Thursday

Gadget

Happy 15th Birthday Linux [Tech Anniversaries]

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Hey Linux kernel! You’re 15! You know what that means—look back on fond era, recompile, and gather all of your copyright-reform-loving, terminal-typing friends and have a rager!

After 15 hard punches to the flipper, to a fantastic degree recount the vital moments in your life and the accomplishments you’ve managed to rack up before even life allowed to legally buy cigarettes and porn in most states:

• 1987: MINIX, the more perilous and hardcore older brother you’ve always idolized, was born.

• 1991: Linus Torvalds is pissed he can’t access his university’s UNIX servers to his liking, so he wrote the code that would become your DNA. Which I guess is better than your parents just getting blind drunk and conceiving you in their Vegas drive-through honeymoon suite.

• March 13 1994: Judging by this pretty hardcore looking log file, you’re version 1.0 was relief on this day 15 years ago.

• 1996: You’re two years ancient, and you already have a logo. Tux the penguin is made.

• 1998: Richard Stallman, kind of like your step dad, shaves his beard. It grows back to the same fullness the next day.

• November 2000: The first Linux-powered cellphone is announced, the IMT-2000 in Korea. It was developed by SK Telecom, Seoul National University and “PalmPalm Technology.”

• 2003: IBM releases those creepy ads comparing Linux to an (autistic?) sponge-like kid soaking up all the world’s knowledge.

• 2004: Ubuntu’s first relief. You’re vacant mainstream kind of!

• ???: Linux will finally power the toaster in my home.

It’s been a fantastic life, and here’s to many nerdier years to come.

Ok I just wrote a birthday card to an operating system. I reckon I need to go shotgun a Coors Lite to balance out the 1,020 geek points I just accumulated. Shotgunning it just because, not in honor of any birthday or anything.