 The Linux® technology, development model, and community have all been
game-changing influences on the IT industry, and all we can really do is stand
back and look at it all, happy to have been along for the ride for
developerWorks' first 10 years. The
Linux zone team has put together this greatly abbreviated collection of things
that stand out in our minds as having rocked the world of Linux in a
significant way.
Much too much has happened with Linux in the last 10 years to do anything
like a complete job of listing the important events and technological
advances surrounding this operating system. But nevertheless, in
celebration of our 10th birthday, the Linux zone team looks back and
presents to you some major milestones, why they matter, and what we wrote
about them. Please to enjoy.
Be sure to check out the developerWorks
10th birthday page
to see what else is going on across the site, including a
timeline of developerWorks events
over the last 10 years.
In 2000, LPI announced the availability of test 1a, the first exam in its
new Linux administrator certification program, a program that now consists
of seven tests across three certification levels. developerWorks published
its first series of LPI exam-prep tutorials by Daniel Robbins in 2002, and
we've kept up with it ever since.
Why it matters: You can argue about the value of certifications, but
the fact that employers were looking for a consistent measure of Linux
expertise was one of many signs that Linux had arrived.
What we've written about it:
Andrew Tridgell's Samba on Linux predates developerWorks by a
good five or six years, but his implementation of Microsoft's Server
Message Block (SMB) protocol is such an important component of mixed
networks everywhere that we really didn't feel right not including it
here.
Why it matters: In many companies, Linux snuck in as a
Web server,
firewall, e-mail server, or other specialized appliance. Why not try
hiding in plain sight as a Windows® file and print server? Linux plays well
with others, and this is proof.
What we've written about it:
"One box, one operating system" no longer applied to
Linux when it arrived on the S/390® mainframe in early 2000.
Why it matters: You can now run numerous virtual Linux instances at
once, distributing your costs across multiple application sessions running
on a single piece of hardware. Plus, your Linux expertise now scales as
well as your applications.
What we've written about it:
Released under the GPL by the US National Security Agency
in early 2001 and merged into the kernel since 2.6.0, Security Enhanced
Linux provides support for a number of access control policy models, such
as mandatory access control and role-based access control.
Why it matters: Although not the simplest thing to use, SELinux
brings an additional level of security to Linux for installations for
which discretionary access control is not enough. And there's something
sort of cool about the NSA giving technology away.
What we've written about it:
A LiveCD lets you boot Linux on a machine without
actually installing anything on the hard drive—Linux boots from the CD
or DVD and lives in RAM while running. Many distributions have LiveCD
versions, and there are a number of LiveCD distributions created for
specific tasks, such as system diagnosis and recovery.
Why it matters: Your favorite Linux distribution can generally be
assumed not to be installed on any given machine, so for demos, trial
software, the aforementioned diagnostic purposes, or just to show off
Linux to a Windows user, having a self-contained disk that you can pop in
and boot from is an invaluable tool.
What we've written about it:
Linux users early on started chaining multiple boxes
together to provide more fault tolerance or better performance. Beowulf,
for one, was an important early architecture for multi-machine parallel
computations. There's even a load-balancing cluster LiveCD,
ClusterKnoppix.
Why it matters: Cluster computing is supercomputing (or fault
tolerance) for everyone, using free software and commodity hardware to
achieve what only specialized, expensive systems could do before.
What we've written about it:
Of course, tightly coupled, multi-core systems
will always outperform networked boxes. Blue Gene®/L and the now Blue
Gene/P running Linux are setting records in the most compute-intensive
technical and scientific workload environments.
Why it matters: Besides the gee-whiz value of running the fastest
computers on Earth, advanced techniques and standards for multiprocessing
environments are flowing back to the rest of us for business
computing.
What we've written about it:
Sony has allowed and even encouraged the
installation of Linux on its game consoles, and for developers interested
in exploring Cell/B.E. programming, the PS3 is an accessible option.
Why it matters: Linux on the Playstation makes a fine computer and
all, but frankly, in the greater scheme of things, we're not sure it
changes the Linux landscape all that much. Consider this a subversive
high-five to all the hackers out there who try things like this just because
you can™.
What we've written about it:
Virtualization allows one or more guest operating
systems to run on top of another operating system that acts as the host.
The 2.6.20 kernel was the first to include the Kernel Virtual Machine
(KVM), but Xen, User-Mode Linux, QEMU, VMware, and other virtualization
technologies are important as well.
Why it matters: Virtualization is a necessary ingredient of many
cloud architectures. For developers, virtualization can be a good way to
create a nice, safe sandbox for testing.
What we've written about it:
Announced in 2005, the OLPC project was
created to provide low-cost, durable, connected computers to
underprivileged children around the world. As much about the user
interface as the hardware, the Linux-based Sugar operating environment is
designed to encourage exploring and expressing rather than focusing on
traditional productivity tools.
Why it matters: It's a nice idea. It also represents a shift away
from exposing Linux's traditional user interface(s), to instead employing
purpose-driven UIs that overlie and conceal the gory details of the
operating system. Linux might win on the desktop by simply hiding the fact
that it's there.
What we've written about it:
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