Linux 3.11 Officially Named "Linux For Workgroups" 376
An anonymous reader writes "Linus Torvalds decided to change the code name for Linux 3.11 and even submitted an alternate Tux Logo. Heise reports: 'For this release, Linus Torvalds changed the code name from "Unicycling Gorilla" to "Linux for Workgroups" and modified the logo that some systems display when booting: it now depicts a Tux holding a flag with a symbol that is reminiscent of the logo of Windows for Workgroups 3.11, which was released in 1993.'"
But will Microsoft sue? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:But will Microsoft sue? (Score:5, Insightful)
If they're smart they will simply smirk at the jab and do nothing. It's a small piece of free advertisement.
Re:But will Microsoft sue? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:But will Microsoft sue? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Or Windows. Especially Windows. Especially Windows 3.11.
Re:But will Microsoft sue? (Score:5, Informative)
It's pretty clearly a parody, not a trademark misuse that could cause confusion in the marketplace.
Re: (Score:3)
Perhaps, but that flag looks rather like a screen grab of the actual logo. Then we're out of trademark soup and into copyright fritters.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Not quite true - it's still the default file system for most flash drives. At least it's rare that I encounter a flash drive that comes preformatted with an NTFS or superior file system, though hard drives seem to have mostly made the switch. Just because it's not being employed directly by MS for system resources doesn't means it's unused - it's still heavily used for compatibility purposes and, as you point out, the strategic deprivation of such. Whether such conduct is *ethical* is a completely separa
Re: (Score:3)
Does UDF have some special features I'm unaware of that would make it particularly suitable? My impression is that it was specifically designed for write-once optical media, with the selected compromises likely being rather sub-optimal for more freely rewritable media. Compatibility would seem to be the only redeeming feature. I would perhaps have suggested ext2 myself as an industry standard - it's been tested to death, and has implementations on virtually every OS and platform on the planet, all it wou
Re: (Score:3)
Compatibility is an important feature that's suitable for portable media. You know ext2 wouldn't get full support from MS, meanwhile (at least new versions) of Windows have full UDF support. UDF unlike FAT/32 offer large file support, and it's not encumbered with patents.
Re:But will Microsoft sue? (Score:4, Insightful)
so accessibility could be assured from virtually any OS
The problem aren't OSes, it's everything else that has an USB port. Try as you might, but your car MP3 player, old DVD player, TV etc. don't support anything except FAT32. Having flash drives come formatted in anything different would cause tons of support calls, returns due to them being "defective" etc. For better or worse, it's best to provide them in FAT32 and let the user himself reformat it to their preferred file system if he so wishes and doesn't need the device to work in legacy devices.
Re: (Score:3)
Two different flags (Score:5, Informative)
Windows 7 uses the Windows XP flag [wikipedia.org], not the different flag [wikipedia.org] used for Windows 3.1 through Windows 2000. The XP flag has two curves in it and no dots; the Windows 3.1 flag has one curve in the flag and one curve in the dots.
Godwin's law [pineight.com] anyone?
Re: (Score:2)
That's funny, because I'm sitting here and looking at a Windows 7 "flag" on my Windows 7 start button. (OK, there's no flagpole, but it still looks more like a waving flag than curved windows.)
CORRECTION (Score:2)
So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows? (Score:5, Funny)
I can't wait to see Linux 95. The Linux market will explode when that comes out.
Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows? (Score:4, Funny)
Windows95 was really just a GUI running on top of DOS. Download GNOME and you've got it already!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Windows95 was really just a GUI running on top of DOS. Download GNOME and you've got it already!
Compared to Gnome, Windows95 is lightweight and responsive.
Re: (Score:2)
95C - with IE stripped out.
Windows 95 didn't get usable until after 98 should have already been out with the C revision. Then it was better by far than the original 98.
Re:So now Linux is only 20 years behind windows? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes. Windows 95 was by far the lightest weight and most responsive of Operating systems. Unfortunatly, every other response was a blue screen...
Re: (Score:2)
Windows95 was really just a GUI running on top of DOS. Download GNOME and you've got it already!
GNOME is just a GUI running on top of Linux.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Linux 8 (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
No, it didn't. Well, maybe by Linux fans.
It got panned for not running Windows software, and Linux netbooks had something like a 25% return rate, when their Windows counterparts were much lower.
Re: Linux 8 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
No, the preloaded Linux distributions listed stunk. Crappy repos, and limited updates. Aftermarket Linux distros (eg: Ubuntu-based distros, I found Crunchbang worked great, with full repo support) had a really good experience, and would have done well if they were preloaded.
I maintain that OEM's wanted cheap licences from Microsoft, and their approach was to sell Netbooks that shipped with Linux to scare Microsoft. Half my Xandros-preloaded EeePC 701's manual was about how to install XP, and it is what I'd
Hilarious (Score:5, Funny)
Good to see Linus still has a sense of humor.
I suppose shipping intentionally buggy IPX drivers with it might be taking the joke too far though.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
They can always implement NetBEUI and watch as we one by one shoot ourselves.
Re: (Score:2)
You enable netBIOS on IPX/SPX. and leave TCP/IP only for web browsing...I shouldn't remember this.
Re: (Score:3)
Who needs IPX when Linsock support is finally included out of the box?
Re: (Score:3)
What I really want to know is if Linux 3.11 has high memory extenders.
Reminds me of RAM Doubler (Score:3)
Re:Reminds me of RAM Doubler (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of the Windows laptops I look at are using 2 to 3GB of RAM. There is almost zero demand for RAM beyond 4GB among consumers, and that's absolutely correct. You have the cause/effect backwards. The migration to 64 bits wasn't slow because people couldn't get the software. It was slow because the faster hardware didn't help very much, making it impossible to cost justify putting any work into that.
Adding more RAM to machine that is only caching a few GB before a reboot will not increase its speed at all. Speed certainly wouldn't double by having twice as much RAM. The reason why people are spending money on SSD instead of RAM is because memory only helps once you've read data from disk once. There are some small uses of RAM for things like temporary files, but those are not common on consumer workloads either.
Back when all of the mass market machines were dipping into swap to run their normal application, adding RAM made them much faster. And that move was held back a little bit by the 32 bit memory limit. Those days are years in the rear view now though. I upgraded all of my laptops from 8GB to 16GB of RAM recently, and there was no responsiveness improvement for day to day work. I'm just not using more than 8GB very often, unless I get crazy with the number of web browser tabs going at once.
Re: (Score:3)
Right. If it were true that there was no demand for faster hardware then why do CPU and GPU pushing for faster chips?
Hardware and software are always at a cycle, one pushing the other. You can have more RAM? You get software that uses that RAM. You get more CPU cores? You will get software that pushes for more CPU cores, etc. That was always so, and with every computer component. CPU, GPU, Hard Disks, Monitors, Resolutions.
But somehow it stops on 4GB RAM?
More RAM means _always_ more speed. It is a basic con
Re: (Score:3)
Finally (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
As a regular user of Cygwin, I can honestly say GNU/windows is pretty awesome.
Re: (Score:2)
As a regular user of Cygwin, I can honestly say GNU/windows is pretty awesome.
Are you kidding me? Cygwin tools are the buggiest, bloated, slowest piece of crap I've seen in a long time. The entire tool chain is crap produced by people who shouldn't be allowed to call themselves developers.
Use a native toolkit rather than that cygwin crap and you'll learn how its supposed to be done.
Re: (Score:3)
Toolkit? I use cygwin for the command line tools. There really is nothing comparable to it. The whole reason for its existence is Unix compatibility of the command line tools and ability to compile Unix programs for Windows. The reason the it can be slow is because the Windows process model does not adequately support the Unix style of processes and so some emulation and workarounds are needed. If you want to build native apps then you can use Cygwin along with MinGW.
How many get the reference (Score:4, Funny)
without reading TFA.
get off my lawn. ha
Re: (Score:3)
Obligatory xkcd [xkcd.com].
Reminds me of a different OS. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Yo Linus! (Score:2)
It is supposed to be Open Source, not Open Sores. Some of us are still scarred from the nightmare of WFW.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Yo Linus! (Score:4, Informative)
This made OS/2 ironically better at multitasking windows and DOS applications than it was at OS/2 applications. Windows apps couldn't lock the input queue and could be run in separate instances of Windows so that if one crashed, you wouldn't bring the others down. If you opened a command prompt you could do multi-taskey things like format a disk and print something at the same time. The trick was you had to use the command line format and not the pretty GUI one.
Ah IBM. Always reaching for awesome and always falling just a little bit short. The problem with them was they viewed the PC line as toys. You didn't use a PC to multitask. You used it as a dumb terminal to a mainframe. If you wanted to multitask, you dropped 5 digits on an AIX machine. Shitty CDE gui and all. I discovered Linux shortly before they announced they were killing OS/2, and Linux was really what I wanted anyway -- UNIX on my PC without having to pay SCO several thousand dollars for the OS (Which was something like $1200) TCP/IP (Which IIRC they wanted another grand for) and a goddamn C compiler.
Ahh the good ol days...
Available on floppies? (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone have a spare Disk 8? Mine is corrupted.
Re:what? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I read the headline, I checked my calendar to make sure today wasn't April 1st........
Re:Guess. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Recursion jokes never end.
Re:what? (Score:5, Funny)
Only infinite resursion jokes never end.
Re:what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it's funny?
And it really is. People have been cracking jokes for ages and it's nice to see it official. I like it when real projects are run by real people complete with sense of humour.
Re:what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Lest we forget... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you used the Windows calculator[*], then the result of the calculation 3.11 - 3.1 would give zero, exactly. MS initially claimed it was just a display bug, but backed down later, and even fixed it after 10 years or so (Win 95). Even if you multiplied it by 1000 it still remained zero. With linux, the difference 3.11 - 3.1 is likely a tad larger.
[*] All Windows versions from Win 386 to WfWg 3.11, and possibly earlier but I did not check with Windows 1 or Windows 286. It even did this in WinOS2 (OS/2 versions 2.x, 3, and 4) and was touted as proof that WinOS2 used the same source code as Windows; it even had the same bugs.
Re: (Score:3)
The MIRACLE of legacy .DLL code!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because it's funny?
And it really is. People have been cracking jokes for ages and it's nice to see it official. I like it when real projects are run by real people complete with sense of humour.
Actually, I get concerned when projects/products come from people without humor. Because my experience is that the more "serious" they are, the lower the quality of what they deliver.
Even stodgy old IBM's best products seemed to come accompanied by technical docs written with geek quotes in them.
Re: (Score:3)
How about decades of programming in various environments with blatant differences in quality based on work ethic. FYI there's a fuckton of information and research on this.
Brilliant!.
Your statement fits the bill perfectly: random off the top of your head examples cherry picked at random from unverifiable sources.
Well played sir! Well played.
And posting as AC to boot. Bonus points for style!
Well, if you want specific examples, one of the items I was specifically thinking of the time was the IBM VSAM program logic manual circa 198x. Or do you have to have the actual IBM SCXX publication order code before you'll be satisfied? Prime Computer did some very entertaining documentation as well - being based in Massachusetts, they liked to spike their docs with references to HP Lovecraft's New England and Miskatonic University. The Commodore Amiga group had a lot of run as well. I have an A1000 comput
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why ? Because Linus has a sense of humor. Remember it was Microsoft that gave Linus a lot of grief in years past. This is just Linus having a little fun at Microsoft's expense. Also, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 was the first truly good consumer level version of Windows.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 was the first truly good consumer level version of Windows.
I hope this does not mean that Linux is only 20 years behind Windows...
It is not. More people run Linux than ever, even if they don't really know it (think Android for example).
Re:what? (Score:4, Interesting)
There are some uncomfortable comparisons here -
Much like Windows 3.11 the GUI in GUN/Linux isn't a core part of the OS - but a graphics server with window managers on top and all the real work being done by the OS under the manager.
On that note - has anyone ported Progman.exe to X? Would running Wine as the Window manager and Progman as the program count?
Re:what? (Score:5, Funny)
Is that the NRA distribution?
Re:what? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
You get to keep a little more privacy than with the NSA version
Re: (Score:3)
That is true, but the similarity doesn't go much further than that. If you look at the capabilities of the OS underneath, there is a major difference between Linux and DOS. (Even to this day some of the limitations inherited from DOS are still found in modern Windows versions. The last Windows user I came across wasn't able t
Re:what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why uncomfortable? Keeping the GUI out of the kernel is the right thing to do. It's one of the reasons Linux has a better reputation for security and stability than Windows.
Re: (Score:3)
...*crickets chirping*
Hello? Anyone there?
Re:what? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
There are some uncomfortable comparisons here -
Much like Windows 3.11 the GUI in GUN/Linux isn't a core part of the OS - but a graphics server with window managers on top and all the real work being done by the OS under the manager.
So in NT-based versions of Windows, how much work (if any) would it take to have it boot up with a 25x80 console accepting cmd.exe-style (or PowerShell-style?) commands and no GUI? I.e., to what extent are there any OSes where the GUI is a "core part of the OS" in whatever sense is meant by that? (If you think you have such an OS, try logging in as ">console" first. :-))
Re:what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you heard of Windows Server Core? It's almost console mode, since it boots you to a command prompt window with available GUI for applications like Notepad. I guess they accepted the fact that all the commonly-available monitors are at least SVGA-compatible by now, and built it accordingly.
Re:what? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Also the second-last, counting XP.
( :trollface: )
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No. Windows actually seems to follow the Star Trek Movie approach and it has been quite uncanny. Every other MAJOR release has some merits.
Win 3.11 good
Win 95 bad
Win 98 good
Win me bad (yes, I know win 2000 pro is missing from this list but at the time it was expensive and most were burned with win me)
Win xp good
Win vista (the worst)
Win 7 good
Win 8 bad
Re:what? (Score:5, Insightful)
For people unfamiliar with Linux, but familiar with Windows, this is exactly what they take out of this:
No, that's ridiculous. To most people outside the tech world Windows 3.11 for Workgroups is at most a very distant memory and probably something utterly unknown.
This is definitely a symptom of the Linux mindset: they don't care (or don't understand) that they need to keep it simple and explicit if they want to get out of the niche and reach the larger crowd of potential customers.
Keep what simple? It's a kernel. The only people who care about the kernel are distro maintainers, system administrators and hackers. Anyone else will at most see "Ununtu Various Vertibrates" or even less, "Android".
It's the reason development doesn't talk directly to customers
No one is a customer of the kernel development team.
And finally, I do not want to live in a world or community so ruled by corporate blandness that anything vaguely amusing is excised from life entirely. Thankfully the F/OSS community hasn't suffered from that.
Re: (Score:2)
No one is a customer of the kernel development team.
And the line where you show that you utterly fail to get it.
Re:what? (Score:5, Insightful)
No sorry, we don't wish to appease humorless morons.
Re:what? (Score:4, Insightful)
While not strictly a developer, I am doing technical stuff (statistics, reporting, Business Intelligence). My customers are sometimes needing explanations and I simply can't make those explanations simple enough, because my behavior is defined by how much I understand and know in this area.
The gap between purely technical and layman language is what prompted the creation and large scale adoption of high level programming languages, for example. It's easier to (generally) work in C than ASM, and easier to (generally) work in WYSIWYG HTML editors (e.g. Dreamweaver) than in lathe HTML text filed directly.
I learned to value a "middleman" which can talk to both customers and developers and provide the link between them without pissing all off. Jokingly, I call them "human code interpreters". But I value them as such.
Re: (Score:3)
oh my god... I didn't even click onto the 3.11 thing.... of course!
But, all those rating my original post as a troll.. wtf, I was really asking why, I had a proper woosh moment. And even then, how the hell could the words "What? Why?" be construed as trolling.
ooh! so it now has SOCKETS! (Score:2)
magic, we can install that Web thing in Linux now! I can dig this! does it allow me to use two modems to get 96K speed?
Re:ooh! so it now has SOCKETS! (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
btw. Why was that a Troll ?
Re:Linus has jumped the shark (Score:5, Insightful)
The term "Jumped The Shark" has jumped the shark as well.
Re: (Score:2)
The first time it was used in a post on the web.
yo dawg, I heard you like jumping sharks... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's now 'nuked the fridge'.
Only old farts (like me) have even heard of 'Happy Days'.
Re: (Score:2)
Nah it's "butthurt" which itself may already be butthurt.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Can't possibly be true (Score:5, Insightful)
its not windows envy it a joke. loosen up man
Re:Can't possibly be true (Score:5, Informative)
Considering it's open source, it's not terribly difficult to verify the veracity of the article.
https://www.kernel.org/diff/diffview.cgi?file=%2Fpub%2Flinux%2Fkernel%2Fv3.x%2Ftesting%2Fpatch-3.11-rc1.xz;z=367 [kernel.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The previous name was "Unicycling Gorilla".
It's not like they were going for the business corporate naming scheme anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
they're too stupid to realize it's not technically the exact logo from 3.11
It is the same, just flipped horizontally. Colors in the same order and everything.
Re: (Score:2)
It's really unprofessional to pull something like this. A few admins will laugh at it, but for those of us in Serious Business (TM) it's not very funny.
I have to agree. If I suddenly came across that logo I might think that the machine is compromised by some script kiddies.
Also freaked out a bit when GROMACS (molecular dynamics package used by Folding@Home) started to display those random "Good ROcking Metal Altar for Chronical Sinners" messages every time it started the simulation.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)