Linus on Linux's 25th Birthday (zdnet.com) 110
The creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds, posted his famous message announcing Linux on August 25, 1991, claiming that it was "just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu." ZDNet's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols caught up with Linus Torvalds and talked about Linux's origins in a series of interviews: "SJVN: What's Linux real birthday? You're the proud papa, when do you think it was? When you sent out the newsgroup post to the Minix newsgroup on August 25, 1991? When you sent out the 0.01 release to a few friends?
LT: I think both of them are valid birthdays. The first newsgroup post is more public (August 25), and you can find it with headers giving date and time and everything. In contrast, I don't think the 0.01 release was ever announced in any public setting (only in private to a few people who had shown interest, and I don't think any of those emails survived). These days the way to find the 0.01 date (September 17) is to go and look at the dates of the files in the tar-file that still remains. So, both of them work for me. Or either. And, by the way, some people will argue for yet other days. For example, the earliest public semi-mention of Linux was July 3: that was the first time I asked for some POSIX docs publicly on the minix newsgroup and mentioned I was working on a project (but didn't name it). And at the other end, October 5 was the first time I actually publicly announced a Linux version: 'version 0.02 (+1 (very small) patch already).' So you might have to buy four cakes if you want to cover all the eventualities." Vaughan-Nichols goes on to pick Linus' brain about what he was doing when he created Linux. In honor of Linux's 25th birthday today, let's all sing happy birthday... 1... 2... 3...
LT: I think both of them are valid birthdays. The first newsgroup post is more public (August 25), and you can find it with headers giving date and time and everything. In contrast, I don't think the 0.01 release was ever announced in any public setting (only in private to a few people who had shown interest, and I don't think any of those emails survived). These days the way to find the 0.01 date (September 17) is to go and look at the dates of the files in the tar-file that still remains. So, both of them work for me. Or either. And, by the way, some people will argue for yet other days. For example, the earliest public semi-mention of Linux was July 3: that was the first time I asked for some POSIX docs publicly on the minix newsgroup and mentioned I was working on a project (but didn't name it). And at the other end, October 5 was the first time I actually publicly announced a Linux version: 'version 0.02 (+1 (very small) patch already).' So you might have to buy four cakes if you want to cover all the eventualities." Vaughan-Nichols goes on to pick Linus' brain about what he was doing when he created Linux. In honor of Linux's 25th birthday today, let's all sing happy birthday... 1... 2... 3...
Re: Meh (Score:3, Informative)
Android is certainly not GNU, just based on Linux.
Android hosted on Linux, not based on Linux (Score:3)
Android is certainly not GNU, just based on Linux.
It would be more accurate to say that Android is hosted on Linux not based on Linux. Android is in no way a Linux derivative. Android is essentially its own operating system (Java based API) and the majority of Android app developers never even see anything Linux. Android is not a Java wrapper for Linux, its something entirely different. As for users, they certainly never see anything Linux and few are probably even aware its there.
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I'd like to inform you that Linux is used ...
And how Linux is used in Android is that it hosts Android. Android is not "based on" Linux. Android is something very different. CentOS is based on Red Hat, Ubuntu is based on Debian, etc.
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agreed: "OS X is not Unix, just based on BSD."
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No. First you have to have an actual goal in order to fail.
Just wanted to say "thank you" (Score:5, Insightful)
Just wanted to say "thank you" to both Linus and GNU for giving me a system that I can appreciate, grow with, and live with. And slashdot too, for a forum to celebrate it on (I remember when they created the logins, the moderation, and the meta.....)
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Why? It's a piece of shit. The NT kernel will always be better in both design and in function.
Someone has a weak command prompt!
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Shall we even start with network performance with Netbeui?
I remember trying to transfer files with that. Matter of fact, I think that 1k file from 1997 is still transferring, let me jump in a Tardis and check...
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Well I must be using some alien version of Windows. I just created 100,000 threads on Windows as I'm typing this comment. Seems to work just fine.
http://imgur.com/a/sBK5M [imgur.com]
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Post the iso of the version you are using so we can verify.
Oh wait; you aren't allowed to.
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I don't have an ISO because this is an upgraded system from Win8. I don't know what your point is, or if you even have one. But it doesn't take a genius to disprove the GP's absurd claims. If you understand basic OS architecture, you'd know that the hard limit on the number of threads is the size of the stack (approximately, because you have other associated bookkeeping data structuresm but they are usually very tiny) , which ultimately means you're limited by the physical memory, paged pool and virtual mem
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Re: Just wanted to say "thank you" (Score:1)
Cool I can have stuff that will never work on Linux rather than stuff that won't work until there's a fix in a few weeks.
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Just wanted to say "thank you" to both Linus and GNU for giving me a system that I can appreciate, grow with, and live with.
Hear! Hear! A fine alternative to the update tyranny of an OS that shall not be named!
*thump*thump* "Is this thing on?" (Score:2)
*ahem*
"Feliz, feliz en tu dia,
Amiguito que dios te bendiga,
Que te pase un camion por encima,
Y QUE CUMPLAS MUCHOS MAS!!!"
It's Puerto Rican for Happy Birthday. We kinda have a gallows humor down there ;o)
But seriously, yes, Happy Birthday, Linux, it was you who sent me down the professional IT path. Before that, it was just tinkering. Oh who am I kidding I'm still tinkering XD
Happy Birthday! (Score:4, Funny)
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday
Now you've reached the age you are
your demise can not be far
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday
Doom and Gloom and dark despair
Death and dying everywhere
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday
cities burning in your wake
burn like candles on your cake
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday
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(sung in a monotone dirge) Happy Birthday
...
Happy Birthday
Now you've reached the age you are
your demise can not be far
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday
Doom and Gloom and dark despair
Death and dying everywhere
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday
cities burning in your wake
burn like candles on your cake
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday
Jeez, I'll pay the copyright to Warner/Chappell for the other song... even though I don't have to...
On the up side you could use the song above to end the practice of food servers singing to people in restaurants!
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it's not my fault
google it. there are 20 or so verses
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And you run and you run to catch up with the sun
But it's sinking
Racing around, to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way
But you're older
Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death
Re: Happy Birthday! (Score:1)
Maybe Roger Waters wrote both.
Happy Birthday Linux, immortal operating system, never to die.
None of Linux's choice quotes? (Score:5, Insightful)
25 years and they couldn't even include some of the best quotes by Linus over the years?
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/... [wikiquote.org]
* Only wimps use tape backup: real men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it ;)
* If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won.
* In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people.
* My name is Linus Torvalds and I am your god.
* Dijkstra probably hates me.
* This is why we don't compile with "-W". Gcc is crap
* GCC 4.9.0 Seems To Be Terminally Broken
* (the spill is insane, btw, since it's spilling a constant value!)
No mention of how Linux used to be stuck with gcc 2.7.2 for years until egcs became stable?
Pfft, kids. :-)
Re: None of Linux's choice quotes? (Score:2)
"If Darl McBride was in charge, he'd probably make marriage
unconstitutional too, since clearly it de-emphasizes the
commercial nature of normal human interaction, and probably
is a major impediment to the commercial growth of prostitution."
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So why isn't Darl running for president? I would vote for legalizing prostitution.
Because everyone on slashdot hates him!
Darl was the CEO of SCO. You should be old enough to remember the SCO vs IBM debacle (too old?).
One of his more amusing claims was that the GPL is unconstitutional because communists or something
like that, which led to Linus stating the above.
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Then again, Carly ran for the Republican nomination and has very few fans on here.
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Looks like he won [visualstudio.com].
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/whoosh
Your humor detector is broken. It's all in good fun.
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If you can't tell the difference between jealousy and admiration, then you're a very fucked-up individual and I feel badly on your account.
Copyright (Score:1)
We should be singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" considering the copyright status of "Happy Birthday" puts it off-message.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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and I believe the copyright status of "Happy Birthday" was deemed invalid, due to prior art. free to use and abuse.
doesn't it just suck when the old song you acquired rights to happens to be documentably older than the copyright date you have.
No, let's all sing (Score:2)
"DMCA Takedown Notice".
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I'm thinking that a chorus of Slashdotters sounds like Vogon poetry:
Happy Birthday to you,
You live in a zoo,
You look like a monkey,
And you smell like one too!
Personal Disclaimer: I sang in the church choir from when I was old enough to walk up until I went off to a university. I was not religious, but sang in the choir, because that was a requirement to be in the Whitechapel Handbell choir. Now, handbells are a hoot and a half, and if you have never tried it, put it on your bucket list!
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But it is public domain now: https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]"happy+birthday"+"public+domain"
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Not like GNU (Score:4, Insightful)
"just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu"
Which is funny, since there are likely more devices running Linux now than GNU/Linux, thanks to Android.
birthdayd (Score:5, Funny)
Birthdays are now handled by birthdayd and candles on celebration cakes must be arranged in binary.
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Aren't birthdays handled by systemd these days? ~
The famous post for those inclined.... (Score:5, Informative)
For me I didn't start in 1991. I hopped on NeXt in college in 1993, then threw slackware on a couple boxes in 1994/95. I hate being late to the party... almost as much as I hated downloading slack floppy sets of 56k ISDN
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... I hate being late to the party... almost as much as I hated downloading slack floppy sets of 56k ISDN
56k? Luxury! I had to download the download the entire distribution (source code included) on a 2400bps modem, write a utility to split the files into 720k chunks, because my family couldn't afford HD floppies and write everything to the floppies by hand.
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SJVN? (Score:2)
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, here's an advice for you. When you go over 3 initials, maybe it's time to take a cue from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Days Saints and pick the 3 most significant letters (LDS) as your usual initials.
Re:Congrats Linus (Score:4, Insightful)
Related: here's why the University of Chicago is one of my favorite universities I never attended:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-university-of-chicago-safe-spaces-letter-met-20160825-story.html
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"It is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive," the report states. "Although the University greatly values civility, and although all members of the University community share in the responsibility for maintaining a climate of mutual respect, concerns about civility and mutual respect can never be used as a justification for closing off discussion of ideas, however offensive or disagreeable th
Re: Congrats Linus (Score:1)
It sounds like you were a loaded weapon ready to pop off that response if and when anybody brought the off-topic up in a thread here.
Well done!
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Trigger warnings: You know the bit at the start of the TV show where they say "viewer discretion advised, contains flashing images and scenes of a violent nature"? That's what they want to block, the thing that warns people with epilepsy that they might be triggered, and that people like soldiers suffering from PTSD might want to avoid it. They say they won't support lecturers saying "we are going to look at photos of soldiers who lost limbs today", because... screw vets trying to get an education?
I am in a
Re: Congrats Linus (Score:2, Informative)
You know very well that that isn't what trigger warnings and safe spaces are used for. They're used to silence dissenting voices and create one dimensional echo chambers. Besides, calling a guy who was raped (which rad fems wouldn't give a shit about anyway) a fag or a pussy would come under "a climate of mutual respect" would it?
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Either you believe in privacy and the right to have a private conversation, or you think that everyone should have to listen to you no matter what.
The former option is vital for preventing echo chambers and allowing ideas to develop. Few people give a running commentary of their thoughts, they develop them first, then start with people they trust before going public.
Is your mind a closed echo chamber?
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And what you want is that only those with the "correct" opinions are allowed to speak at all. That includes critics of certain religions, certain political viewpoints or just anyone who has wrongthink.This [independent.co.uk] is the sort of thing I'm talking about.
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You clearly know nothing about me. All religion is open to criticism, much of it from me. In fact it's often religious people telling me I can't criticise them, e.g. when they are homophobic.
I follow Mill, in that I think all ideas must be up for debate. However, if you can't state your position without doxing and organising a mob, don't expect me to listen.
Re: Congrats Linus (Score:1)
Likely, for Linux to be good, it needs to be good. How Linus is, and how he operates, determine to a large extent what Linux is. In other worlds, you need to encourage Linus to keep being himself to preserve Linux - he can't be some other politically correct moron and still achieve what he did. Just like Steve Jobs, Einstein and many ither geniuses, just learn to accept that you cannot get it both, and for good reason. Btw, I really like how Linus leads, a lot. Should be worth 75 Hardvard case studies if no
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Yeah, it's a bit sad how reality never seems to be be a good match for $ideology.
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...Steve Jobs, Einstein and many ither geniuses, ...
There is no doubt that Linus Thorvalds is clever, and he is certainly successful; likewise Steve Jobs. But comparing them to Einstein is absurd; Einstein being clever was when he invented a fridge with no moving parts (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org], it wasn't successful, incidentally). But he was far outside the league of those two, and most of the other brilliant scientists throughout history. One of his brilliant achievements was the explanation of the photoelectric effect, which won him a Nobel
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I must say Einstein was by no means perfect though or right about everything (though he was one of the greatest minds the world has ever seen, I
1: Called the cosmological constant 'his greatest blunder' but it turned out he was right all along
2: Refused to accept QE calling it 'Spooky action at a distance'
That said, when he said 2 I think he'd been boning Marilyn Monroe for a while so his
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:-) No-one's perfect, but I think Einstein's particular genius was to somehow produce a theory, that is at once mindblowing and so incredibly simple (apart from the tensor gymnastics of differential geometry); and which has turned out to be nearly perfectly bullet-proof. The other great theory, QM, is unbelievably complex and frankly unconvincing in comparison, were it not for the small matter of its astonishing success in practical terms. GR is very interesting, not least because in a sense, where SR threw
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Yes, Linus is clever, and when linux came out, it was a true revelation to all of nerdkind
I was with you up until this point. Now you need to go fuck yourself for stereotyping. Not all of "nerdkind" hails Linux as a true revelation. Hell, many of us who cut our computing teeth on Unix fucking hated Unix. Why? Because it's Unix! Oh boy, a guy created a free Unix wannabe. He's your hero, and that's great for you, but don't you dare claim that he's everyone's hero.
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Likely, for Linux to be good, it needs to be good. How Linus is, and how he operates, determine to a large extent what Linux is. In other worlds, you need to encourage Linus to keep being himself to preserve Linux - he can't be some other politically correct moron and still achieve what he did. Just like Steve Jobs, Einstein and many ither geniuses, just learn to accept that you cannot get it both, and for good reason. Btw, I really like how Linus leads, a lot. Should be worth 75 Hardvard case studies if not more.
This should be at +5 and quickly! The innovators of great note are not wired for political correctness.
Re: TECHNICALLY, THE COPIER OF MINUX (Score:5, Informative)
No. He used Minix as a tool and example. Linux is monolithic and Minix is a micro kernel. As such, one cannot be a copy of the other - not even closely related.
All of this is easily verified, including public discussions between both authors where they debate the design merits. They are not even similar operating systems.
I suspect you're trolling but the truth needs to be told. I would log in but I am not supposed to be online. But, the facts are out there. Just install both in virtual machines and then compare the two for yourself. I have...
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Security is irrelevant if nobody uses your software. In order for a microkernel to be more secure than a monolithic kernel, you need to have all the drivers be in their own process spaces, which means every device IRQ now causes a process switch. That's not remotely viable for performance reasons. So no, Linux "should" not have been designed as a microkernel. If it was, you would never have heard of it, and it would be perfectly secure ... through obscurity.
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I would log in but I am not supposed to be online.
Part of your probation?
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