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: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?
This is Awesome! Linus gives a nod to Windows 3.11 (Score:0, Interesting)
This is Awesome!
Linus gives a nod to Windows 3.11 with a sense of humor . This will create some buzz in the open sauce world. I thought it was pretty clever, too bad no one else did. I just wonder how Emballmer will react os...er I mean react to this. Another chair gets thrown in Redmond? The MSFT legal team files suit against Linus? Or maybe Ballmer will laugh it off and actually thank Linus for this tribute? Laughter is much needed in Redmond now!
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: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:But will Microsoft sue? (Score:3, Interesting)