Linux was created by Linus Torvalds. On August 25th, 1991, he asks in a newsgroup “What would you like to see most in Minix?” in which he announces that he was “doing a (free) operating system.” . Linux was officially released as version 0.02 on October 5, 1991. Since then, many companies built models off the Open software, like Red Hat, Corel and Ubuntu
2005 – It was the release of the Damn Small Linux program, a Linux distribution that was designed to take up as little drive space as possible. John Andrews – DSL’s developer – Never allowed the ISO to go past 50 MB in size. You would be able to put DSL onto a CD or USB drive if needed. You can get the DSL ISO to install here
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for April 15
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1992 – Comp.os.minix was the location for famous thread “Linux is Dead”. 73 Posts went back and forthe before Bill Mitchell closes it. Andy Tanenbaum (MINIX) started the thread and Linus Torvolds shot back. This is how the thread started out:Wikazine – Full show notes for February 10
In Wisconsin, friends are called "Sconnies". Even if you're not from Wisconsin, you can be part of the Sconnie Geek Nation through my coverage! By pledging, you join the Geek Sconnie Nation! Plus, you help me cover costs so I can continue the coverage of Gadget tech, music tech, and geek culture through the shows.
I was in the U.S. for a couple of weeks, so I haven’t commented much on LINUX (not that I would have said much had I been around), but for what it is worth, I have a couple of comments now.
As most of you know, for me MINIX is a hobby, something that I do in the evening when I get bored writing books and there are no major wars, revolutions, or senate hearings being televised live on CNN. My real job is a professor and researcher in the area of operating systems.
As a result of my occupation, I think I know a bit about where operating are going in the next decade or so. Two aspects stand out:
1. MICROKERNEL VS MONOLITHIC SYSTEM
Most older operating systems are monolithic, that is, the whole operating system is a single a.out file that runs in ‘kernel mode.’ This binary contains the process management, memory management, file system and the rest. Examples of such systems are UNIX, MS-DOS, VMS, MVS, OS/360, MULTICS, and many more.
The alternative is a microkernel-based system, in which most of the OS runs as separate processes, mostly outside the kernel. They communicate by message passing. The kernel’s job is to handle the message passing, interrupt handling, low-level process management, and possibly the I/O. Examples of this design are the RC4000, Amoeba, Chorus, Mach, and the not-yet-released Windows/NT.
While I could go into a long story here about the relative merits of the two designs, suffice it to say that among the people who actually design operating systems, the debate is essentially over. Microkernels have won. The only real argument for monolithic systems was performance, and there is now enough evidence showing that microkernel systems can be just as fast as monolithic systems (e.g., Rick Rashid has published papers comparing
Mach 3.0 to monolithic systems) that it is now all over but the shoutin`.
MINIX is a microkernel-based system. The file system and memory management are separate processes, running outside the kernel. The I/O drivers are also separate processes (in the kernel, but only because the brain-dead nature of the Intel CPUs makes that difficult to do otherwise). LINUX is a monolithic style system. This is a giant step back into the 1970s. That is like taking an existing, working C program and rewriting it in BASIC. To me, writing a monolithic system in 1991 is a truly poor idea.
2. PORTABILITY
Once upon a time there was the 4004 CPU. When it grew up it became an 8008. Then it underwent plastic surgery and became the 8080. It begat the 8086, which begat the 8088, which begat the 80286, which begat the 80386, which begat the 80486, and so on unto the N-th generation. In the meantime, RISC chips happened, and some of them are running at over 100 MIPS. Speeds of 200 MIPS and more are likely in the coming years. These things are not going to suddenly vanish. What is going to happen is that they will gradually take over from the 80×86 line. They will run old MS-DOS programs by interpreting the 80386 in software. (I even
wrote my own IBM PC simulator in C, which you can get by FTP from ftp.cs.vu.nl = 192.31.231.42 in dir minix/simulator.) I think it is a gross error to design an OS for any specific architecture, since that is not going to be around all that long.
MINIX was designed to be reasonably portable, and has been ported from the Intel line to the 680×0 (Atari, Amiga, Macintosh), SPARC, and NS32016. LINUX is tied fairly closely to the 80×86. Not the way to go.
Don`t get me wrong, I am not unhappy with LINUX. It will get all the people who want to turn MINIX in BSD UNIX off my back. But in all honesty, I would suggest that people who want a **MODERN** “free” OS look around for a microkernel-based, portable OS, like maybe GNU or something like that.
P.S. Just as a random aside, Amoeba has a UNIX emulator (running in user space), but it is far from complete. If there are any people who would like to work on that, please let me know. To run Amoeba you need a few 386s, one of which needs 16M, and all of which need the WD Ethernet card.
May 9, 1996: Tux the Penguin becomes mascot of Linux
1996 – Linus Torvelds adopts Tux the Penguin as the official mascot of Linux. Tux was first suggested by Alan Cox, then officially created by Larry Ewing. After a little refinement, Tux came to represent not only Linux, but also Open Source. James Hughes named the penguin TUX – for Torveld’s UniX. The image of Tux was submitted in previous Linux Logo contests, but never won. They then adopted Tux as the mascot, where he is loved by all who live and work in this space.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 9
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1912 – The RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg at 11:40 pm (7:40 pm EST). Of course from that, over 1,500 lost their lives to the cold, dark water, when the ship took the immortal dive. The ship had a passenger manifest of 2,223. The wreck was finally discovered on September 1st, 1985.
2005 – It was the release of the Damn Small Linux program, a Linux distribution that was designed to take up as little drive space as possible. John Andrews – DSL’s developer – Never allowed the ISO to go past 50 MB in size. You would be able to put DSL onto a CD or USB drive if needed. You can get the DSL ISO to install here
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for April 15
In Wisconsin, friends are called "Sconnies". Even if you're not from Wisconsin, you can be part of the Sconnie Geek Nation through my coverage! By pledging, you join the Geek Sconnie Nation! Plus, you help me cover costs so I can continue the coverage of Gadget tech, music tech, and geek culture through the shows.
It’s been an interesting year, this 2011. But as we are only days from the end, it’s time to look back at what happened and reflect. So I went through all of 2011, and found those dates that shaped tech history for the year. A review in Tech history for 2011.
Of course, this is a list that will be completed in the next couple weeks. If you see something missing, please let me know. I’ll compare and get it corrected.
January 10 – AMD‘s CEO Dirk Meyer resigns
January 11 – Google announced they will be dropping H.264
iphone
January 11 – Apple announces that iPhone will be coming to Verizon
The rumor mill was running wild, but on January 11th, Apple finally announced that Verizon will be getting the iPhone4. It had little issues, like you couldn’t talk and surf at the same time. Nonetheless, this broke the long-standing AT&T domination of the iPhone market. Verizon has taken 1/3 of the iPhone market.
January 13 – IBM Watson to take on Jeopardy
January 15 – Wikipedia hits 15 years old
January 19 – Johnny Chung Lee – Kinect researcher – jumps from Microsoft to Google
January 20 – Google CEO Eric Schmidt steps down, Larry Page takes his place
Honeycomb
February 2 – Google shows off Honeycomb
Android shows the world version 3.0 – a.k.a. Honeycomb. This enabled tablet support and holographic user interface
February 6 – Ken Olsen, founder of DEC, passes away
February 9 – HP announced Palm Pre3
February 11 – Microsoft and Nokia announce partnership
February 21 – Alibaba.com CEO and COO resigned due to fraud probe
February 23 – Honeycomb SDK released
February 24 – Google rolled out algorithm change, which hurt sites re-aggregating content.
March 1 – Paul Devine admits he took part in a Money laundering scheme while at Apple.
March 2 – Apple Launched iPad2
Second generation iPad, using the new Apple A5 chip. The iPad2 also increased the screen resolution and added a front-facing camera.
March 1 – Bank of America online banking goes down
March 11 – DOJ wins access to WikiLeaks Twitter accounts.
March 11 – Japan Earthquake and Tsunami
AT&T – T-Mobile
March 20 – AT&T announced intention to purchase T-Mobile for $39 billion
AT&T announced it would being going after T-Mobile. Unfortunately, it came with a lot of retaliation. Ultimately, AT&T will back out of the acquisition.
March 22 – New York court rejects the Google Books settlement
March 26 – Paul Baran, who was instrumental for developing the Internet, passed away
March 28 – James Gosling (Java founder) joins Google
March 28 – Robert Kimball steps down as CEO of RealNetworks
March 30 – Google settles with FCC over Google Buzz privacy issues
March 30 – Google launches the +1 Button
March 31 – GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons is chastised for an online video of him killing an elephant
April 5 – Mozilla absorbs Thunderbird group
anonymous
April 6 – Sony websites go down from Anonymous attack
To protest the PS3 hacker lawsuit, Anonymous initiated “Operation Payback” – taking down the Playstation network for weeks. It also caused a lot of negative feedback from the customers.
April 8 – Commodore 64 comes back from the dead.
April 8 – Google signs deal with DOJ on ITA (Travel) acquisition
April 12 – Cisco discontinues the Flip camera
April 21 – Google launches “Google Offers”
April 22 – Apple signs cloud deal with Warner Music Group
April 23 – Norio Ohga, former president of Sony, passed away
April 28 – Google Chrome 11 launches with speech to text option
Osama bin Laden
May 1 – Twitter breaks the news to the US that Osama Bin Laden was killed
The Twitterverse was in full mode when it broke the news that Osama Bin Laden’s bunker was infiltrated and Alkida’s leader was shot to death. While it’s not on the top trending topics of 2011 for Twitter, it was the 3rd highest trending topic in Social Media.
May 10 – Microsoft announced it will acquire Skype for $8.5 billion
May 11 – Google launches Chromebook, ChromeOS
Eric Schmidt announced the ChromeOS and a new notebook called “Chromebook”. Samsung Chromebooks went on sale at $399 for a WiFi model. 3G models would be coming out soon. The Chrome store would also be available to install apps and several web-based software programs will also become available.
May 14 – After being offline for weeks, Sony begins to relaunch Playstation Network
May 20 – Google scraps their newspaper scanning program.
May 23 – Twitter purchases TweekDeck for $40 million
May 26 – Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is named to presidential advisory panel
May 31 – Intel announces they will be developing the Ultrabook
June 1 – Google +1 button is made available for websites
June 1 – Apple purchased iCloud.com for $4.5 million
June 6 – Microsoft announced Live TV will come to XBox360
icloud
June 6 – Apple unveils Lion, iOS5 and iCloud
June 16 – Gartner announced mobile ad sales will generate $3.3 billion in 2011
June 16 – Comcast debuts 1Gbps connection and cloud based channel surfing
June 21 – Apple released Final Cut Pro X
June 22 – Comscore announced Google hit 1 billion site visitors in May 2011
June 24 – Google closes Google Health, PowerMeter
June 28 – Microsoft debuts Office 365
June 28 – Google launches a beta of Google+
Touted to be a “Facebook Killa”, Google launched a beta of Google+ – Their new social network. It was an invite-only beta, and introduced the “Hangout”, which was the ability to have up to 10 people on video chat.
July 1 – HP launched TouchPad tablet
July 4 – Microsoft signs search pact with Baidu
July 6 – Facebook launched Facebook Video Chat
July 13 – Netflix announced price change for DVD and streaming video
July 13 – Microsoft announced it will open 75 new stores
Spotify
July 14 – Spotify launched in the US
Famous in the UK, Spotify brought their music service to the US. You could stream music from your PC to other devices, or pay a subscription fee to listen to music on Spotify’s network.
July 19 – FBI raids homes suspected to be part of Anonymous
July 19 – Apple released OS X Lion, new Mac Mini, Macbook Air, Thunderbolt display
July 20 – A Fake Apple store was spotted in China
July 20 – Roku 2 is launched
July 24 – The first episode of TWit broadcasts from the TWiT brickhouse
July 27 – UK announced they arrested LulzSec and Anonymous spokesperson
July 28 – Twitter injects paid tweets into streams
July 29 – Google acquires over 1,000 of IBM’s patents
August 15 – Google announced it would buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion
Since Motorola had strong ties with Google Android already, it was considered a good idea to bring Motorola Mobility into the fold. Motorola Mobility makes smartphones, tablets, bluetooth devices and more.
August 15 – SF Bart subway closes during Anonymous protest
August 16 – A Prototype Macbook with 3G shows up on eBay. It is pulled
hp
August 18 – HP announced it is considering selling their PC division. CEO Leo Apatheker also announced that all WebOS production be halted
This caused an uproar of the $99 Tablet. Later, HP backed down on the announcements and CEO Leo Apatheker would be fired. HP has now made WebOS open source.
August 23 – Yale and Purdue Universities report exposure to over 43,000 social security numbers
August 26 – Steve Jobs resigns from Apple due to health reasons.
September 1 – The men who sold the iPhone prototype plead not guilty to theft charges
September 1 – Michael Arrington announced he is working with AOL to create the CrunchFund
September 2 – Another Apple iPhone prototype goes missing
September 2 – Google closes Fast Flip, Google Desktop, Aardvark, and Google Web Security
September 6 – Carol Bartz sends an email to employees saying she was fired from Yahoo!
Michael Arrington
September 7 – Michael Arrington is fired from TechCrunch
Founder of TechCrunch, Michael Arrington was fired due to his new venture – CrunchFund. AOL felt he would not be objective in reporting the news.
September 8 – Google buys Zagat
September 8 – Michael Hart, creator of the e-book, passed away
September 9 – Script kiddies hack NBC News and report of a fake attack on ground zero.
September 11 – 10 year anniversary of 9-11
September 15 – Heidi Klum announced the most dangerous search celeb on the net
September 16 – 450 GoDaddy hosted sites were compromised
September 17 – Julius Blank, who founded Fairchild Semiconductor, passes away
Qwickster
September 19 – CEO Reed Hastings announced that Netflix was spinning off their DVD division to Qwikster
In probably one of the biggest blunders of 2011, Netflix announced the DVD home-delivery service was to be spun off and put up for sale. The result of this action: Netflix shares dropped 2/3rds over a 2 month period, as Netflix lost 800,000 customers. Reed Hastings put out a public apology later and rescinded the spin-off.
September 19 – Google launched Wallet
September 22 – HP CEO Leo Apotheker gets fired, replaced by Meg Whitman
September 25 – At F8, Mark Zuckerberg launches timeline and open graph
September 27 – Microsoft launched Windows Phone 7.5 – Mango
September 28 – Amazon announced the Kindle Fire, Kindle Touch
September 30 – Google opens Chromezone store
October 4 – Apple announced iPhone iOS5, 4S, Siri
steve jobs
October 5 – Steve Jobs passed away
One day after the launch of 4S, Steven Jobs passes away.
October 6 – Nuance purchased Swype for $100 million
October 11 – Robert Galvin, former CEO of Motorola, passes away
October 12 – Dennis Ritchie, designer of C programming language, passes away
October 14 – iPhone 4S launches
October 14 – Google announced plans to end Google Buzz
October 14 – RIM service goes down
October 17 – Yahoo CTO Raymie Stat resigns
October 19 – Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) was released
October 23 – Steve Jobs Biography is released
October 24 – Siri co-founder Kittlaus leaves Apple
October 28 – Google TV gets Honeycomb update
November 3 – IBM’s CEO John Open passed away
November 6 – YouTube and Disney cut a deal that brings original videos to YouTube
November 6 – Charles Walton, inventor of RFID, passed away
November 7 – Google launches brand pages in Google +
November 8 – Mozilla launch Firefox 8, Thunderbird 8
November 11 – Logitech discontinues all production of Google TV appliances. States they lost over $100 million in the revue
November 12 – 22 year old Ilya Zhitomirskiy, founder of Diaspora, passed away
November 14 – AMD launches Opteron 6200 server chips with 16-cores
November 15 – Apple iMatch goes live
kindle fire
November 15 – Amazon released Kindle Fire
In effort to compete with iPad, Jeff Bezos released the next version of the Kindle, the Kindle Fire. This $199 Android tablet would be available at Amazon.com
November 16 – Google Music debuts
November 19 – Barnes & Noble release the Nook Color for $249
November 21 – Apple announced they will have a Black Friday sale
November 22 – Google ends Wave, Knol
November 30 – Spotify adds app platform
December 4 – HP chair Patricia Dunn passes away
December 6 – .xxx goes live
After years of debate, the .xxx top level domain finally goes live.
December 7 – After delay, Microsoft released XBox360 update with Live TV, gesture and voice commands
December 8 – Twitter redesigns their homepage
December 16 – Zynga files IPO
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