Linux turns 29: The biggest events in its history so far

[Abarbarian]

Linux turns 29: The biggest events in its history so far

You can argue about Linux's official birthday. Heck, even Linus Torvalds thinks there are four different dates in 1991 which might deserve the honor. Regardless, as Linux turns twenty-nine, here are some of its highlights and lowlights.

Slackware Linux

1993: There were earlier Linux distributions, such as MCC and Yggdrasil Linux, but Patrick Volkerding's Slackware was the first broadly successful Linux distro and it's still being updated and used today.

Debian Linux starts

1993: Debian Linux, the popular community Linux, gets its start. Today, it's the foundation for Mint, Ubuntu, and many other popular Linux distributions.

Big business embraces Linux

2005: Any doubt about Linux being a major business player is smashed by Linus Torvalds's appearance on the cover of BusinessWeek. The tagline? Linux Inc. Today, you'd be hard-pressed to find any major business which isn't running on Linux.

Android arrives

2007: The Open Handset Alliance, which includes Google and numerous hardware vendors, announces Android. It will become the most popular end-user operating system of all as it runs on more than a billion smartphones.

 

[Abarbarian]

The rise of the Chromebooks

2011: Google introduces the first Chromebook, the CR-48. It runs Gentoo-Linux based ChromeOS. By 2015, Chromebooks are outselling Windows laptops.

The cloud runs on Linux

2012: IT starts its move from servers and data centers to the cloud and the cloud runs on Linux. By 2019, even on Microsoft Azure, over half of Microsoft's customers' virtual machine (VM) instances are running Linux.

Microsoft loves Linux

2014: Maybe the leopard can change its spots? Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella declares that Microsoft loves Linux. The company proves it by supporting Linux and open-source software both on its cloud and by deploying it internally.

Microsoft launches Linux for Windows 10 users

2019: Microsoft follows up by introducing its own native Linux, Windows Subsystem for Linux 2.0, for Windows 10 users. With it, people can run Linux simultaneously with Windows.

IBM acquires Red Hat

2019: Red Hat is acquired by IBM for $34-billion, making it the biggest software acquisition ever. With this move it becomes clear that Linux now dominates the technology world. Not bad for a hobby!

All roads to the cloud go through Linux

2020: The global cloud market is now over $100-billion a year. 90% of it runs on Linux. Even on Microsoft Azure, more than half of all VMs are Linux.

Unstable,full of bugs, hard to use, unreliable , not fit to use on a daily basis are just some of the facts folk spread about Linux over the last thirty years or so.
With distros run by sole developers and a rag tag army of developers and helpers unpaid worldwide linux has not done too badly has it.

Microsoft with its thousands of highly paid developers and helpers has given us what exactly over the last thirty years ?

Happy birthday penguins

 

[Ian]

I remember seeing boxed versions of Linux many years ago in the 90s in my local computer shop - but it was another decade before I tried it out for the first time. What surprised me most was Android in 2007? That sounds so long ago now.

When did you first try out Linux @Abarbarian?

 

[Abarbarian]

I remember seeing boxed versions of Linux many years ago in the 90s in my local computer shop - but it was another decade before I tried it out for the first time. What surprised me most was Android in 2007? That sounds so long ago now.

When did you first try out Linux @Abarbarian?

Looks like I got serious in 2008

https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/mandriva-free-spring-2008-64-bit-os.3522034/

https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/kanotix-2007-thorhammer-rc7.3464463/

I must have been thinking about it for a while as I found a 2006 post of mine enquiring about the penguin.



Bearing in mind I only started with computers in 2004 I think.

 

[Ian]

Oh I didn't realise it was such a quick transition! I keep dabbling, but never use it full time on my desktop - but I think I'm 50/50 split on Linux/Windows across all my devices (RPis, servers, etc...)

 

[Abarbarian]

Oh I didn't realise it was such a quick transition! I keep dabbling, but never use it full time on my desktop - but I think I'm 50/50 split on Linux/Windows across all my devices (RPis, servers, etc...)

It is a bit hard to pin down but I think I have been running Arch linux since at least 2010 and as my main os since 2012, apart from gaming for a lot of titles.
For almost the last year Arch has been my only os on this pc as Windows 7 crashed after an update and I could not be bothered reinstalling or jumping through all the hoops necessary to install Windows 10.