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[ponpo]

edit: 26th birthday, picked a year old article instead of a day old one by accident

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/08/linux-birthday-26

https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/22/happy-25th-birthday-linux/

Linux will turn 25 years old on August 25, the day Linus Torvalds sent out his fateful message asking for help with a new operating system. ”I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things)," he wrote in the comp.os.minix message board. And the rest, as they say, is history.

What's particularly interesting about Torvalds' note is that it was followed not by snark or derision but with general interest. While we can chalk that up to Torvalds actually having a product ready to show potential users, we are also reminded that the internet in 1991 was a far different place than it is today.

The Linux Foundation has just released a detailed report on the OS with highlights from the past 25 years. They write that 13,500 developers from 1,300 companies have contributed to the Kernel since the entire project went up on Git in 2005. The most interesting bit of data?

”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." That means the Linux kernel is almost constantly being patched and updated all by a volunteer army of programmers dedicated to seeing the glue of the Internet succeed.

Linux now runs most of the websites you visit and runs on everything from gas pumps to smartwatches. The OS teaches kids to program thanks to the Raspberry Pi and it helped the French police save millions of euros. Heck, even Microsoft is releasing code for Linux. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

will 2018...finally be...the year...of the linux...desktop...???

 

[Spoiled Milk]

will 2018...finally be...the year...of the linux...desktop...???

It already is for me

 

[Kelsdesu]

Happy bday Linux. You are obnoxious and I only deal with you because you cant have LAMP without the "L".

 

[eot]

It's only 25 years?? I could've sworn it was older

 

[Blizzard]

Happy birthday. I love Linux though I mostly just use it for work these days, and it played a big part of work, play, and education for me growing up.

 

[Occam]

I'm so glad Linux exists, it's awesome.
Wish there was a way to introduce more people to it.
In my opinion governments, schools and universities should all be using it (and Libre Office instead of MS Office).

 

[sixteen-bit]

happy anniversary

 

[Aarglefarg]

It's 26.

That article is from last year.

Unless I've traveled back to August 2016, in which case there's a few people I have to warn.

 

[CreepingFear]

It's fun to fool around with.

 

[Pixels]

😀

 

[Jonnax]

Funny thing about Linux is that it may have lost the desktop. But won everything else.

 

[ponpo]

It's 26.

That article is from last year.

Unless I've traveled back to August 2016, in which case there's a few people I have to warn.

Oh, so it is.

W..well happy 26th.

 

[NekoFever]

Funny thing about Linux is that it may have lost the desktop. But won everything else.

It's making gains there through things like Chromebooks. Short of a titanic shift in the desktop market I don't think it's ever going to have huge market share, but it's got a healthy niche.

 

[Alexander DeLarge]

It's making gains there through things like Chromebooks. Short of a titanic shift in the desktop market I don't think it's ever going to have huge market share, but it's got a healthy niche.

Fuschia/Andromeda may help. Assuming it's the Android/ChromeOS merge as speculated.

Funny thing about Linux is that it may have lost the desktop. But won everything else.

I wonder how much it bothers Linus knowing it was originally aimed at desktop users https://youtu.be/KFKxlYNfT_o

 

[The Dutch Slayer]

 

[whitehawk]

Lmao

 

[Zaru]

But there are 50 different ways to compile it and decorate the top, how am I gonna choose?

 

[StrategyFan]

was gonna make this joke

 

[AzureSkies]

This is hilarious

 

[Blackpuppy]

.

 

[grumpy]

will 2018...finally be...the year...of the linux...desktop...???

For me, every year since I first tried SuSE Linux 5 back in 1998 has been "year of the linux desktop".

 

[Sir_Crocodile]

hahaha

 

[andythinkpad]

So does United States still exist in your future?

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

God dammit, this is so good.

 

[ponpo]

So does United States still exist in your future?

It does, and Chamillionaire is president

 

[Dougald]

What, too lazy to crack your own eggs, mill your own flour and churn your own butter? You'll never be a true Linux user

I'm a Linux Sysadmin and use it every day, I love it. Scandalously I no longer use it on the Desktop though, sorry Linus! Only problem is I seemed to grow a beard the moment I started working with unix.

 

[Timedog]

What if the government put secret backdoors into Linux through "volunteer" patches that they developed using supercomputer learning AI to insert metacode into the source, and the metacode actually contains it's own metacompiler?

 

[The Albatross]

It is an interesting thought experiment to go back to, say, 2004, and tell someone "Linux is the most used operating system in the world in 2017," and they'd imagine this world of Linux-based desktops or laptops, Windows having some massive drop in marketshare, when it's really just all Android.

It is pretty cool how that paradigm shifted.