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Happy Birthday to Linux, 30 years strong

By - | Views: 28,806

It was on this day 30 years ago that a younger Linus Torvalds announced a free operating system to the comp.os.minix group and from there it exploded across servers, desktops and plenty more.

Now one of the most popular operating systems in the world, you can find it nearly everywhere you look including 100% of the top 500 supercomputers. There's a Linux distribution for everything, and Linux is what will also be powering the upcoming Steam Deck with Valve using SteamOS that's based on Arch Linux. What Torvalds said "won't be big and professional like gnu" has changed the world.

We might not have reached the "year of the Linux desktop", which is a running joke, but there's no denying the great strides the Linux desktop has made over the last few years thanks to many companies and individual contributors. The desktop share is different depending on where you look with StatCounter giving it 2.38% while NetMarketShare put it at 1.79% - both higher if you decide to include ChromeOS which is Linux-based.

The Linux desktop is even now a truly viable gaming platform - something many thought would probably never happen. Thanks to various major game engines and toolkits supporting Linux, drivers constantly improving, lots of native Linux games, Steam Play Proton and more. According to the latest figures from Valve, Linux is sitting at 1% right now of Steam users polled. Perhaps the Steam Deck will bump that up, depending on how Valve include it in their survey.

Happy Birthday, Linux. Here's to another 30 and beyond.

What does Linux mean to you? Let us know in the comments.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Kernel, Misc
61 Likes
About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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62 comments
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whizse Sep 1, 2021
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Yeah, IPP Everywhere supposedly solves all these issues, but I haven't tried it for myself yet. People keep giving me their old "broken" printers so I never buy anything new.
slaapliedje Sep 1, 2021
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: slaapliedjeI pretty much insist on HP printers, or Network printers that support PCL5 or 6. Basically everything supports those, I have even been able to print from my Amiga onto my Office Jet.

That's what I wanted to do last time I needed a new printer... until I found out that I don't need a driver anymore for standard printing. So I chose just by printer quality, not by driver support. I don't know if I'm missing anything by not using PCL, and it probably won't work with an Amiga, but I'm happy with my new one. :)
http://aminet.net/package/comm/tcp/NetPrinter Give it a shot.. you know you want to...
slaapliedje Sep 1, 2021
Quoting: whizseYeah, IPP Everywhere supposedly solves all these issues, but I haven't tried it for myself yet. People keep giving me their old "broken" printers so I never buy anything new.
Ha, I've legit bought new printers because the ink cartridges for my current one cost more than buying a new printer. And as I rarely printed things before, the ink cartridges would dry up because I'd not leave the printer on (printers do a cycle that keep the ink cartridges clean and then you run out of ink anyhow...)

Finally gave up and bought a laserjet.
whizse Sep 1, 2021
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I just buy the cheap big pack knock-off cartridges.

Funny though, the Windows drivers complain loudly about non-OEM cartridges. The Linux driver does not. We're clearly missing important features! I shall have to make an official complain.
slaapliedje Sep 1, 2021
Quoting: whizseI just buy the cheap big pack knock-off cartridges.

Funny though, the Windows drivers complain loudly about non-OEM cartridges. The Linux driver does not. We're clearly missing important features! I shall have to make an official complain.
Nice, depends on the printer too. The HP that I had actually had 'chipped' ink cartridges, and it'd detect third party ones... talk about DRM for Printers....
whizse Sep 1, 2021
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Quoting: slaapliedjeNice, depends on the printer too. The HP that I had actually had 'chipped' ink cartridges, and it'd detect third party ones... talk about DRM for Printers....
That's just horrible.

I really thought better of HP considering their site for the Linux drivers is just a banner saying something like "Oh, Linux drivers? You know what, you can download them here, but you probably won't need to. They're already included in your distro."
slaapliedje Sep 1, 2021
Quoting: whizse
Quoting: slaapliedjeNice, depends on the printer too. The HP that I had actually had 'chipped' ink cartridges, and it'd detect third party ones... talk about DRM for Printers....
That's just horrible.

I really thought better of HP considering their site for the Linux drivers is just a banner saying something like "Oh, Linux drivers? You know what, you can download them here, but you probably won't need to. They're already included in your distro."
Yeah, I was disappointed on that. I am not sure if they stopped that nonsense shortly after they did it, because it kind of seems like something Apple would do...

Granted now that I've had a Laserjet for years, I've never replaced the toner cartridges.
Purple Library Guy Sep 1, 2021
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: whizseYeah, IPP Everywhere supposedly solves all these issues, but I haven't tried it for myself yet. People keep giving me their old "broken" printers so I never buy anything new.
Ha, I've legit bought new printers because the ink cartridges for my current one cost more than buying a new printer. And as I rarely printed things before, the ink cartridges would dry up because I'd not leave the printer on (printers do a cycle that keep the ink cartridges clean and then you run out of ink anyhow...)

Finally gave up and bought a laserjet.
That is exactly the kind of reason I went laser. Dust doesn't usually dry out.
Eike Sep 2, 2021
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  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: slaapliedjeI pretty much insist on HP printers, or Network printers that support PCL5 or 6. Basically everything supports those, I have even been able to print from my Amiga onto my Office Jet.

That's what I wanted to do last time I needed a new printer... until I found out that I don't need a driver anymore for standard printing. So I chose just by printer quality, not by driver support. I don't know if I'm missing anything by not using PCL, and it probably won't work with an Amiga, but I'm happy with my new one. :)
http://aminet.net/package/comm/tcp/NetPrinter Give it a shot.. you know you want to...

Erm... Why would I? :)
slaapliedje Sep 2, 2021
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: slaapliedje
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: slaapliedjeI pretty much insist on HP printers, or Network printers that support PCL5 or 6. Basically everything supports those, I have even been able to print from my Amiga onto my Office Jet.

That's what I wanted to do last time I needed a new printer... until I found out that I don't need a driver anymore for standard printing. So I chose just by printer quality, not by driver support. I don't know if I'm missing anything by not using PCL, and it probably won't work with an Amiga, but I'm happy with my new one. :)
http://aminet.net/package/comm/tcp/NetPrinter Give it a shot.. you know you want to...

Erm... Why would I? :)
Ha, I've been trying to get Amiga OS4.1FE to be stable / usable through FS-UAE It locks up about as often as Windows 95 used to...
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