Some Interesting Facts About GNU/Linux :
Linux is a land of excavation, the more you excavate
the more you find treasure lies within it. This article tries to uncover
some of the lesser known facts about Linux. To keep things simple, easy to read, easy to remember and easy to refer this article will be presented in point-wise fashion.
# Linux is not an OS, but it is the kernel, GNU Linux is the OS and it comes in several hundred flavours.
# Linux Kernel was written by a 21 year finnish college student as a part of his hobby. Yup! His name is Linus Torvalds.
# Torvalds created Linux based on GNU General Public License (GPL). Perhaps Torvalds would have never written his own kernel if GPL would be having it’s own kernel and driver.
# Major part of today’s Linux kernel is written in C programming language and assembly language and only 2% of today’s kernel contains code written by Torvalds.
# A Standard Linux Kernel of today has over 10 Million lines of code and it grows at the rate of 10% every year. About 4500 lines of codes are added and 1500 lines of code are changed everyday. Initially in 1991, Linux kernel version 0.01 was released with 10239 lines of code.
# A guy named William Della Croce Jr. registered the name Linux and demanded royalty for using its name and mark. However he agreed to handover the trademark to Linus, later.
# The Linux kernel’s official mascot is a penguin named Tux, abbreviation of tuxedo. The idea that Linux had a pet penguin comes from Linus Torvalds himself.
# Linux Torvalds has been honoured by naming an astroid after his name.
# OK, Now the area of application of Linux – U.S.
Department of Defense, U.S. Navy Submarine Fleet, Federal Aviation
Administration, Tamil Nadu for education purpose, Japan’s bullet trains,
traffic control of San Francisco, the New York Stock Exchange, CERN,
many air traffic control systems or control of nuclear reactors of
submarines and ships, Russia, Brazil and Venezuela for interoperable
management , cost efficient and technologically independence, Google,
Cisco, Facebook, Twitter, Linked in, Toyota, TiVo, etc, server hosting
the website of the White House (Drupal), federal government of Brazil
favours Linux operating systems over all others in its PCs. Is Not Linux
kernel the most widely ported operating system, running on a great
variety of operating systems.
# For those who think Linux can’t do Animation – Oscar-winning visual effects of the Titanic by James Cameron came from machines with Linux and Avatar was the last movie completely developed in 3D Applications on Linux platform using Foss Software. Exclaimed!
# Believe it or not – In 2002, Microsoft had accumulated a $ 421 million cost of fighting the spread of Linux, according to The Register.
# According to a study funded by the European Union, the estimated cost to redevelop the most recent kernel versions would be at $1.14 billion USD – Amazed.
# Microsoft Windows and the Linux kernel can run simultaneously in parallel on the same machine using a software called Cooperative Linux (coLinux).
# IBM choose Linux for what is expected to be the world’s most powerful supercomputer, Sequoia, due in 2011.
