Prior to Tesla, Solar had moved to China, Germany, and Japan, except that most R&D was still being done here (iow, we taxpayers invested billions and were getting little in return). Now, Tesla's R&D combined with Panasonic's manufacturing is producing real push on this. To be fair, it was CHina's focus on destroying America's production that really dropped the cost of cells/panels. Chinese gov says that they are spending 10s/100s of billions on solar, but most of it has been on subsidies targeting America/German compay sales. IOW, it has not been about helping solar, but about getting control of solar. Musk at one time had 2/3 of the American market. However, that was in part due to sales at HD, which meant giving them $7000 / sale, which was the highest in the industry (insane; norm is 3-4K). Basically, they were giving up most of their profits. Now, Tesla has a new roof which will very likely change the industry. It is expensve compared to putting on panels. HOWEVER, it is actually much cheaper than putting on tile, steel, stone, or even slate roofs. And it is about the same costs as putting on asphalt shingles and then covering most with panels. Finally, it will outlast ALL OF THESE roofs. Much stronger and better to withstand fires, hail, snow, rain, etc.
  
  So, Linus, along with many of us geeks, have created a large industry, while Musk, with his sets of armies has created MULTIPLE massive industries.
  
  --
  I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
32. Re:Linus by AlwinBarni · 2018-06-27 05:41 · Score: 1
  
  It isn't that bad with the recognition (I think).
  Linus is quite well known, and to be fair he was not alone, he wrote the kernel, but at the time there was quite a lot GNU software to go along and make Linux OS.
  Let's not be too harsh on the media, good for Musk a landing booster and Tesla Roadster cruising through the void are better suited for TV then Linux source code or rows and rows of computer racks.
33. Re:Linus by Oswald+McWeany · 2018-06-27 06:12 · Score: 1
  
  OK, fair enough. You would have thought he would have used at least two hands though.
  
  --
  "That's the way to do it" - Punch
34. Re:Linus by Oswald+McWeany · 2018-06-27 06:13 · Score: 1
  
  We do not know the name, but it was not a guy. It was a gal.
  She languished at the encampment, be it hut or cave, as the seasons came and went, and had access to a varying amount of small objects.
  As she laboured in her primitive lab, she had the intelligence, experience, opportunity and motive to experiment with combinations of adaptations and stumbled, early on, upon the idea that rolling was more efficient than dragging or pulling.
  Was she hot though?
  
  --
  "That's the way to do it" - Punch
35. Re:Linus by Megol · 2018-06-27 06:19 · Score: 1
  
  You are being trolled FFS. And maybe you should stop drinking the Musk cool-aid...
36. Re:Linus by 110010001000 · 2018-06-27 06:32 · Score: 1
  
  You don't need to be a hacker to understand why open source is important, and why you should care about Linus and not shiny headphones.
37. Re:Linus by 110010001000 · 2018-06-27 06:35 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah no. He is launching satellites into LEO. Hardly creating trillions of activity, since many companies do that. And Tesla isn't even the largest EV manufacturer, or the largest solar manufacturer, or the largest EV battery manufacturer. You are deluded by Musk.
38. Re:Linus by F.Ultra · 2018-06-27 06:46 · Score: 1
  
  Nah, the other hand was used to make the finger to nVIDIA
39. Re:Linus by Sique · 2018-06-27 06:54 · Score: 1
  
  This is what we call a false dichotomy.
  
  --
  .sig: Sique *sigh*
40. Re:Linus by thegarbz · 2018-06-27 08:24 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah we all know that Paypal, SpaceX, and Tesla have contributed nothing to the world, definitely no economic activity ... And Linus has a vision man, a true vision. I hear he is planning a major change to the kernel .... number.
  Sarcasm aside, some very clever computer programmer's pet project becoming foundational in our world due to the dedication of 10s of thousands of people is quite a bit different from a visionary who attempts to completely change every industry he touches.
  If Linus wants to be worshiped he should actually *try* and change the world, rather than just being happen when it happens.
41. Re:Linus by mlw4428 · 2018-06-27 08:27 · Score: 1
  
  You can't seem to understand the original nature of your own fucking post. You bitched about Linus not being viewed as important as Musk. I said it was because Musk builds solutions - not parts. It's the same reason why Ford/Chevy/InsertYourFavCarBrandHere is celebrated and not the part maker who made the steering wheel cover. I don't care what powers my phone/etc in the same way people don't care who makes the bolts that bolt the engine to the car. Is it important? Yeah sure, OSes do a lot and the bolts that hold my engine in place are sort of necessary. But it's just a part of a solution. Nothing you've said refutes anything I said. You also seem to not understand that you're essentially asking why Linus isn't more popular among the tech crowd. It's really sort of a dumb thing to get upset about, no?
42. Re: Linus by ClarkMills · 2018-06-27 09:40 · Score: 1
  
  Linus is one of my heros for starting, sharing and managing the kernel.
  Musk is two of my heros for SpaceX and Tesla. More so Tesla as it has accelerated the EV acceptance / transition period. Also their battery banks. This is a small step in reducing the sh*tting in our own nest that we seem to be doing.
  SpaceX puts the biggest smile on my face but it's long term environmental value is probably less.
43. Re:Linus by Hognoxious · 2018-06-27 10:49 · Score: 1
  
  I'll remind you our railroad tracks are spaced according to the wheel width of Roman chariots.
  
  Bullfuckingshit.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
44. Re: Linus by bursch-X · 2018-06-27 11:16 · Score: 1
  
  It's "waifu" you culturally insensitive clod.
  
  --
  There are two rules for success:
  1. Never tell everything you know.
45. Re:Linus by CaptainDork · 2018-06-27 11:51 · Score: 1
  
  More actually, Christians do not worship Jesus.
  Jesus himself, like Muhammad, forbade it.
  That explains the Muslim prohibition of paraphernalia relating to his likeness and the use of the name, Allah.
  That also explains the phrase, "In Jesus' name , we pray."
  
  --
  It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
46. Re:Linus by Anonymous Coward · 2018-06-27 14:40 · Score: 1
  
  That's about as stupid as saying the very first version of Linux that Linus released is what drove all of this economic activity. For the GP, what kind of dingbat are you to think that Linus did this singlehandedly? The kernel is the work of a lot of people. This isn't to belittle the impact he has had - it is undoubtedly vast - but I doubt even Linus himself would have the audacity to ever claim he did it without the help of a lot of other people.
47. Re:Linus by kzwork · 2018-06-27 14:49 · Score: 1
  
  So you think Musk created all the rockets, electrical cars, trucks, batteries, solar roofs, boring cars etc singlehanded, some think even Bitcoin. Good luck with that thinking.
48. Re:Linus by CaptainDork · 2018-06-28 03:25 · Score: 1
  
  Bell curves have two "wrong ends," if we define "wrong," as the fringes at some distance from the peak, or "norm."
  
  --
  It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
49. Re:Linus by CaptainDork · 2018-06-28 03:26 · Score: 1
  
  Why?
  One reason is enough, isn't it?
  More reasons would only reinforce the one.
  
  --
  It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
50. Re:Linus by ConceptJunkie · 2018-06-28 05:08 · Score: 1
  
  No, it's because the average non-technical person can easily understand what Jobs and Musk have accomplished. With Torvalds, it's not so obvious. The average non-technical person has no idea what "Linux" is.
  
  --
  You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
51. Re:Linus by Shirley+Marquez · 2018-06-28 05:53 · Score: 1
  
  I admire Elon Musk. But I also admire Linus Torvalds for his huge contribution to the world of software. And Richard Stallman, for coming up with the key concept of free software that makes it all possible.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale ... by nickovs · 2018-06-27 03:42 · Score: 5, Interesting

... Linux is also taking over the world of IoT.
I don't think that there has ever been another operating system that has been used across such a wide range of systems with such a range of scales.

--
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
1. Re:Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale ... by Kenja · 2018-06-27 03:53 · Score: 1
  
  Well... there's BSD. Which is in a LOT of embedded systems as well as desktops in the form of OS X.
  
  --
  
  "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
2. Re:Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale ... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-06-27 04:00 · Score: 1
  
  Would you rather have Linux, Apple/Mac, or Windows take over the world of IoT?
  Linux works.
  Apple will tell you you're holding it wrong and charge you 10x what everyone else charges.
  Windows will BSOD and tell you to defrag or reinstall, then steal all your data and knock up your toaster.
3. Re:Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale ... by orlanz · 2018-06-27 04:00 · Score: 1
  
  There is probably more computing power going through Minix code.
4. Re:Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale ... by houghi · 2018-06-27 04:05 · Score: 1
  
  Do you have toaster that runs it? Linux does.
  
  --
  Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
5. Re:Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale ... by Type44Q · 2018-06-27 04:34 · Score: 1
  
  I don't think that there has ever been another operating system that has been used across such a wide range of systems with such a range of scales.
  Really?? Not even in all of history?
6. Re:Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale ... by CaptainDork · 2018-06-27 04:47 · Score: 1
  
  I can testify to this:
  I was tickled pink when my firewalls embraced Linux.
  Windows shops are goddam near impossible to protect from the bad nasties and, configured properly, Linux continued to become hardened over time.
  
  --
  It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
7. Re:Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale ... by Pascoea · 2018-06-27 04:58 · Score: 1
  
  Really?? Not even in all of history?
  All of it, since the 50s? Pretty we've got good resources to look back that far. Don't be lazy, if you want to refute their point provide a valid argument. "Nah ah!" is never a valid argument.
8. Re:Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale ... by jellomizer · 2018-06-27 05:00 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  If it wern't for the AT&T lawsuits FreeBSD may be the standard for non desktop systems. Linux wasn't really superior, But being it was made without the Unix legal baggage and was free. Allowed for easy adoptions of the OS, because at the time similar OS's from Unix would cost thousands of dollars. And DOS and Windows wasn't up to snuff.
  Being a free OS, it makes it easy to be implemented by a startup into new ideas such as IoT.
  Linux had taken it lead as BSD legality was under consideration. This lead allowed fore more support/drivers and availability.
  Linux was on par with FreeBSD but not superior. Linus needs credit for what he had done, by abandoning Unix source code, but he didn't build a superior system.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
9. Re:Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale ... by sinij · 2018-06-27 05:21 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The way I see it, the fact that toasters run any OS in any form is an issue.
10. Re:Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale ... by WindBourne · 2018-06-27 05:40 · Score: 1
  
  BSD has absolutely provided lots of competition to Linux AND its code is heavily borrowed into Linux. Both BSD and Linux developers really deserve credit for all that they have done. Sadly, the majority do NOT get recognition for it.
  
  --
  I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
11. Re:Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale ... by oakgrove · 2018-06-27 07:09 · Score: 1
  
  Linux came to prominence long after the BSD lawsuits were settled.
  
  --
  The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
12. Re:Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale ... by antdude · 2018-06-27 14:54 · Score: 1
  
  Frakkin Cylons! No wonder they have a plan.
  
  --
  Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
13. Re:Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale ... by sad_ · 2018-06-27 23:26 · Score: 1
  
  with your reasoning, the difference being the OSS license used, so we have to thank RMS for creating GPL!
  
  --
  On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
14. Re:Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale ... by ebvwfbw · 2018-06-28 11:15 · Score: 1
  
  Oh yes. The OS that a man worked for apple for free to port it over so BSD wasn't relegated to history.
  They should have said - no thanks and moved to Linux. Really bad decision on Job's part. It's really too bad. They would have SELinux, a far more secure kernel, etc.
  I did win a bet, however. A stupid professor from U of California said that the old Mac windows system didn't have an OS below it. Argued like hell with me. Then they announced it was being moved over to BSD. Yea, shut him up.
Scalability by Anonymous Coward · 2018-06-27 03:53 · Score: 1

I think this has been Linux's special sauce all along. It scales to nearly anything. It runs on:
Desktop computers
Smartphones
Tablets
Smart Watches
Pretty much every kind of IoT Device (Thermostats, AC receptacles, shade controllers)
NAS Servers
Supercomputers
Mainframes
Routers and Switches
Nearly every kind of embedded development board and SoC
Portable media players
Set-top boxes
Blu-Ray players
Home game consoles
Satellites
Test Equipment (Oscilloscopes, Spectrum Analyzers, Signal Generators)
The only places it hasn't made major inroads are in industrial control, SCADA and mission-critical systems, like health care and major financial systems (though NASDAQ runs a bunch of stuff on Gentoo) But it's probably a matter of time.
1. Re:Scalability by Bert64 · 2018-06-27 07:57 · Score: 1
  
  The only place it hasn't made major inroads is desktop/laptop computers. It's either a major player or utterly dominant in almost every other area.
  
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Good for Linux! by QuietLagoon · 2018-06-27 03:53 · Score: 4, Informative

And congrats to all that support and develop for it, especially one Mr Linus Benedict Torvalds.
Curmudgeon factor by erp_consultant · 2018-06-27 04:19 · Score: 3, Insightful

Let's face it, as bright and influential as Torvalds has been, and continues to be, most people would not rate him highly on the warm and fuzzy scale. He is not a man that seeks approval. He is not a man that wants to be in the spotlight.
In some ways I think he is like Steve Wozniak. Just a shy, quiet but brilliant engineer that would rather just be left alone than doing the cocktail party circuit.
History tends to reward the Musks and Jobs of this world who are very smart in their own right but also very adept at self promotion.
I tend to have more respect for Linus and Woz. They are the men behind the curtain doing all the heavy lifting.
1. Re:Curmudgeon factor by Areyoukiddingme · 2018-06-27 04:53 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  History tends to reward the Musks and Jobs of this world who are very smart in their own right but also very adept at self promotion.
  Very adept at self promotion? Have you seen Elon Musk speak? He's a nerd. The quintessential nerd, with a head full of facts and figures and very poor command of his tongue. People lionize him and promote him, then blame him for self promoting, when in fact he's absolutely terrible at actually promoting himself. He talks about ideas and business activities and people call that self promotion. There's very little mention of himself, except when the interviewer inevitably asks, "Why are you doing this?" Then he answers with his, "I think humanity should be a multiplanetary species." That's about the only time he says "I think". The rest of the time, he's busy telling you what his companies are doing, and people somehow interpret that as self promotion.
  As opposed to what a Kardashian is saying, which is somehow.... fine? Humans baffle me.
2. Re:Curmudgeon factor by 110010001000 · 2018-06-27 04:58 · Score: 1
  
  Baloney. Musk is all about promotion. That is why he makes claims that don't make sense.
Re:Very large and very small applications by kbonin · 2018-06-27 04:21 · Score: 1

Windows 10 is a reasonably good desktop OS as long as you don't' mind the "telemetry", aka corporate spyware uploading metadata about whats on your drive and network and how you use all of the above. This has infected their cross platform apps too, I briefly used Visual Code on Linux and Mac, and both were trying to upload far more than I'm comfortable with.
Singlehanded?!? by paulpach · 2018-06-27 04:50 · Score: 2

Linus has created literally trillions in economic activity. Singlehanded. But techies worship Musk. Very odd.
Singlehanded?!? I guess, if you ignore all the work done on gcc, glibc, bash, systemd, other system tools, thousands of kernel developer contributors, thousands of people putting together distributions, people writing build systems, multiple languages, hardware manufactures, etc...
Linus work is probably not even 1 millionth of the total work that went into producing your average computer, let alone super computers.
1. Re:Singlehanded?!? by 110010001000 · 2018-06-27 04:53 · Score: 1
  
  Correct. Singlehanded.
2. Re:Singlehanded?!? by paulpach · 2018-06-27 06:07 · Score: 1
  
  Correct. Singlehanded.
  Which hand did he use?
3. Re:Singlehanded?!? by 110010001000 · 2018-06-27 06:33 · Score: 1
  
  Both. But he only used one at a time.
4. Re: Singlehanded?!? by TimMD909 · 2018-06-27 08:58 · Score: 1
  
  Lumping people who deserve respect in with the systemd crowd is unacceptable. That's like lumping the framers of the Constitution in with China's leader (Winnie the Pooh).
Re:Very large and very small applications by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2018-06-27 04:52 · Score: 1

I briefly used Visual Code on Linux and Mac, and both were trying to upload far more than I'm comfortable with.
That's all changed with Microsoft's purchase of GitHub.
Now they get you to upload your stuff for them . . .

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Kids these days by Areyoukiddingme · 2018-06-27 04:56 · Score: 5, Interesting

An interesting architectural note: "GPUs, not CPUs, now power most of supercomputers' speed."
Who is this beeftopia guy who is so monumentally ignorant of the history of supercomputing? That's not an "interesting architectural note". That's supercomputing since the very beginning of supercomputing. Supercomputers are supercomputers specifically because they had vector processors, before "GPU" was even a recognizable acronym. When PCs had nothing but framebuffers, supercomputers had vector processors. That was the point of building them. Once the GPU was invented, utilizing them to build a supercomputer was an inevitability.
And get off my lawn!
1. Re:Kids these days by cthulhu11 · 2018-06-28 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  But yet we like the "supercomputer" term so much that we've conflated it with "cluster".
"finally"?? by Khashishi · 2018-06-27 04:57 · Score: 2

When was it NOT the year of the Linux supercomputer?
Comment removed by account_deleted · 2018-06-27 05:16 · Score: 1

Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yeah, but by Artem+S.+Tashkinov · 2018-06-27 05:32 · Score: 2

This means exactly nothing for the desktop where it's most craved for.
Coming back around by afidel · 2018-06-27 06:28 · Score: 3, Informative

It's interesting that relatively weak CPU coupled with multiple fast vector processors that could do massive parallel calculations was basically the design of the original Cray supercomputers and we're back to that design coupled with fast interconnects to team up many, many nodes. Kinda cool to see that Seymour had it right =)

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Re:Very large and very small applications by jbengt · 2018-06-27 06:30 · Score: 1

For example, Microsoft found a bunch of fucking idiots who would only open programs in a particular order so they'd be ordered how they wanted on the taskbar. Thus, they introduced the ability to manually pin and move programs on the taskbar.
You don't need telemetry to come up with that one.
Re:Singlehanded? That's news to Mr Torvalds by shoor · 2018-06-27 08:02 · Score: 1

Linus Torvalds didn't work in a vacuum and never claimed to. He got started using a book written by Andy Tanenbaum. He was in the right place at the right time (When the Intel 80386 came out which finally had the hardware support needed for a multi-tasking, demand paging Operating System. And yes, I know it wasn't the first chip to have that, but by then the Intel architecture dominated the market thanks to IBM choosing the Intel 8086 for it's PC, which is a different story, pardon the digression.)
BSD Unix was available for the 80386 and Mr Torvalds said if he'd known about it, he probably wouldn't have written Linux. It boiled down finally to personality. Linus Torvalds welcomed participation by others to improve Linux and was a genial enough leader that he could herd all those cats into working together. Smart people were working on BSD Unix too. But they tended to be elitist and fought among themselves so you ended up having different flavors, FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD. If you go back through the internet archives, you can even find posts to some of the comp.os newsgroups where they are squabbling and airing their dirty linen in public.
Why did this at least partially hobbyist OS get so popular? I think a lot of it has to do with trust. People are willing to buy supercomputers running linux because they trust linux. They can see the source code; they can see the history, the evolution of it. Part of that trust is due to Linus Torvalds style and personality. That is his contribution. Richard Stallman also made a great contribution with the GNU public license, which Linus Torvalds adopted. Many of those contribution cats would not have joined the herd without the GNU public license which protected other people from appropriating their work. Torvalds and Stallman have their differences, but I don't think Linus Torvalds ever tried to steal Stallman's thunder. Linux distributions depend not only on the kernel which Linus Torvalds wrote the original version of, but also on a lot of software from Stallman's GNU foundation. They also depend on a lot of software from other sources, like the X-Window system. It gets complicated, and maybe people should just admit that it's complicated instead of trying to reduce it all to sound bites.

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Re:Singlehanded? That's news to Mr Torvalds by Anne+Thwacks · 2018-06-27 09:04 · Score: 1

Linus Torvalds didn't work in a vacuum
I am glad to here it. My physician has advised me that working in a vacuum is bad for your health.

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Re:Very large and very small applications by UnknownSoldier · 2018-06-27 10:17 · Score: 1

> It's not spyware.
What part of "Collecting data without my consent" do you not fucking understand?
> they introduced the ability to manually pin and move programs on the taskbar.
Gee, there was a 3rd party program, TaskBarEx on Windows XP that did this. You don't need fucking telemetry to know this.
/sarcasm Yay for M$ innovation! Copying 3rd party programs since 1990.
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Re:Singlehanded? That's news to Mr Torvalds by shoor · 2018-06-27 10:58 · Score: 1

Alas, slashdot does not allow one to go back and edit posts. Otherwise I would change my previous post to read "doesn't work in a vacuum (metaphorically speaking)" so as not to confuse readers such as yourself. And you yourself would probably go back and edit your own post to read "glad to hear it" vice "glad to here it".
Those are the breaks.

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In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
RIP AIX by Only+Time+Will+Tell · 2018-06-28 00:31 · Score: 1

I'll always have fond memories for AIX. It was my first UNIX I played with and learned. My dad worked for IBM and got an older RS/6000 to bring home. Firing that thing up with its stacks of external hard drives was like powering on the space shuttle. That experience allowed me to be the first in my college dorm to have a Linux box up and running. Good times.