61–70 of 143 posts
A relevant key point regarding why Linux actually took off, versus other UNIX clones.
And how that eventually came around with Red-Hat's acquision and its influence on GCC, GNOME, Wayland, RPM,... contributions.
It's odd how Linux has become the only stable thing in this world. You turn it on and you know that over time it will only become better without any bad intentions.
Corporate interests have already seeped into Linux.
One thing I often think about in the early days of Linux is it's competitors. The article mentions "commercial Unix was so expensive it was easier to write your own". Which is largely true. However there is also Coherent Unix. I remember adverts for it as the full back page of so many magazines of the day, for $99. I always was on the fence about buying it. One of the big drawbacks of Coherent was that it didn't have…
The first release of 386BSD was in 1992, so we are talking about a short time window of 1-2 years here. And of course FreeBSD and NetBSD forked from it shortly after that.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/386BSD
[2] https://www.antman.se/abc-klubben/linux/linuxdoc/linus.html
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do remember there was some point in the mid/late 90s where I had to do a lot of research before buying [desktop] computers and hardware - would this specific network card be supported? Would this graphics card work with X11? etc. Maybe it was trauma and paranoia from the WinModems of the day, that were never going to work. But by the early 2000s we seemed to switch to a world where I just assumed Linux would suppor…
Even in the mid--late '00s I had to make careful purchases of things like wifi, or be stuck manually patching and compiling half-working drivers.
And follow they did! The Great Linux Distribution Timeline at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Di...> presents an impressive graph of the countless distributions that descended from Slackware, Debian, etc. This graph is still actively maintained by the community here: https://github.com/FabioLolix/LinuxTimeline>.
It's odd how Linux has become the only stable thing in this world. You turn it on and you know that over time it will only become better without any bad intentions.
This is so important to me on this day and age. Most new technology and OS seem to have an agenda. They want to "push" me to do things: buy an iPhone, buy an office subscription , etc. Using Linux is a breath of fresh air in that respect for me. I just want my toaster tu toast bread. I don't want it to tell me what bread should I buy.
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> Every well can be poisoned. Linux relies on people's values and people's skills. Neither of which are immune to degradation over time. It's rather the opposite, combined with moral stance of Linus and it's core committee itself that has managed to kept Linux on this track so far.
Linus isn't a renewable resource unfortunately.
The main issue i see is that we aren't really "cultivating" the next Linuses
It's odd how Linux has become the only stable thing in this world. You turn it on and you know that over time it will only become better without any bad intentions.
I do remember there was some point in the mid/late 90s where I had to do a lot of research before buying [desktop] computers and hardware - would this specific network card be supported? Would this graphics card work with X11? etc. Maybe it was trauma and paranoia from the WinModems of the day, that were never going to work. But by the early 2000s we seemed to switch to a world where I just assumed Linux would suppor…
Very much so -- many drops form a torrent.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do remember there was some point in the mid/late 90s where I had to do a lot of research before buying [desktop] computers and hardware - would this specific network card be supported? Would this graphics card work with X11? etc. Maybe it was trauma and paranoia from the WinModems of the day, that were never going to work. But by the early 2000s we seemed to switch to a world where I just assumed Linux would suppor…
Even in the mid--late '00s I had to make careful purchases of things like wifi, or be stuck manually patching and compiling half-working drivers.
But by and large, thing did still just work.
Around that same era Windows wasn’t exactly problem free with device drivers either. A fresh install on random hardware would often require hunting down Windows drivers online. Though of course those drivers did always existed because of Windows’ market share.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is so important to me on this day and age. Most new technology and OS seem to have an agenda. They want to "push" me to do things: buy an iPhone, buy an office subscription , etc. Using Linux is a breath of fresh air in that respect for me. I just want my toaster tu toast bread. I don't want it to tell me what bread should I buy.
Wouldn't want to toast unauthorized bread.