

Happy 20th birthday, Linux - jfruh
http://www.itworld.com/it-managementstrategy/197157/small-poll-my-new-operating-system

======
danieldk
It has been a fun ride!

I started using Linux in 1994 when I was twelve with Slackware Linux. I
remember having long fights with my younger brother about how to divide a 40MB
hard disk between Linux and MS-DOS (for games).

It is important to remember how Linux and the BSDs made it possible for a
whole generation of tech enthusiasts to educate themselves. At that age, I
could not afford to buy a compiler or books as means of getting sample source
code. Linux and BSD gave us free compilers, source code from the masters'
hands to study, and generally a fun system to tinker with. I can not image
being where I am now without that ecosystem.

I hope that future generations will be as fortunate to have these
possibilities.

~~~
trafficlight
At 12 years old, how did you end up finding out about it so early?

~~~
pointyhat
We did have the Internet and dial ups back then you know...

...back when usenet and gopher were king and you could telnet places still...

...and spam was about new Sun Sparc equipment.

Wish I could get back my SS2 with Wietek CPU and 2x 200Mb disks running SunOS4
:)

~~~
danieldk
Most people in the Netherlands didn't, where the then telco state monopoly
charged 25 guilder cents per minute for calls.

~~~
pointyhat
Ouch that is really expensive. Was approx 1/8 of that in the UK at the same
time with our state monopoly (BT)

------
indrora
I got my first taste of Linux in the late 90's. That taste? RedHat and Debian.
I was, oh about, 8..9 or so.

I initially played with linux only as a luzer -- I would go up to a friend's
place for parties but more accurately to sit in the "commanders seat' -- In a
ring of 3..4 monitors. Being a kid, I was enthralled. The friend? Hugh Daniel
of the FreeSWAN project (Thanks for the keyfobs, Hugh.)

Then I got a copy of RedHat 6. I used it with an old dilapidated win95 box we
had after a move. During the move, we had gotten new laptops, so this one I
took over as the nerd child.

I found Mandrake. I dont remember what version -- It was around 2002 or so. It
had instructions for dual-booting Windows XP in the manual.

I played with linux until I actually didn't have a choice: I had a machine I
couldn't run Windows on at all. I was using Ubuntu 6.06 LTS and the machine
was an Alienware computer that wouldn't boot windows right. It had a bad IRQ
line from a car crash being pulled low.

Since then I've used Arch, DamnSmall, Debian, Ubuntu, Suse/OpenSUSE and even
TInyCore. I've done kernel rebuilds and written countless lines of shell. I've
run Linux on Dingoo`s, Zaurii, even SBCs. I've worked with printers that run
BSD on the inside (NetBSD) and on servers with hundreds of gigabytes of space.
I have done things that Windows would cry over. I have mastered my world's
machines with Linux, as well as its friends.

Cheers, Linus.

------
klutometis
Looking back at Linus' original email, I find it interesting that there's a
"Summary" header in addition to "Subject:"

    
    
      > Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
      > Summary: small poll for my new operating system
    

RFC 5322 [1] doesn't have anything to say about a summary header, so maybe it
was an invention of Linus'.

[1] <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322#section-3.6>

------
cpeterso
Is Linux a repeatable phenomenon? Is there a college student _today_ whose
hobby OS can snowball into such a dominant technology? If Linux started in
2011, I wonder what design decisions would have Linus made differently.

The Innovator's Dilemma suggests that a disruptive technology replace a
dominant standard by working bottom-up: specialize in a corner of the market
that is too small or unprofitable to be of interest to the dominant player,
then add "cheap but good enough" features.

The economics of Linux might bend some of the Innovator's Dilemma assumptions,
but it does seem like Linux is losing its focus as it tries to support servers
and desktops and embedded devices. Perhaps a smaller, less capable kernel
could capture some super-low-end devices (like cheap mobile devices or home
automation).

~~~
eru
I guess Linux will be hard to repeat, exactly because it is so successful.
There's simply no similar itch left to scratch for hobbyists. There are still
people writing general operating system kernels from scratch, but they are not
driven by the lack of a decent free general operating system.

Linux lacks in real-time features. That could be an angle to get in a new
operating systems.

There's a saying that Unix stopped serious research into operating systems.
Whenever somebody writes a new system nowadays, one of the first things they
port is the Unix infrastructure.

------
dave1010uk
My first memory of Linux was when I was about 12. My 486 wasn't fast enough to
play MP3s in Windows. Previously, if I wanted to listen to a song, I would
convert it to a WAV on our family Pentium 75, split it into 1.4MB chunks and
copy it via ~15 floppy disks onto my PC.

I installed RedHat 5 (from a PC mag CD). RedHat came with a commandline MP3
player (called mpg123) that would decode and play MP3s on my 486. This meant
it only took 2 or 3 floppy disks to copy a MP3 I'd downloaded from our family
PC's 14.4kb/s net connection.

Today, my phone runs Linux (Maemo), my work PC runs Linux (Ubuntu), my laptop
& our TV run Linux (Ubuntu), our router & NAS run Linux (some kind of Debian).
Our next car is likely to run Linux and so might our fridge. Thanks Linus!

------
stillinbeta
The kernel is literally a day older than I am, and I use it every day. I wish
I'd accomplished nearly as much as it had.

~~~
ConstantineXVI
Start hacking on the kernel, maybe you will :).

------
fcambus
Today, we are celebrating 20 years of Linux, listening to the kernel :
<http://www.linux.fm>

------
trocker
woohoo! Linux! A couple of years back,when I was still in School, I was so
darn scared to even touch linux. The reason being, I used to write "Hello
World" type of programs and I'd be so so restless if I was asked to work on
anything other than windows Turbo C++ . I now know how much power - raw
computing gives.. Linux, Happy Birthday, its all cuz of you :)

------
saw-lau
I thought this quote was interesting: 'helped keep Linux together and defy the
trend for forking and fractionalization' when compared with images like this
regarding the numerous distributions:

[http://files.cyberciti.biz/uploads/tips/2007/06/44218-linuxd...](http://files.cyberciti.biz/uploads/tips/2007/06/44218-linuxdistrotimeline-7.2.png)

DISCLAIMER: I've never used Linux, partly because of the above ('which one
should I pick?'). Also, I'm not trolling here, but would welcome the
opportunity to understand why (to a newcomer at least) there seem to be so
many variations to choose from.

~~~
danieldk
It is not that much of a problem, since 95% of the people probably use one of
the top-5 distributions. If we go by Distrowatch's popularity, those are
Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Debian, and openSUSE. Two those are derived directly or
indirectly from Debian (Ubuntu and Mint). So, three of the five are virtually
the same, except that Ubuntu and Mint are more focused on user-friendliness.

The more serious problem is the immense amount of resources that are wasted on
developing multiple desktops, photo editors, photo managers, music players,
chat clients, etc.

Some people will say that competition is good, but if you have that tiny
market share, I think it would be better to focus on the overall experience.

~~~
jacquesm
> if you have that tiny market share, I think it would be better to focus on
> the overall experience.

If there is _one_ lesson to be taken from the Apple saga that would be the one
I'd pick.

------
slowpoke
While I have only discovered the awesomeness that is GNU/Linux approximately a
year ago, I feel at home like it's been forever.

Happy birthday, Linux, and cheers to the best kernel in the world!

------
linuxhansl
Heh. I remember using the Linux Kernel 0.99pl13.

I was working at DEC then and I remember writing a batch job that would
download the the SLS (and later Slackware) distribution floppy images and
store them on one of our VAX machines, so that I could copy them onto floppies
the next day in order to take them home.

Ah fun times.

------
omouse
_waiting for them to say Happy Birthday GNU..._

------
zer0point
Didn't realize it has been 20 years already :/

------
pointyhat
Now I feel old. I've used Debian since 1.2.

~~~
ghostDancer
Same here, and i remember having to compile the kernel to version 1.3 so i
could use the special driver my cdrom used because the controller was
propietary , well the "standard" those days for cdrom were or SCSI or the
soundblaster cdrom controller.

~~~
pointyhat
Ha I remember them. Horrid things slapped on the end of the card. Sort of
worked.

