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Author Topic: Linux now 25 years old  (Read 9010 times)

roseway

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Linux now 25 years old
« on: August 25, 2016, 01:13:54 PM »

It was 25 years ago today when Linus Torvalds posted his now famous (and modest) announcement of a new OS he was developing.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.os.minix/dlNtH7RRrGA[1-25]
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tickmike

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Re: Linux now 25 years old
« Reply #1 on: August 25, 2016, 02:30:50 PM »

Yes Happy Birthday  :yay: :thumbs:

Thank you 'Linus Benedict Torvalds'

see ...   http://pclosmag.com/html/Issues/201608/page01.html
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burakkucat

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Re: Linux now 25 years old
« Reply #2 on: August 25, 2016, 07:30:02 PM »

I well remember that announcement and thought at the time "I wonder if this will be yet another project that falls by the wayside".  :-\

As we now know, the concept of an OS was shelved and the embryonic Linux kernel was born.  :)
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Chunkers

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Re: Linux now 25 years old
« Reply #3 on: August 25, 2016, 08:41:23 PM »

Much kudos to Linus,  one of the few people who has genuinely left a lasting mark on the world.  The really cool thing is that not many normal people know who he is even though they probably use his OS in some form everyday.

Geek respect .... o7

Chunks
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tickmike

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Re: Linux now 25 years old
« Reply #4 on: August 26, 2016, 12:39:09 PM »

This made me smile from the this page at http://pclosmag.com/html/Issues/201608/page02.html

" The Linux kernel source code, being as large as it is, has its share of "bad words." The latest count, which goes up through kernel 4.5.4, kind of goes like this. There are 179 incidences of a word that refers to human excrement (rhymes with map), and 136 that refer to another word for human excrement (rhymes with bit). There are 41 occurrences of another word referring to coitus (rhymes with truck), 24 occurrences of another word that refers to an illegitimate male child (rhymes with mastered), and six occurrences of another word that refers to urination (rhymes with miss).

Similarly, the Linux kernel has its share of "good words." Once again, the latest count goes up through kernel 4.5.4. There are 4,332 occurrences of the word "good" in the Linux kernel. The word "nice" shows up 1,363 times. The word "love" occurs 658 times, while "kiss" appears 229 times, and "sweet" appears 71 times. "

 ;D
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gogeta

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Re: Linux now 25 years old
« Reply #5 on: August 26, 2016, 04:19:03 PM »

I never get tired of comparing Windows vs. Linux for web hosting, but I'm gonna say that I think Linux is my preferred option. It seems others agree! "These two operating systems have dominated the web-hosting market for years and compete today for digital hegemony, with Linux maintaining a noticeable lead" is taken from this page https://www.1and1.com/digitalguide/server/know-how/linux-vs-windows-the-big-server-check/

"digital hegemony" is something I need to say more often.  :D

BTW, had no idea that the name Linux was because of the guy's name...  :o
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Linux now 25 years old
« Reply #6 on: August 26, 2016, 11:55:43 PM »

Disappointing that in that thread he made no explicit mention of the OS he was copying, UNIX.   :(

I genuinely wonder why not?
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tickmike

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Re: Linux now 25 years old
« Reply #7 on: August 27, 2016, 01:15:58 AM »

He does.  :hmm:
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roseway

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Re: Linux now 25 years old
« Reply #8 on: August 27, 2016, 07:44:19 AM »

At the time, Minix was the hobbyist's Unix. The latter was an expensive professional system. So I think it's not surprising that a hobbyist would refer to Minix as the system they're aiming to improve on.
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Linux now 25 years old
« Reply #9 on: August 27, 2016, 10:38:32 AM »

He does.  :hmm:

Where?

At the time, Minix was the hobbyist's Unix. The latter was an expensive professional system. So I think it's not surprising that a hobbyist would refer to Minix as the system they're aiming to improve on.

Fair point.  I wonder too, whether trademark infringement might have been a concern, had he used the word Unix?

It just seems a shame to me sometimes that the role played by Unix and its creators, does not always seem to be acknowledged with the emphasis I'd like to see.   Without Unix, I feel certain there would have been no Linux.  And no Minix either, and no GNU (despite the humorous acronym), so no 'bash' or 'gcc' to be ported to that new OS. Yet I wonder how many people really understand that many years before Linux, people were using an OS that looked and felt pretty darned similar.   I wonder how many people can even name the underlying creators of the original Unix, compared to the number who can name the creator of Linux?
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WWWombat

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Re: Linux now 25 years old
« Reply #10 on: August 30, 2016, 04:45:47 PM »

At the time, Minix was the hobbyist's Unix.

More than that, it was a student's entry-level into studying design of operating system features. The OS came on floppies with a book aimed at undergraduate courses. It was a tool for learning, though, and was most certainly NOT an attempt to make a full-scale Unix-like system (and deliberately kept that way).

This page seems to get the right feel for the environment at the time: A Minix "community" that wanted to make it better for their purposes vs. a professor that wanted to keep it suitable for undergraduate students.

A friend and I were playing with Minix at the time, attempting to add features that made better use of the 386 - such as paging - so as to open up the possibility of porting full Unix command-line tools (it was fun, OK?). I was having a horrible problem with switching into the 386's protected mode ... and recall an email exchange with Linus to find out how the hell he got it to work.

It didn't take long for us to abandon the things we were playing with, and start playing with Linux instead - like a lot of the community.

It just seems a shame to me sometimes that the role played by Unix and its creators, does not always seem to be acknowledged with the emphasis I'd like to see.

I guess we were the generation that got to use Unix at uni, rather than the one before that got to hack it together. But it had lost some of that "free" nature that was somewhat part of its growth, and was not free.

As Linus took his first, fateful steps, there was a huge groundswell of people who wanted access to their own Unix system.

A core part of the timing (as that link mentions) was the development of the 386sx chip - which gave us that initial entry point to owning hardware that could run a serious OS (I vaguely recall scrimping quite hard to be able to afford a 386sx with 4MB of memory). We just needed the serious OS to be as cost-effective as the chip...

As for acknowledging, I think that is obvious in hindsight. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and all that...
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phi2008

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Re: Linux now 25 years old
« Reply #11 on: September 27, 2016, 04:54:47 PM »

Maybe the elephant in the room is BSD, which was in legal limbo at the time Linux appeared - Linus has said he probably wouldn't have bothered creating Linux if BSD had been available. BSD has strangely under performed in the popularity stakes - I currently only use it with FreeNAS, and previously when I had a Juniper router, I have a Hackintosh - but OS X is not BSD.
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roseway

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Re: Linux now 25 years old
« Reply #12 on: September 27, 2016, 06:51:11 PM »

I came extremely close to switching all my main computing over to PC-BSD, but the single thing which stopped me was the limited printer support. Everything else was fine, and I still have this little voice in my head saying "Go for it".
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  Eric

sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Linux now 25 years old
« Reply #13 on: September 27, 2016, 08:28:43 PM »

I was also tempted by OpenSolaris, based upon the *'proper' UNIX SVR4.  But of course, that came long after BSD and Linux, and has since vanished.  Never got around to playing with it.

* My definition of 'proper UNIX' is based on largely past career, personal preferences and allegiances.  I would struggle to defend such bias on purely scientific merit, but I feel compelled to express and maintain it. :D
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