Today is August 25th, which marks 34 years since Linux was first announced. Grab a glass of your favorite beverage and join me in celebrating the 34th birthday of Linux!
It was on August 25th, 1991, when the 21-year-old Finnish student Linus Benedict Torvalds made his now-famousannouncementon the comp.os.minix newsgroup that he was working on a free operating system for 386(486) AT clones, just as a “hobby”.
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
PS. Yes – it’s free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have :-(.
That’s right, it’s been 34 years since he made that announcement, and he probably never dreamed that the so-called “hobby” would turn into something huge, used by millions of computer users around the globe.
But as of today, Linux is practically everywhere around us, from Android smartphones, Wi-Fi routers, smart assistants, and smart fridges, to big-screen TVs, satellites, and airplanes. Linux even powers the entire Internet, the world’s top 500 supercomputers, Wall Street, and even the ISS (International Space Station).
Every year, people say that “this is the year of the Linux desktop,” but we who use Linux every single day know that it has always been the year of the Linux desktop. Today marks 34 freaking awesome years of Linux, and personally, I’m overjoyed to have Linux in my life for more than 25 years.
With that in mind, if it’s August 25th where you live, let’s raise the glass and wish Linux a happy 34th birthday, even if you’re one of those people who like to celebrate Linux’s birthday on September 17th, when the first public release was published by Linus Torvalds, who believes that both of these dates are valid.
Here’s to many more years of Linux awesomeness, and stay right here on 9to5Linux.com for the latest Linux news and Open Source software releases, as I always try to keep you guys up to date. And, on this occasion, I would also like to say a big THANK YOU to all of you who have supported me over the years.
Cheers!
