Happy Birthday to Linux

[S.B.G]

28 years ago today (August 25, 1991) Linus Torvalds created what would become Linux.

Hello everybody out there using minix -

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and
professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing
since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on
things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat
(same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons)
among other things).

I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work.
This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and
I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions
are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them

Linus (torv...@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs.
It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never
will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.os.minix/dlNtH7RRrGA/SwRavCzVE7gJ

At the time he never thought it would become be "big and professional." While it hasn't come close to the level of Windows, or it's far distant cousin macOS, I'm sure Linux is much bigger than he dreamed it would have become. Over 68% of Internet servers run on it and 100% of the world's supercomputers also run it. Even with 2% market share on the SOHO desktops, I'd say Linux has been a success.

 

[maflynn]

I remember when Linux came out and many people likened it to minix I had run linux a few times in the early years but it required a lot of compiling and tweaking of conf files.

It certainly became a force on the server but it never really gained traction as a desktop. While people clamored for a windows replacement, Linux just never seemed to be positioned as a viable replacement. I myself tried a number of time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[S.B.G]

My first attempt at Linux was about 15 years ago. Not knowing anything about it at all, I inadvertently chose to try installing Gentoo. It didn't go so well and I eventually gave up. The only thing I knew back then was Windows and everything about this "Linux" was foreign to me. Looking back on that experience I wonder how I ended up choosing the absolute most difficult distro to install as my first taste of Linux. LOL.

 

[lowendlinux]

Now Linus is in the bad guy zone because he's a bit blunt..

 

[S.B.G]

At Debconf 14 a few years ago he took part in a QA session and his behavior did indeed come up. He defended himself and didn't seem to mind if other's feelings got hurt. To him, it's their problem they feel hurt, not his. He cares more about the kernel than feelings. He's certainly no stranger to controversy about it all and there are strong opinions from every side about him.

 

[lowendlinux]

Which is why he got pushed to the side in favor of Greg.

Linus' personality and ways are well known and if was unacceptable then you shouldn't step in, it's like complaining that the fore is hot. What makes it worse is Lennart is in many ways worse than Linus is/was but he's OK most likely because Red Hat has his back.

Teh internetz is wonderful

 

[wellander1]

I use linux on home built computers.
Slackware linux at that.
And yes happy birthday to it.

 

[S.B.G]

Yup. Consequences of his actions (behavior). As much as he cares about the state of the kernel, he still has to have regard for the human factor.

There is a way to do things and a way not to do things.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

While people clamored for a windows replacement, Linux just never seemed to be positioned as a viable replacement. I myself tried a number of time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As a general purpose OS i.e. online banking, online shopping, internet, watching videos, listening to music and writing documents and doing spreadsheets, Linux is a very good alternative. Doing things outside of that requires knowledge of Linux to fix what gets broken or things that need to be added to accomplish what you want outside its general use.

Linux is as good as the other two OS's but a person needs to stay within it's comfort zone or it will get frustrating real quick. That's where commercial OS's such as Windows and MacOS excel at but they have been polishing their products for far longer than Linux.

The other problem with Linux is all the different flavors of Linux. If their was just one version it could narrow things down a bit more say if Linux was just Ubuntu and nothing else. Which won't happen but that's Linux's problem you have the main distro and too many variants.

 

[S.B.G]

The other problem with Linux is all the different flavors of Linux. If their was just one version it could narrow things down a bit more say if Linux was just Ubuntu and nothing else. Which won't happen but that's Linux's problem you have the main distro and too many variants.

I wouldn't call it a problem per se.

It's the result of the very nature of open source /GNU versus proprietary like Windows and macOS. GNU/Linux isn't a company (Microsoft/Apple), it's a community.

 

[a2jack]

I played around with Linux as a way to make use of my old XP computers.

I found it useful, very light, and I loved it. But always had this phobia about making an error in command line, and not having the skills to undo it.

To me, the lack of GUI is what has held Linux back from becoming the #1 OS.

 

[S.B.G]

Not all distro's lack a GUI out of the box. Many of them install the same way as Windows or macOS and give you a nice graphical installation process and then boot up to a regular desktop.

 

[maflynn]

To me, the lack of GUI is what has held Linux back from becoming the #1 OS.

Apps is the reason - lack of that is

I'd probably switch now but the app selection is meager at best. At times there may be a promising app that is open source but then people stop maintain it. There are some nice compelling open source apps but not enough for me to switch.

 

[S.B.G]

I'm curious, what are some apps you'd need to use on Linux?

Over the years, I learned to change my workflow from Windows to macOS to Linux. There are lots of people doing amazing, top-level work on Linux and some are Youtubers too.

I think it's not always about apps, a lack of or whatever that prevents a person from changing OS's, it's a lack of desire to learn a new app or way of doing the same things they're used to on whatever platform they've been on.

 

[maflynn]

I'm curious, what are some apps you'd need to use on Linux?

One of the biggest is gotomypc which stopped supporting Linux 3 years ago. I also have a specific VPN app that doesn't work. If I cannot remote into my work then that's a huge reason not to run Linux

I also have scripts within excel that would not translate over and the online version of Office is to limiting

I use lightroom but I'm not really open to converting over to darkroom at this stage. I have half a terabyte of images and LR does a great job though I hate paying the subscription

 

[S.B.G]

It's cool you're not interested in switching. But there are alternatives available to gotomypc such as RealVNC or Remmina. I happen to really like Remmina for it's RDP. RDP being a Microsoft protocol and all, I've found in my experience that Linux/Remmina does RDP better and faster than Windows. I had lots of issues with RDP from Windows 10 to my Windows servers. When I switched to Linux and used Remmina all of those problems disappeared.

As for the VPN, that would be dependent on your work IT dept of course, but OpenVPN is an excellent choice.

The Excel scripts, which I know nothing about, I would think could be re-written for LibreOffice if one were determined to do it.

Of course, there are also many pretty good alternatives for photo editing too, and I don't mean Gimp either. I'm not into photo editing, but I've seen some slick app's out there in action that can probably do just as good as Lightroom.

But it's all about what the user wants and the effort they're willing to put into learning something new. There is no right or wrong for sticking with a platform of choice and they all have their compromises. It's up to us to decide what we value most and are willing to do to attain our goals.

 

[maflynn]

But there are alternatives available to gotomypc such as RealVNC or Remmina.

My company only whitelists gotomypc and their specific VPN. That means all other solutions are blocked ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But it's all about what the user wants and the effort they're willing to put into learning something new.

I agree, and I'm playing with linux in vmware, however the remote software issues is a show stopper.

There is no right or wrong for sticking with a platform of choice

Agreed, and for me, windows has it all, while linux has allure and I do use it for some tasks in work, its clear that windows is a better choice.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

I played around with Linux as a way to make use of my old XP computers.

I found it useful, very light, and I loved it. But always had this phobia about making an error in command line, and not having the skills to undo it.

To me, the lack of GUI is what has held Linux back from becoming the #1 OS.

Try Linux Mint, it's as close to Windows XP as you can get. In fact LM, is setup so you don't have to fool with the Terminal. OpenSUSE and Ubuntu are other good choices, especially Ubuntu because Canonical went for the "inclusive approach" which alienated the hardcore Linux users. It's also designed to steer you away from the "Terminal".

Apps is the reason - lack of that is

I'd probably switch now but the app selection is meager at best. At times there may be a promising app that is open source but then people stop maintain it. There are some nice compelling open source apps but not enough for me to switch.

I would say "GAMES" is the killer App. It's what pushed Microsoft Windows from the Office into people's homes and made it the #1 operating system. It also made Intel what they are today i.e., playing Games like Doom etc. Most people today and I would say the VAST MAJORITY use their computers for online banking, shopping online, internet, email, writing notes, watching YT videos and listening to music. What's holding Linux back is that if something breaks or you need to tweak something, it usually requires advanced knowledge of how Linux works or you need to hit up the community. Home users are too comfy nowadays with Windows and MacOS and letting the OS getting out of the way from the user so they can enjoy what they want to do. The last thing anyone wants today is the 2019 version of MS-DOS or Dr. DOS. So when Linux gets to the point where Grandma can use it without having to search for answers online when something breaks, that's when Linux will takeoff.

.....and Canonical is sure as hell trying !

 

[maflynn]

I would say "GAMES" is the killer App

I was going to mention that, but while I enjoy gaming, its a very minor part of my overall computing needs. Steam has some presence on linux and so I think the gaming disparity is not as large as it used to be.

 

[cube]

I played around with Linux as a way to make use of my old XP computers.

I found it useful, very light, and I loved it. But always had this phobia about making an error in command line, and not having the skills to undo it.

To me, the lack of GUI is what has held Linux back from becoming the #1 OS.

The worst things you cannot normally do unless you 'sudo'.

Linux has many GUIs to choose from.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

I was going to mention that, but while I enjoy gaming, its a very minor part of my overall computing needs. Steam has some presence on linux and so I think the gaming disparity is not as large as it used to be.

You're right but Linux still has a long, long way to go as a true competitor to Windows. As it stands in the pecking order, it's Windows, MacOS then far behind is Linux. In my Steam library of over 300 games, I'd say 5-10% are playable on Linux.

What Steam did was call attention to its own OS i.e. "SteamOS" instead of getting behind the #1 player, Canonical". To use a Nascar analogy, instead of drafting with the lead car until they saw an opening for the lead, they chose to go for it too early and are now nowhere close to the lead car.

At one point Steam was quite supportive of Canonical/Ubuntu but they decided to choose their own path. They should have road the coat-tails of Ubuntu until the Linux platform was massively growing with supportive developers. They currently have neither, it's just a trickle. Sure, the platform is growing but not where it needs to be. My thinking is, if they have stayed with Ubuntu, they could have pushed Canonical to tailor the OS more for games which would have helped both parities. As it stands, Canonical has other higher priorities besides games.

 

[S.B.G]

You're right but Linux still has a long, long way to go as a true competitor to Windows.

I'll argue that the GNU/Linux community isn't trying to compete with a proprietary platform like Windows or macOS. Certainly there are some individual Linux evangelists trying to bring about the "year of the desktop", but I have doubts that it will ever happen.

A decentralized community like GNU/Linux isn't a model designed to compete with these giant platforms. The community is all about doing their own thing. Taking someone else's thing and recreating it and putting it out there for everyone. That's why there are so many distro's and why non-GNU/Linux people are so confused when they peer inside.

I firmly believe the the GNU/Linux community will always be a niche market for the tech savvy, talented curious, and determined newbies.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

I'll argue that the GNU/Linux community isn't trying to compete with a proprietary platform like Windows or macOS. Certainly there are some individual Linux evangelists trying to bring about the "year of the desktop", but I have doubts that it will ever happen.

A decentralized community like GNU/Linux isn't a model designed to compete with these giant platforms. The community is all about doing their own thing. Taking someone else's thing and recreating it and putting it out there for everyone. That's why there are so many distro's and why non-GNU/Linux people are so confused when they peer inside.

I firmly believe the the GNU/Linux community will always be a niche market for the tech savvy, talented curious, and determined newbies.

True, but you have video game businesses such as Valve who wants to steer its customers towards Linux. They are trying to build the SteamOS brand and it's not going to happened because Linux is too fragmented as it is. That is my reasoning behind Valve backing Canonical to push the platform forward. Canonical has been trying that for the last several years but their focus has not been directed towards games. It had a better chance if Valve decided to put it's full weight behind Ubuntu. And as an avid gamer, my preference has always been OpenGL over DirectX (blech).

 

[lowendlinux]

Why would Steam need to get behind Canonical?

The steam client was released and it's available on every distro and now there's Proton.

With Proton and native games there's ~10,000 games on Steam, there's more games for Linux than there are for Mac.

The entire point of Open Source is to not single vendor

 

[S.B.G]

True, but you have video game businesses such as Valve who wants to steer its customers towards Linux. They are trying to build the SteamOS brand and it's not going to happened because Linux is too fragmented as it is. That is my reasoning behind Valve backing Canonical to push the platform forward. Canonical has been trying that for the last several years but their focus has not been directed towards games. It had a better chance if Valve decided to put it's full weight behind Ubuntu. And as an avid gamer, my preference has always been OpenGL over DirectX (blech).

I think Steam is doing quite well on Windows and even macOS to a degree. I doubt they really need Linux to continue to succeed.

With that said, since they do have a desire to play in the Linux community, Ubuntu is the logical choice to work with in this area. Ubuntu is the the most well-known, ubiquitous, distro to people who know very little about Linux. Plus, it's one of the top easiest distro's to use for newbies.

Sure there is a voice from the Linux gaming community to have Steam on the platform and I think that's good. But I won't fool myself into thinking Linux will save Steam or vice versa.