- Linus Torvalds developed the Linux kernel while still a student at the University of Helsinki in 1991.
- Last year, 75% of Linux code was developed by programmers working for corporations.
- In December 2009, IBM announced a new mainframe system designed for Linux.
- IBM chose Linux for what is expected to be the world's most powerful supercomputer, Sequoia, due in 2011.
- Linux powers 446 of the world's top 500 supercomputers.
- Some 95% of the servers used by Hollywood's large animation studios are powered by Linux.
- The first major film produced on Linux servers was 1997's Titanic.
- Director James Cameron again chose Linux servers for box-office smash Avatar.
- Google runs its web servers on Linux.
- Google has contributed about 1.1% of the code in the current Linux kernel.
- Linux has a strong following in smartphones and other devices in the consumer electronics world.
- Palm's WebOS, Google's Android and Nokia's Maemo smartphone operating systems are built on top of the Linux kernel.
- TiVo uses a customized version of Linux for its appliances.
- In 2009, Linux had 33.8% revenue marketshare of servers, compared to Microsoft's 7.3%.
- As of January 2010, Linux still only has a 1.02% marketshare within desktops.
- Torvalds created Linux based on the GNU General Public License (GPL).
- Torvalds wouldn't have written his own operating system if GNU had had a kernel at the time.
- The GNU Project then lacked drivers, daemons and a kernel.
- Under the GPL, any person or group distributing the Linux kernel must make the source code available to the recipient of the package.
- Said Torvalds: "Making Linux GPL'd was definitely the best thing I ever did."
- Torvalds failed to register the name "Linux" when he first started his open source ventures.
- In 1994, William Della Croce, Jr. filed for trademark in the U.S.and asked for royalties from Linux distributors.
- Torvalds and his lawyers won the battle for the Linux name in 1997.
- There are over 300 distributions of Linux actively deployed today.
- Linux gained traction beyond the coder cult with 1993's Slackware distribution, which was easier for non-programmers to use.
- The Debian distribution was one of the first truly community-oriented Linux coding projects.
- Debian's code base remains the foundation for other distros such as Ubuntu, Knoppix and Xandros.
- Debian v. 4.0's source code containes 283 million lines of code.
- $7.37 billion: projected cost to produce that amount of code in a commercial environment.
- The first commercially-produced, live-CD distribution of Linux was Yggdrasil, released in 1992.
- Red Hat was one of the first commercial Linux distributions to truly cater to the enterprise.
- Ubuntu was the first Linux distro to be offered by a major OEM (Dell) to desktop users.
- The Xandros distribution helped make the netbook craze possible when it was chosen by ASUS for the first iterations of the EeePC.
- Linux-based Apache wasn't named for Geronimo's tribe, it was called "a patchy server" for its cobbled-together source code.
- In 2002, The Register claimed Microsoft spent $421 million just to fight Linux.
- In 2003, the SCO Group earned enmity by claiming that IBM transferred UNIX code into Linux and asking for redress.
- The Indian state of Kerala made it mandatory for all of its high schools to run Linux on their computers.
- The federal government of Brazil favors Linux operating systems over all others in its PCs.
- In 2009, Brazil carried out the largest thin-client deployment of Linux to date, with 350,000 nodes.
- IDC projects that Linux support sales will top $1 billion by 2012.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Baseline mag's 40 Fast Facts on Linux
Ran across this slideshow on the Baseline magazine web site. I seem to spend a lot of my effort promoting OpenOffice.org, Firefox, and Thunderbird. There are lots of other F/OSS applications I use as well. Don't want to lose sight of the fact that I'm a big fan of Linux. Still hoping I may be able to convert my employer to Linux. Change is always tough though. Anyway, the facts from the slideshow include:
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