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A Year of Linux 48

Posted by CmdrTaco from the has-it-been-another-year-already dept.
rar7 writes "See the whole year of Linux -- in all its many dimensions -- on one interesting and informative page!" There's a ton of stuff on this page. Amazing how much happened in the last 12 months. Anything critical missing?
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A Year of Linux More

A Year of Linux

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  • tiny mirror [dyndns.org]
    I've cut it in smaller pieces too, instead of the whole 186k html (gee...)

    Hope it helps someone...

  • ... couldn't Microsoft ask for a recount?

    Angel
  • I work as a NetWare sysadmin for a dutch government network (100% Novell shop, 2000 desktops) and last year I heard 2 or 3 coworkers/managers mention testing/implementing Linux (roughly the same attention goes to NT/2000).

    I think that although Linux constantly proves itself as one of the best web platforms around it would REALLY help if we would see MUCH more attention focussing on Linux office automation and stuff (File&Print, Windows desktop management tools, app server..)

    Although Linux can do it too, NetWare and NT are still king of the hill here. For 2001?

  • called Inside Out : Microsoft--In Our Own Words [fatbrain.com] with fascinating tid bits of trivia like, "One rule I've learned in this business is that you cannot be successful in marketing a bad product.", from Brad Chase, a brief history of Bob, and best of all, "There's a little debate that swirls endlessly out there and it goes something like this: Is Microsoft a great software company or a great marketing company? The answer, of course, is both." (TeeHee)

  • hehe

    ----------------------------
  • half a bottle of bear

    Hmm... bottled bear. I could have used some of that at my last review. Can I get it in 6-packs?

  • I say "cool beans". :-)

    None of the rest though.

    Perhaps there is a planet somewhere where all them traits you described were desirable. But you would be an oddball there just as you are here.

    I feel for you though. You have problems.

  • Re:This year Linux summary (Score:4)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Friday December 22, 2000 @05:07AM (#544064)
    > January : Linus : Sorry, folks, 2.4.0 won't be out this month ... ... ...

    You're right. Maybe we should impeach Linus and replace him with someone like Bill Gates, who says -
    Ship it by the end of the year whether it's ready or not.

    --
  • > And in the Netcraft survey, what server OS was the most popular in the longest uptimes? Yes, BSD.

    Mebe so, but since the article was asking what had been left out of the history of Linux for this year, there did not seem to be much reason to consider BSD uptimes.

    --

  • It's not just Linux either. It's the whole 'net. A few years ago, I'd type stuff into Yahoo! (the only decent search engine back then) and each search seemed like a fantastic journey into some unknown land. Sometimes the stuff on the other end truly was fantastic.

    Now it seems like I've seen everything on the 'net, even though I know that's not possible. That Springsteen song keeps coming into my head, except this time it's 57 million channels and nothing on.

  • the spindletop project [spindl3top.org] (aka the gnu cooperative, mentioned on slashdot here [slashdot.org]) should be in there.

  • MS Year in Review... (Score:3)

    by sir_nas ( 261676 ) on Friday December 22, 2000 @05:39AM (#544068) Homepage
    January: New service pack released for security problem to mspaint.exe. File Size: 5mb.
    Febuary: New service pack released to fix a security problem with the service pack to mspaint.exe. File Size: 20mb.
    March: Announced release of a new service pack for various security related issues, will be delayed.
    April: Service pack which was delayed last month, and was expected this month will be delayed again.
    May: Service pack has been released, this will fix various security related issues with mspaint.exe. File Size: 50mb.
    June: Mspaint.exe seems to have a new vulnerability in module 0x000F which will allow a remote hacker to gain administrative access on NT 4.0. File Size: 150mb.
    July: Bill Gates announced today that he is disappointed in service pack quality for the new year, he also vowed that, "...service packs in the future will be smaller, include more and better fixes, and be easier to install while requiring much less reboots during the process."
    August: Service pack for Windows ME to fix vulnerabilities in various network, and non-network applications released. File Size: 300mb.
    September: The service pack that was released was missing a very crucial dll, msfeedback.dll. Users are required to re-download this service pack. File Size: 350mb.
    October: "Apparently what had happened was a massive power surge that tripped all of our UPS's", blames Bill Gates in response to the massive Windows NT crashes that occured.
    November: Service Pack (7) has been released, for all major versions of Windows: 95/98/ME/2000 which fixes ALL security problems. File Size: 1.2gb.
    December: We laugh, because we made $2.8 billion off consumers off such "wonderful" products designed to make your life ::box crashes:: "damned Windows"...easier!
  • January : Linus : Sorry, folks, 2.4.0 won't be out this month

    Now exactly which January are you referring? ;-)

  • Ouch... LOADS of stuff happens in a year eh?!

    Well... 'nuff of that... lets ask the important question, where's next years TODO list?

    --
    Here's where I'd put a funny sig

  • ...apparently Linux will also increase your intellectual superiority! [bbspot.com]

    ----------------------------
  • I second this. The only beef I have with Linux right now (and the only reason I'm currently using Win2000) is usability. They really haven't made many strides here, despite many who claim otherwise (sorry, any window manager my grandmother has to first compile is not innately "user-friendly").

    You shouldn't have mentioned the software, though. You know you're going to get flamed brutally by the followers of Freshmeat. :)

  • Did we miss anything? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How about LNUX stock plummetting from around $180 per share down to like $8 per share?

    I'd say that's a critical bit of info missing from the timetable.

    FINALLY, it's on-topic.
  • ....hmmmm, damned apostrophies! Proper link here [bbspot.com]

    ----------------------------

  • Re:A year of Linux : Summery (Score:4)

    by MartinG ( 52587 ) on Friday December 22, 2000 @01:09AM (#544075) Homepage Journal
    > any window manager my grandmother has to first compile is not innately "user-friendly"

    You're absoultely right. I wouldn't use any window manager your grandmother has to compile either. I don't even know how to contact her to do it, and in any case she probably wants to be doing her own compiles, not mine.
  • Yes, The Dynasty of Windows brought to you by those proud makers of Windows, Microsoft, who are completely unbiased and would never, ever manipulate you into believing that their OS is not the end all, be all of OS'es out there.

    What the heck, a little more sarcasm never hurt.

    Kierthos
  • "Summery" is about when we'll get version 2.4 of the kernel!!

    (I think Summary was the word you were looking for)

    Actually I must say that the parent post had a great deal of true words spoken in jest. I hope next year is the year that Linux becomes easy to use for everyone, especially as I said in many posts to /. that 2001 would be when Linux would become competitive with Windows in terms of user friendliness, visual and application quality. I'd like to know whether I was right or whether I'm going to have to say 'just wait till 2002!'....
  • Still not made it to version 2.4 of the kernel

    C'mon! Everyone knows this is the fault of Microsoft's army of evil monkeys! [bbspot.com]

    ----------------------------
  • Some of them will always apply...

    * Still not made it to version 2.4 of the kernel

    Hopefully that one will be false.

    * Seen some amazing infighting between [Gnome & Kde | Mozilla lovers & Mozilla Haters | Everyone else]

    _Who_ is fighting may change, but there will always be people who argue publically. That's just human nature.

    * Still not become much easier to use, dispite promises to the contrary by [Redhat | SuSe | Corel | Linus | Alan Cox | Everyone ]

    Well, surely *something* has become easier for somebody, and I suspect that will be true next year as well. X configuration?

    * Gained market share. Well, we think it has. We're still trying to count everyone...

    We will never be able to count market share accurately for Linux, so this will be true until we start believing the share shrinks.

    * Gained some really great software. At least, it will once it gets out of [beta | alpha | pre-alpha | planing | the mailing list ]

    I'm sure some has left it. Xfree86 4.0 for example. The same will be true next year, some software will be released, a lot will be vapour.

  • depends on how you set your filters, you know...

  • It's over.. (Score:4)

    by update() ( 217397 ) on Friday December 22, 2000 @06:10AM (#544081) Homepage
    I agree with Andrew Leonard [salonmag.com]:

    As the year 2000 limps to a close, the days when Slashdot's name was at the tip of every tech pundit's tongue, and Linux's rise to world domination seemed a foregone conclusion, are suddenly long gone. The prominence of free software in the tech and financial press has sharply declined. I mean, you know the buzz is fading fast when media outlets become so bored that they can't even muster the energy to harp on the declining stock prices of Linux companies. Sure, the dot-com downturn is responsible for a lot of the deflation, as is the normal news cycle that treats yesterday's news as, well, yesterday's news, but was it really only a year ago that VA Linux was breaking all records for IPO debuts?

    Linux as an adventure is coming to an end. That doesn't mean things won't continue to get better and better but the excitement of the last few years is gone. You can feel it on the web sites - Slashdot is shrinking back to its pre-post--Columbine size, except for flamebait articles about the election and such, and discussion areas on other sites (advogato, Linux Today) are empty.

    Partly it's that the rush of new people juming aboard has slowed. You can only have the same "Oh yeah? Well, according to RMS, ESR says the GPL..." discussion so many times.

    And there's nothing really new around the corner. Since I've been using Linux, there's always been some exciting new development to look forward to. Either software (KDE, the 2.0 kernel, glibc, Mozilla, Gnome) or political (IPO's, 'letters', squabbling egomaniacs). Now Gnome is running stably, KDE 2.0 is out, Mozilla and the 2.4 kernel will slink in the door like teenagers out after curfew. At least for me, the only thing I'm eager to see is Evolution. (Nautilus? Yawn.)

    Basically, the 'world domination' stuff is over. Linux has settled into its niche - a major chunk of the server market and a desktop share that's too small to support boxed Quake releases or a commercial office suite.

    Now if that doesn't get Slashdot some more page views... ;-)

  • > sorry, any window manager my grandmother has to first compile is not innately "user-friendly"

    And that would be? I've got Blackbox, Sawfish, WindowMaker, fvwm, plus both the GNOME & KDE environments, none of them compiled by me. Every distro I know of comes with them.

    Maybe you should check out one of the following:
    Red Hat
    Mandrake
    SuSE
    TurboLinux
    Debian
    Stormix
    Progeny
    any of about 200 others.

  • Reading through all that has happened, I can only praise the linux community for its acheivements. The sheer length of the site simply shows how busy it's been, and how the advancement is escalating at a rate of knots. There have been delays, set backs etc, but certainly it has been a wonderful year with so much happening, and a much larger shift to the open source approach, which can only be highly praised.
    I think a congratulations is in order for all those who have contributed to the development of all things Linux related over the past year.
  • Well, it looks like you've got some coding to do.
  • I just spilled half a bottle of bear over my keyboard ... You bastard! ;)

    That was one of the funniest posts I've ever read on /. Thank you!

    tom

    --

  • Re:Linux in serverspace. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    And in the Netcraft survey, what server OS was the most popular in the longest uptimes? Yes, BSD.

    Maybe Linux's new years resolution should be to be more like BSD.
  • Let's sum it all up: Hype, CNN, a couple of confusing upgrades, insecure jerks raving on about it, a bunch of companies trying to make money off it (ha! good luck). Nobody's really using it... Hmmmm... Guess nobody noticed. Oh well. I'm glad Linux had such a great year. I'm going to go out to the break room, grab a cup of coffee, get into tool mode, and help hype it up just a bit more.
  • No. Virgin.net, a smaller UK national ISP who are practically NTL under another name.

    I went with them as they were one of the first in the UK to support USR 56K modems. I need to reflash my modem, but I can't find an upgrade for my model, which is one of the UK specific ones. We have problems getting modems approved, and we have to use UK specific models (basically we connect to the phone line by induction instead of directly).

  • This page reads more like an opensource list. All they left out was the *bsds. I mean, OpenSSH isn't "Linux". Yes it works on it, but it isn't "Linux". There were some other things on there that I'm to bored to recall... - Guyver3

  • The year in review (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They forgot to include the part where VA stole the idea for sourceforge away from a volunteer project and tried to make it look like they came up with it
  • Something that I consider very important was left out: ReiserFS [devlinux.com]. This year the filesystem really came into its own, and is shipping with both Linux Mandrake and SuSE Linux. It's by far the most mature of the journaling filesystems available, including XFS, JFS, and Tux2. It's also scheduled for inclusion in kernel 2.4.1. Surely this was accidentally left out? Just because it's commercially funded doesn't mean it's a bad product, and it is certainly GPLed.

  • Funny -- I have been running 2.4.0-testX (2-12) and I have a feeling that 2.4.0-final will not change my life a whole lot.....(BTW -- my system seems to like 2.4.0-test4....thats a good vintage.)

    Needless to say -- since everything seems to be working great on my systems, the actual release will be anti-climatic. BTW -- Resierfs has been on my system for a while also.
    You have got to like the fact that an "official" release in the linux world is mearly a formality.

  • I noticed the momentum to move Linux away from the user interface and into the background infrastructure of the internet and embedded systems. The trend was to get users as far away from the Linux interface as possible. Part of the problem is current users were brought up on the GUI and don't have the inherent thought process of past users who grew up on the command line. As fewer and fewer people are able to use the Linux interface it's going to be more important in background infrastructure.
  • It's a beautiful thing.

  • A year of Linux : Summery (Score:5)

    by Vanders ( 110092 ) on Friday December 22, 2000 @12:41AM (#544095) Homepage
    This year, Linux has:

    • Still not made it to version 2.4 of the kernel
    • Seen some amazing infighting between [Gnome & Kde | Mozilla lovers & Mozilla Haters | Everyone else]
    • Still not become much easier to use, dispite promises to the contrary by [Redhat | SuSe | Corel | Linus | Alan Cox | Everyone ]
    • Gained market share. Well, we think it has. We're still trying to count everyone...
    • Gained some really great software. At least, it will once it gets out of [beta | alpha | pre-alpha | planing | the mailing list ]
    Wow. What a year! Just wait until next year, when, um, all the above may still apply actually...

    Note for humour impaired. This is a joke! Well, some of it may have a point, but thats for you to decide

  • Oh man oh man, just looking at that link made me stand up and shout, "Ouuuuch!"


    I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "I drank what?"

  • Scary (Score:1)

    by cvore ( 178992 )
    The site is so large it actually takes realy long time for me to load it on my 33.6 modem.. If the Linux team is going to keep this up, we'r going to see some realy cool changes around.. IBM announces plans to invest $1 billion in Linux in 2001 -- Its not all that long time ago that no comercial companies belived in the linux project.. It is not only a victory for linux that it is going so well, but all free software.
  • Yes, the 3.0 kernel alphas are pretty rough. Maybe you should stick with 2.4 for now?

  • This year Linux summary (Score:4)

    by Professeur Shadoko ( 230027 ) on Friday December 22, 2000 @01:12AM (#544099)
    January : Linus : Sorry, folks, 2.4.0 won't be out this month
    February : Linus : Sorry, folks, 2.4.0 won't be out this month
    March : Linus : Sorry, folks, 2.4.0 won't be out this month
    April : Linus : Sorry, folks, 2.4.0 won't be out this month
    May : Linus : Sorry, folks, 2.4.0 won't be out this month
    June : Linus : Sorry, folks, 2.4.0 won't be out this month
    July : Linus : Sorry, folks, 2.4.0 won't be out this month
    August : Linus : Sorry, folks, 2.4.0 won't be out this month
    September : Linus : Sorry, folks, 2.4.0 won't be out this month
    October : Linus : Sorry, folks, 2.4.0 won't be out this month
    November : Linus : Sorry, folks. I just extended my family. 2.4.0 won't be out this year

  • Linux in serverspace. (Score:4)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Friday December 22, 2000 @12:46AM (#544100)
    > Anything critical missing?

    Yes. In additon to their other mentions of Netcraft surveys, they failed to remark on the Netcraft report from a few months back which reported that Linux was running 30% of all the Web servers they detected, after applying an algorithm intended to filter out ghost sites.

    That put Linux in the #1 position, edging out Microsoft's line by around 1-1/2%.

    This is a landmark event, and I regret that Netcraft has not seen fit to report the usage trends in server OS regularly.

    --
  • Yup, and not a "KDE is better! No, GNOME is!" in sight...

    Kierthos

  • Re:One more item... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Yep, put up a picture of one of my friends, and as soon as it went into circulation, I replaced her with our indomitable friend from Christmas Island. Some 200 people hit him before they pulled it. I call that a success.
  • No mention of XFree 4.0.2, which includes anti-alias support. This is going to have a significant impact on UI readability in the future. QT has already been modified, and relevant updates have gone into Debian unstable.

    I have yet to try this myself, though. I run Debian woody, but I want to dist-upgrade to sid. I only have a 56K modem, and my ISP has swapped out their modem banks, and my modem doesn't work at full speed with their new modems until I flash it to V90. I can't find any V90 flash files for my modem. It looks like I'm going to be spending this holiday period looking for flash upgrades.

  • You're on topic, but I belive you missed something while you were reading the article! :)

    Scroll to the bottom of the page, and look at the 2nd last item:

    The LWN.net Linux Stock Index falls into the 30's, as part of the general disaster in the stock market. It peaked, remember, at 199 in January.

    They even include a graph showing how the Linux stock is plummetting!!

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