this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I've been using Linux for something like 27 years, I wouldn't say evangelical or particularly obsessed.
I started using it because some of the guys showing up to my late 90's LAN parties were dual booting Slackware it and it had cool looking boot up messages compared to DOS or Windows at the time. The whole idea of dual booting operating systems was pretty damn wild to me at the time too.
After a while it became obvious to me that Slackware '96 was way more reliable than DOS or Windows 95 at the time, a web browser like Netscape could take out the whole system pretty easily on Windows, but when Netscape crashed on Linux, you opened up a shell and killed off whatever was left of it and started a new one.
I had machines that stayed up for years in the late 90's and that was pretty well impossible on Windows.