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Linux Turns 8

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the happy-birthday dept.

Skogshuggarn writes "The initial public release of Linux - version 0.01 - occurred on the 17th September 1991. The world's best operating system is therefore 8 years old this Friday. Happy Birthday " Seems like only yesterday that our little kernel was in potty training, and now here it is all grown up and ready for world domination.

18 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Happy Bday, but... by Mickey+Jameson · · Score: 2

    So it's acceptable to say that Linux is the world's best operating system, yet a previous post of mine that stated that lynx is the world's best browser gets knocked down to -1:flamebait? Double standards? I love it. -3209

  2. Re:Who has the .01 Version? by fishbowl · · Score: 2

    ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/Historic/lin ux-0.01.tar.gz

    --
    -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
  3. ... by Signal+11 · · Score: 2

    Yes, young linux just turned 8. The b-day party went like so: "I want more features! mine! mine! Gimme gimme gimme!" :) So go and give young linux a present - patch up a few bugs in the source.

    --

  4. Slashdotted by cabalamat · · Score: 4

    Oh No - I've been slashdotted

    -- Phil Hunt, philh@vision25.demon.co.uk

  5. Quite a long time if you think about it .. by scrutty · · Score: 2
    Especially considering the mainstream media seem to regard it as some kind of overnight event !

    I bet there aren't any boxes out there still running 0.1 somehow - now that would be an uptime worth having (joke).

    How about a slashdot poll - my first booted kernel was ... or have we done that one? I'm too lazy to check.

    --
    -- Oh Well
  6. Re:Linux ready for world dominiation? by Suydam · · Score: 2

    actually "world domination" is the professed goal of Linus....so it appears in many many Linux press releases, speeches, etc.

    --


    Werd.
  7. Wow! by Dicky · · Score: 3
    I've been in the Linux 'world' for nearly 4 years now, which makes me an old-timer. In that time, I've learnt more about computers and Unix than I ever wanted to know :-) - which lead directly to my getting a job as a developer at a Unix vendor. I have met a lot of great people, both on-line and IRL. I have written and released a couple of GPLed programs (note to self: do some work on released software!).

    This is what Richard Stallman is really working for. Freedom to learn and really use our own computers, and to allow communities to form around those systems.

    We are lucky to be living in these times. I think that, in the future, computer science students will learn about the creation of software engineering in the 1970s, the genesis of the personal computer in the 1980s, and the explosion of the Internet and free software in the 1990s. That can only be a good thing.

    --
    Paranoia isn't an infectious condition, it's a way of life
    1. Re:Wow! by M-G · · Score: 2

      Yep. I started with Slackware too. On a 386 Microchannel PS/2. With an ESDI drive. What a monstrous beast. But it still works, although when it's been powered down for a while I have to pull out the hard drive and smack it against a table a few times to get it to spin up... :)

      Not that anyone cares, but it happens to be my birthday too....I haven't done nearly as much for the world in 26 years as Linux has done in 8, but then the hackers of the world haven't been actively contributing to make a better me....

      Not too many people may know this off the top of their heads, but today is also the anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution. Interesting in that neither the Linux kernel nor the Constitution were perfect, but both laid the groundwork for freedom (not free beer) and individual power. (Yeah, I know, the GPL is probably a better analogue to the U.S. Constitution, but to my knowledge, they don't share any milestone dates.)

    2. Re:Wow! by Dicky · · Score: 2
      How about: I bow to your superior mental 'uptime' :-)

      I sort of started with Slackware too. I bought (was bought) a PC in the summer of '95, and having moved from the ST world, I was used to shareware/freeware being a major source of software. I therefore went and bought three CD-ROMs (I had an 850Mb hard drive and I bought about 2Gb of compressed software - go figure) of shareware/freeware when I got my PC. I then went to Uni to do computer science, and the course was based on Unix (HP/UX). I found this wierd looking Linux thing on one of my CDs, and I tried to install it. It was kernel 0.99x, and it didn't work, but I liked the idea, so I went out and found sunsite. And the rest is history...

      I downloaded the majority of Slackware onto floppies, one at a time, using a DOS FTP program provided by the Uni. That was fun.

      --
      Paranoia isn't an infectious condition, it's a way of life
  8. I remember... by Robert+Hayden · · Score: 3
    (crotchety old man)I remember when Linux came and ran on just one floppy disk. Back then the only thing you could do was dial in with minicom, which was really just a Telix clone. You youngin's don't know how good you got it!(/crotchety old man)

    Man, it's nice to see how far our kids have come.

  9. Re:Linux ready for world dominiation? by andkaha · · Score: 2
    But anyway thats not what linux is all about.

    Yes it is! World domination, fast! But we have to do it carefully... Personally I don't think too much hype is good for Linux. I think it scares some people away. "I just want to do my word processing". User friendliness is the next great step for Linux. Having people choosing Linux as their first OS (and getting them to continue using it).

    --
    It's 11pm, do you know what your deamons are up to?
  10. Re:Hahaha by ElJefe · · Score: 3

    No, you're using the wrong base. It's actually 100 years old.

    -ElJefe

  11. alt.linux, MCC release, other old-timer memories.. by *Doh* · · Score: 3

    Anyone else remember alt.linux?

    When I started using Linux in Jan 1992 it was like a gift from God. No more begging root accounts from stressed Unix admins at school; and I had a system I could use to get work done on at night when the lab was closed. On a lowly 386sx/16 w/4MB of RAM, no less!

    How about the MCC release (the first distro ever)?

    How about that doctor (Dr. W-something) from a cancer center who deployed Linux in production (in a hospital, no less!) as early as late '92? He would write these great, long, detailed big reports to the kernel list.

    I'd love to find some of the other early users (pre-1992) and swap memories...

  12. And we are celebrating in Fort Collins! by bugzilla · · Score: 2

    NCLUG is celebrating the 8th birthday of Linux with a Linux DemoDay and install fest here in Fort Collins, Colorado (at the University Park Holiday Inn by the CSU campus). The DemoDay event is being coordinated at www.linuxdemo.org and is a worldwide event. Take a look at the demoday site to see if an event is being held in your area.

  13. Re:There was a mistake in that report.. by m3000 · · Score: 4

    The "Worlds Best Operating System" can mean different things to different people. For some, Linux, for others, Windows. Or for you, FreeBSD. It's all subjective. Myself, I prefer Windows because it's the best for me.

  14. Are you talking about "Dr Watson" ? :-) by cpeterso · · Score: 2

    C:\WINNT\DRWTSN32.EXE

    --
    cpeterso
  15. And Windows NT is turning 11 next month... by LinuxParanoid · · Score: 3

    Dave Cutler (Windows NT architect) went to work for M$ in October 1988.

    Which raises the question: if Linux is growing so much faster than any other OS ever, how much worse/better is NT for being three years older?

    Something to think about before you make the claim and the MS marketing team tries to shoot it down.

    --LinuxParanoid

  16. Ah, but when was Linux's "conception" ? by LinuxParanoid · · Score: 2

    So if Linux was born in 1991, does the development of the GNU tools in the mid-late 80s count as the act of conception?

    (That labor took a lot longer than 9 months, eh?)

    --LP

    (Hmm, this fits better than I thought. It's true, the development of the GNU tools *was* an act of passion, right? ... Reproduction of the asexual kind I suppose. ;-)