Linux was announced by Linus Torvalds 35 years ago today — humble OS started with 10,000 lines of code but has now grown to 40 million, dominates global infrastructure
The development of Linux, a free ‘hobby’ operating system, was announced by Linus Torvalds 35 years ago today.
On August 25, 1991, Linus Torvalds, a young computer science student, announced the creation of Linux, a free operating system, on an online forum. Initially, the OS consisted of about 10,000 lines of code and was initially named 'Freax' before being renamed 'Linux' at the last minute. The first public release followed soon after.
Today, 35 years later, the OS has grown exponentially, boasting over 40 million lines of code. Torvalds acknowledges the OS's humble origins but is proud of its current capabilities, which include multi-threaded filesystems and a lack of Minix code. The growth of Linux has been driven by hundreds of maintainers and thousands of contributors.
Today, Linux dominates global infrastructure, running on nearly 80% of web servers and virtually all of the world's Top500 supercomputers. The OS also powers over 4 billion Android devices and is used in various embedded systems. Despite its success, Linux still faces challenges, notably the recent end of a decades-long Linux ownership dispute, which put many companies at risk of licensing claims and legal issues.
Written by urgent.news from Tom's Hardware's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
This story
This is one outlet's version. Read the fullest account.
