Three decades of Linux
Doghouse – 30th Anniversary of Linux
In celebration of the 30th anniversary of Linux, maddog charts his career in free and open source software.
Thirty years! The Linux Pro Magazine editorial staff told me that the focus of this issue was celebrating the 30th anniversary of Linus Torvald's message to the world that he was going to start his "little project," suggesting that I write something about it.
Of course, for me, 30 years is only three-fifths of my work career. I was very lucky to start in programming when computer systems were a lot simpler. Often they did not have an operating system. The device drivers were linked into your program, even on a mainframe machine that cost several million dollars, and had 1MB of memory.
I started at a time when computer security was locking the door at night (and of course you turned the computer off), networking was carrying a box of punch cards down the hall, and graphics were ASCII art printed out on the line printer. We did not have network architects or system administrators. We had operators, who would load the tapes, run the programs, and feed the printers with 132-column, green-and-white-striped, fan-fold paper
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Digital Autonomy
• How the Fediverse Found Parts for Its Platforms
• The Answer Was Already on the Shelf
• Changing the Chip Industry: How Public Investment Has Grown Open Silicon
• United Nations Open Source Portal Goes Live
• EU Open Source Strategy Plays Key Role in Tech Sovereignty Package
• France Says “Au Revoir” to Microsoft
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Epic Games Targets Linux for New Launcher
The Epic Games new launcher is still in preview, but it looks to land on several Linux distributions.
-
Fedora 45 Now Available
The latest iteration of Fedora has arrived with Gnome 51 and KDE Plasma 6.8.
-
Linux 7.4 is "Much Healthier" Thanks to AI
At nearly 42 million lines, Linux 7.4 is the largest merge in the kernel’s history.
-
Working Exploit for a Linux Kernel Flaw Made Public
Even before a bug received its CVE identifier or an upstream fix, the local privilege escalation vulnerability exploit found its way into the wild.
-
r/opensource Bans AI-Assisted and AI-Related Projects
The de facto subreddit for all things open source has not only banned AI-related projects but also users who "don't speak English."
-
Bottlenecks Discovered by Meta Engineers Lead to Scalability Improvements
Thanks to a small group of engineers at Meta, the Linux kernel module kernfs has been improved, which has led to some serious gains.
-
PwnEscape Poses VM Vulnerability
A guest-to-host escape flaw in Linux KVM, named PwnEscape, might be yet another means of attacking Linux.
-
Linux Mint 27 Set for a Christmas Release
The developers behind Linux Mint have announced a Christmas release, and it looks like Santa's sack will be brimming with features.
-
Is Linus Torvalds Vibe Coding?
The creator of Linux has added AI into his process for Linux kernel development, and it's more than just for debugging.
-
openKylin 3.0 Released with Expanded AI Integration
The latest release features a pre-installed AI agent to help perform tasks.