Linux turns 29: The biggest events in its history so far

The biggest events in Linux history so far

You can argue about Linux's official birthday. Heck, even Linus Torvalds thinks there are four different dates in 1991 which might deserve the honor. Regardless, as Linux turns twenty-nine, here are some of its highlights and lowlights.

Linus introduces the world to Linux

1991: This message was sent back on August 25th, 1991 to the Minix Usenet newsgroup. Little did Torvalds know just how wrong he was when he wrote about his new free operating system that it was "just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu for 386(486) AT clones."

The first Linux war

1992: Andrew Tannenbaum, operating system guru and creator of Minix, an educational operating system version of Unix, declares "LINUX is obsolete" and Linux's first operating system war is on. In the resulting discussion, Torvalds makes a very telling comment about his vision for Linux which remains true today, "If the GNU kernel [another attempt to create a free Unix-like operating system] had been ready last spring, I'd not have bothered to even start my project: the fact is that it wasn't and still isn't. Linux wins heavily on points of being available now."

Slackware Linux

1993: There were earlier Linux distributions, such as MCC and Yggdrasil Linux, but Patrick Volkerding's Slackware was the first broadly successful Linux distro and it's still being updated and used today.

Debian Linux starts

1993: Debian Linux, the popular community Linux, gets its start. Today, it's the foundation for Mint, Ubuntu, and many other popular Linux distributions.

Red Hat Linux is born

1994: Marc Ewing creates Red Hat Linux. Bob Young buys Ewing's company, merges it with his own, and forms Red Hat, the most successful Linux company to date.

Linux conventions start

1995: Linux has its first trade conference, Linux Expo. Many more will follow. Today, there are over a dozen major regional and national Linux trade shows in the US alone.

KDE

1996: KDE, the first major Linux desktop interface, gets its start. Matthias Ettrich started it because he wanted to make an easy-to-use desktop. The K? It stands for "Kool." The name was also a play on Unix's Common Desktop Environment (CDE). 

SUSE gets started

1996: In the same year, after working with Slackware and Red Hat Linux, SUSE, the top European business Linux, releases its first standalone Linux. SUSE remains a major Linux and cloud power. 

GNOME

1997: Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena started work on a new Linux desktop, GNOME desktop, built entirely on free software. It, along with KDE, will become one of Linux's two most important desktops. 

The Halloween Memos

1998: Microsoft starts to target Linux. Eric S. Raymond, an early Linux and open-source leader, reveals the Halloween Documents, which show that Microsoft takes Linux seriously as an enemy and starts to formulate its anti-open-source and Linux campaigns. Over a decade later, Microsoft will change its tune.

Corel Linux desktop

IBM invests a billion dollars in Linux

2000: In this year, IBM announced that it would invest a billion dollars in Linux in 2001. It would prove to be IBM's best investment ever. With this move, IBM also breaks the enterprise market ice for Linux. 

Linux 2.4 is released

2001: After some delays, Linux 2.4 is released. With this version, Linux becomes competitive with Solaris and other high-end server operating systems.

Ubuntu arrives

2004: Ubuntu is created. Built on top of Debian Linux, Ubuntu becomes an extremely popular Linux desktop OS and the most important of all cloud Linux distributions.

Linux rules supercomputers.

Big business embraces Linux

2005: Any doubt about Linux being a major business player is smashed by Linus Torvalds's appearance on the cover of BusinessWeek. The tagline? Linux Inc. Today, you'd be hard-pressed to find any major business which isn't running on Linux.

Android arrives

2007: The Open Handset Alliance, which includes Google and numerous hardware vendors, announces Android. It will become the most popular end-user operating system of all as it runs on more than a billion smartphones.

The stock exchanges move to Linux

2008: The New York Stock Exchange, soon to be followed by many of the other major stock exchanges of the world, switched to Linux for its core operating system. Linux isn't becoming big business. Linux is big business.

Watson wins at Jeopardy

Microsoft loves Linux

2014: Maybe the leopard can change its spots? Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella declares that Microsoft loves Linux. The company proves it by supporting Linux and open-source software both on its cloud and by deploying it internally.

Microsoft open sources its patent portfolio

Microsoft launches Linux for Windows 10 users

2019: Microsoft follows up by introducing its own native Linux, Windows Subsystem for Linux 2.0, for Windows 10 users. With it, people can run Linux simultaneously with Windows. 

IBM acquires Red Hat

2019: Red Hat is acquired by IBM for $34-billion, making it the biggest software acquisition ever. With this move it becomes clear that Linux now dominates the technology world. Not bad for a hobby!

All roads to the cloud go through Linux

2020: The global cloud market is now over $100-billion a year. 90% of it runs on Linux. Even on Microsoft Azure, more than half of all VMs are Linux.