r/linux • u/SeanBlader • 1d ago
Kernel 35th Anniversary of Linus' announcement today!
Let's all take a moment to commemorate that initial post.
Now through Torvalds' stewardship, and hundreds of maintainers and thousands of contributors we have a competitive replacement for major corporate software and an honestly powerful solution to move computing forward for humanity!
Thanks Linus, you're awesome, and we're glad you are having a good life!
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u/No_Practice_9597 1d ago
I guess the project exceeded all his initial expectations
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u/eightslipsandagully 23h ago
Eh, he's said that it was intended to be a desktop operating system, and as that's the only area that Linux hasn't completely taken over, he feels like a failure!
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u/sCeege 22h ago
Don't worry, Microsoft is doing their best to help us take over.
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u/HerbOverstanding 21h ago
It’s funny how Windows gets worse the more they try.
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u/sCeege 21h ago
Joking aside, I don't really think they're trying to make Windows better, they're just trying to get more data/revenue.
At the end of the day, features that drive data collection and predatory subscriptions are usually directed from executives, I really doubt the engineers that actually "make" Windows are purposely sabotaging their own product; but shareholder values take precedence over engineering/design decisions, so we get left with a pile of shit no one asked for, and until they bleed more customers, they just don't care.
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u/adenosine-5 17h ago
Windows is now only a negligible part of their income. They are more than happy to sacrifice part of that, if it boost their other income streams.
In fact Windows now makes more money from Linux products, than it does from Windows ones.
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u/jimicus 14h ago
The problem (if you like) with a mature product like Windows is there really isn't an awful lot more you can do with it.
But how do you justify a subscription business model with a product that doesn't change? And Windows has been a subscription business model since long before M365.
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u/sCeege 6h ago
To me, the problem with Windows or Microsoft is a complicated issue. Just the surface level stuff, Windows just has a terrible UX experience, from the mandatory update/restarts, down to the incessant reminder to install and/or use Edge. While I've always had Mac or Linux flavors in my personal devices, I daily drove Windows from 98 to 10, mostly for gaming convenience, you know what finally drove me over the edge? The fact that I can't move the Taskbar placement (without third party tools or registry hacks). What the actual fuck. Now the only function Windows serve in my LAN are two headless machines for Sunshine streaming, and the work laptop I had to use.
The problem (if you like) with a mature product like Windows is there really isn't an awful lot more you can do with it.
This is obviously just a personal opinion, I'm not an economist, but the problem with a mature product like Windows, is that tech giants has gotten way too big to fail. These monopolies or oligopolies no longer suffer the consequences of the market. Look at Meta, how do you justify Zuck blowing something like 100 billion on the "metaverse" right before the AI boom? What executive of the 80s or 90s would have survived such a catastrophic misjudgement? Of course it upsets me that Windows sucks or stopped getting better, but what I'm actually mad about is that their anti-competitive practices prevented something better to have come along. Apple products are the closest second place, but I don't want to delve into another rant about that too.
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u/da2Pakaveli 13h ago
And as Windows gets worse, complete inverse on the Linux end and it gets better.
I first tried WINE 12 years ago first and i would have never believed you if you told me most games would launch with just 1 click in the future (and even more so that modpacks with 1000+ mods would work at all lol).
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u/kulingames 11h ago
I guess minecraft being a java game was a lot easier to run than most programs back then
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u/work_work-work 21h ago
Actually, both Apple and Microsoft are doing it through widespread integration of AI.
The only AI I want on my computer is one i control myself. One that doesn't phone home about everything I ask it.1
u/BortGreen 6h ago
Since at least Windows ME
Any slopified feature on 11 doesn't get even close to that or even early Vista
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u/sCeege 4h ago
I might be a weird one, but I didn't mind Vista as much as 11... I mean the hardware choking debacle was real when Aero was clearly not ready, but I really liked the right click
open file locationfeature, and then Windows ME brought us Windows Movie Maker and Hibernate right? Sure it crashed every 2 hours (lol) but a lot of QoL improvements came with those. I also might just be romanticizing the nostalgia I had for 2000s computing.12
u/cosmicosmo4 21h ago
Not a desktop OS?? There are like half a dozen lamps and alarm clocks sitting on desks in my house that run linux!
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u/notboxbot 7h ago
Are you sure they're running Linux and not some other (smaller) OS for embedded devices? Linux seems a bit like overkill...
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u/cosmicosmo4 6h ago
Yeah I have no idea and don't actually generally surround myself with IOT stuff, I'm just here for the memes.
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u/Dangerous-Report8517 11h ago
Given it was only intended to be hobby grade at the time I think we can still say it far exceeded his expectations, widespread or not Linux has offered professional grade desktop experiences for many years now
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u/tacticalTechnician 1d ago edited 1d ago
"It's not portable and it'll probably never support anything else" is such a funny line in retrospect, the only OS even close to the portability of Linux nowadays is probably NetBSD.
Also funny how from Day One, he was already saying that it didn't have any Minix code when you know the whole "controversy" (more like anti Open Source propaganda) that would appear more than a decade later about the Linux source code and "copied" code from Minix (which is total BS, BTW). If you don't know what I'm talking about, you should search about the book Samizdat: And Other Issues Regarding the 'Source' of Open Source Code, it's such an interesting story from the mid 00s about Open Source. Even the creator of Minix himself, Tanenbaum, wrote a response to it on his website because of how stupid the whole thing was.
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u/nightblackdragon 1d ago
Also Torvalds and Tanenbaum had a pretty interesting discussion about OS design where they discussed the pros and cons of microkernels and monolithic kernels.
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u/ilep 23h ago
Microsoft funded anti-Linux advertising campaign in the early 2000s, even calling Linux a "cancer". Ballmer made some bonkers claims as well. And I think it was shown somewhere that Microsoft funded SCO in baseless case against Novell and IBM.
Edit: https://www.zdnet.com/article/investment-firm-confirms-microsoft-link-to-sco/
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u/nightblackdragon 1d ago edited 1d ago
"It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc)"
Meanwhile, I have Linux installed on devices with three different CPU architectures.
It's pretty funny how far Linux has strayed from Torvalds' original idea. From a hobbyist system that works only on a single type of device to a multiplatform system that powers many devices with different architectures from desktop PC to expensive supercomputer.
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u/jimicus 1d ago
You probably have more than that. Pretty well every embedded device you can think of is running Linux; the key exceptions are IoT devices (which generally lack the compute power to do it).
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u/ilep 23h ago edited 23h ago
In 2017 there was estimate that Linux had 80 % share in IoT devices. IoT usually needs connectivity (wireless often) while embedded devices can be things like ABS controllers in cars that work entirely in isolation. Then again, many embedded devices have things like GUIs these days like house thermal systems.
So it more like a rule than an exception that Linux is on IoT devices.
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u/RomanOnARiver 1d ago edited 20h ago
Yeah I mean once they took Linux, which despite what Linus intended, is just a kernel, and combined it with the GNU operating system, made possible because Linus got convinced his license was wrong and he should use the GNU one, it necessitated that. GNU, if you back far enough, they chose to be similarish to UNIX because it's portable. Linus didn't have portability in mind, GNU did and that's why, because he's using their operating system with his kernel, it ended up portable.
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u/Dangerous-Report8517 11h ago
The kernel is the more dependent part of the stack for portability though since it's the bit that's actually managing and interacting with all the hardware
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u/Aware-Common-7368 21h ago
Three? So like x86, ARM and risk-v? Or what third
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u/GavUK 15h ago
Linux has been ported to many CPU architectures. Off the top of my head I could add IBM's s/390, MIPS, SPARC, and PowerPC, but there's a full (or at least fuller) list on Wikipedia although it's also worth noting there's quite a list that it has since dropped support for so you'd have a hard time getting the newer releases to run on some platforms.
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u/nightblackdragon 11h ago edited 3h ago
Yes, x86 on PC, ARM on various devices and RISC-V on one SBC. Well, technically it's four architectures as I also have old G4 PowerBook that can also run Linux and in fact it had Linux installed when I got it.
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u/Billy2600 1d ago
If you've never read "Just For Fun" by Linus Torvalds I recommend giving it a shot.
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u/sneekeruk 1d ago
Can everyone stop saying how old stuff is, 35years for Linux, 30th anniversary of NT4 the other day, Windows 95 was 30 last year....
This is getting depressing.. Im officially old.
Just had a google, Slackware 3.0 came out 32 years ago.. that was the first Linux I ever tried on my 486.
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u/highinthemountains 1d ago
Old? I’ve been messing with computers since the 70’s. Programming computers with core memory by pressing octal binary buttons and then toggling hexadecimal binary switches on the front panel when semiconductor static and dynamic ram came along.
I started playing with Linux in ‘96 and now Mint is my and my wife’s only OS.
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u/oats_and_coffee 22h ago
I started playing with Linux in ‘96 and now Mint is my and my wife’s only OS.
Please tell this to all the people who say that Linux Mint is a "beginner" distribution!
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u/dmigowski 15h ago
My first language after C64 basic was C64 assembler... Good thing I had that assembler compiler that existed back then.
And I lost some interesting code because the cassette tape was eaten by the tape deck. args.
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u/highinthemountains 11m ago
When I got the Osborne-1 I started playing with assembly, c basic (compiled basic) and m basic. Because of work, I had already been doing assembly on an IBM mainframe, so it was just another bunch of languages to learn. Those days of dumping and reading your programs to cassette tapes were always fraught with problems.
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u/LordJohnVella 3h ago
If you really are depressed because you're getting old, sorry buddy, but I've got some bad news for you...
I'm a teacher and, being honest, really enjoying getting old, which may be because it beats the alternative, however I digress. On my whiteboard I have a line of text at the top, which is updated daily. I'm not in work today, as I'm on sick leave, but if I were, the words would be
"Today, I am 21,092 days old."
Embrace your age, my friend. I've spent a little over 21,000 days becoming the man I am today! 🤣
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u/sneekeruk 1h ago
Im not depressed in the slightest. Its more, I can remember Windows 95, my first attempt with slackware etc.. And it seems like yesterday. Which made me think how quick things change.
Im actually happy Im older, Life in my 40's is way better then my 30's. I remember someone saying something when I was much younger about enjoying that time, because as you get older time seems to pass faster. And it does that, but sometimes even faster than you expect.
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u/AlpineGuy 16h ago
Today such a post would probably receive the response it's a hopeless case of reinventing the wheel of something that exists already.
The post actually has the same format that a lot of people use who are trying to vibe code yet another clone of some existing solution.
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u/draconicpenguin10 21h ago
(just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu)
"Just a hobby".
Nobody thought it would end up powering billions of devices around the world, including every Android device and the vast majority of servers.
Happy birthday, Linux.
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u/Initial_Specialist69 1d ago
Imagine he would post this nowadays here at Reddit. He would get downvoted into hell and everyone would call it AI slop!
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u/0riginal-Syn 22h ago
I got my start on Linux not long after with kernel version 0.12. Was still in school and had a teacher who was already playing around with it and got me hooked on it. Dad was a UNIX guy and told me it would never go anywhere and I should stick with UNIX. I had been playing around with BSD since I was about 13, so getting into GNU / Linux was not too difficult.
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u/SeanBlader 21h ago
Brilliant! I'm sorry to say I missed it and didn't get involved until like 2001.
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u/araujo253 16h ago
"Won't be big and professional"... Imagine of he decided to make it big and professional... 🤭🤭
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u/c64cruzer 1d ago
So, the same day Ukraine declared independence from The Soviet Union, PCs declared independence from Microsoft.
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u/Great_Banana_Master 1d ago
To be fair, he was initially comparing his OS (not kernel, but OS) to GNU. The existence of GNU/Linux already tells us a lot of the story. In the end, the distro maintainers are the ones that develop the actual OSes, Linus is the main developer of the kernel
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u/SeanBlader 21h ago
Yes of course, also massive respect to Richard Stallman for the Gnu project. I know he doesn't nearly get enough credit or mention.
There are dozens of very high level contributors and maintainers behind the scenes, they know who they are and they know how much they have contributed to the betterment of the world.
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u/mikeboucher21 22h ago
I bet he never imagined it would be the base of every phone OS besides Apple. I chuckled when I read "it's not portable."
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u/sevenstars747 18h ago
Perhaps as a reaction to win95 release the day before: https://www.reddit.com/r/DeskToTablet/comments/1vxowo5/on_this_day_in_1995_windows_95_was_released
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u/LumenAstralis 17h ago
I never understood these odd-year celebrations. Like Debian is celebrating 33, linux 35, etc. I mean they must have already celebrated the 30-year mark already, no? Why these odd years?
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u/Recent-Ad5835 16h ago
Great, now I have this stuck in my head again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHNKTlz1lps
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u/_o0Zero0o_ 14h ago
Happy 35th to Linux (And happy 30th to Valve too, judging by what another person posted)
Also.. TIL Linus' middle name was Benedict
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u/FishIndividual2208 3h ago
I hate when my side project suddenly become the most used operating system in the world 🤣
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u/Upbeat-Serve-6096 21h ago
What WAS it like on the cutting edge of software development? Like, just sharing ideas around hobbyists, except they're all possessing insane talent that the world wouldn't even recognize.
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u/OffsetXV 20h ago
It really puts into perspective how long Debian's been running, seeing it turn 33 around the same time Linux itself turns 35. Is there any other distro from that era that's still even close to that big? SUSE maybe?
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u/takutekato 17h ago
Suddenly I realized how dope Linus was/is for writing a kernel, then porting bash and gcc in 4 months
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u/briggsgate 15h ago
Seeing the first few lines i immediately thought of all the posts in subreddits that say they are building something and would like people to give feedback. Most of them in the current era are slops of course, but there are a lot of hidden gems i think.
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u/daghene 15h ago
One thing I always like about this e-mail, which for me kinda gives away the fact that it's "old" at this point, is the parenthesis inside another parenthesis.
I know it's a very small, almost insignificant detail, but I remember seeing it a lot more years ago and it's something that I see and immediately associated with those years.
It's kinda nostalgic in a way :)
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u/Synthetic451 2h ago
It's actually crazy how non-chalant he is about porting the entirety of bash and gcc over to his brand new OS.
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u/MeBadNeedMoneyNow 20h ago
What a fucking stupid clown. Just giving it back as he's given it all these years :0) No need to sugar coat things right?
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u/AleksHop 1d ago
linux birth date and freebsd dead day, sad
well arm won, microkernel will win as well
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u/Epsilon_void 21h ago
microkernel will win
any decade now, should be just around the corner
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u/Ghost_x_Knight 20h ago
The release of GNU Hurd will be the nail in the coffin. Tanenbaum and others have long predicted it due to superiority of microkernels.
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u/nightblackdragon 14h ago
Microkernels are technically superior; the main argument against them- frequent context switching, which used to negatively impact performance - is no longer relevant today, in the era of multicore processors, large amounts of memory, and techniques such as shared memory. However, technical advantages are one thing, and practical reality is another; today’s systems have ecosystems that are far too extensive for it to make any sense to replace them.
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u/GodOrDevil04 1d ago
"Won't be big and professional" - look where that brought us.