The OS would have been known as Freax if one of Torvalds' co-workers hadn't made a last-minute change to the upload.
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The above commemorative post celebrates Torvalds’ stewardship over the Linux project. However, it is also quick to make clear that “hundreds of maintainers and thousands of contributors” have been instrumental to making this free open source OS a competitive, capable alternative to corporate/paid software, which can “move computing forward for humanity.”
Since 1991, Linux has come a long way on its journey from its humble ‘hobby’ OS beginnings. What started as a kernel with roughly 10,000 lines of code has exploded into 40 million or more lines today. Torvalds was humble about the first release yet proud of features like its multi-threaded filesystem, and the first release being clear of any borrowed Minix code. But the countless contributors over the last 35 years have helped forge an enviable OS, which boasts capabilities and features that must make it a worrying foe for commercial rivals.
There are areas, outside our PC and gaming core, where Linux is actually the biggest fish by far. Industry stats suggest that nearly 80% of web servers, and virtually all of the world’s Top500 supercomputers run a flavor of Linux. It dominates mobile too, with nearly 4 billion Android devices running Linux-derived kernels. Then there are all those embedded systems, encompassing things such as routers to automotive MCUs – so many run Linux.
I feel that Linux has made significant progress towards the fabled ‘year of Linux’ over the last couple of years. Microsoft ’s Windows has been its own worst enemy in some respects, pushing people away due to a multitude of concerns. Meanwhile, consumers can see that content creation, productivity, and gaming on Linux PCs are continuously improving.
Linus Torvalds rebukes anti-AI stances in the Linux kernel code review process, says 'Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects'
Developer successfully ports Linux to 1994 Sega 32X
Key considerations
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/linux-was-announced-by-linus-torvalds-35-years-ago-today-humble-os-started-with-10-000-lines-of-code-but-has-now-grown-to-40-million-dominates-global-infrastructure#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/membership
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