Exactly 16 years ago, on March 1994, Linux kernel version 1.0.0 was humbly released for the world to tinker with. To celebrate the historic moment, I have collected some really interesting facts about the Linux kernel. So if you are a Linux fan, grab a beer and read on.
- A 21 year-old Finnish college student created the Linux kernel as a hobby. (Do you know him?)
- An asteroid was named after the creator of the Linux kernel.
- Thousands of developers/programmers scattered all around the world are continuously contributing to the development of the Linux kernel.
- The Linux kernel's official mascot is a penguin named Tux.
- 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.
- As of today, only 2% of the Linux kernel has been written by Linus Torvalds.
- The Linux kernel is written in the version of the C programming language.
- Linux is now one of the most widely ported operating system kernels, running on a diverse range of systems from handheld computers to mainframe servers.
- Linux kernel 1.0.0 was released with 176,250 lines of code. The latest Linux kernel has over 10 million lines of code.
- Microsoft Windows and the Linux kernel can run simultaneously in parallel on the same machine using a software called Cooperative Linux (coLinux).
- At first, Torvalds wanted to call the kernel he developed Freax (a combination of "free", "freak", and the letter X to indicate that it is a Unix-like system), but his friend Ari Lemmke, who administered the FTP server where the kernel was first hosted for downloading, named Torvalds' directory linux.
- A guy name William Della Croce, Jr. trademarked the name Linux and eventually demanded royalties for its use. He later agreed to assign the trademark to Torvalds.
- The Linux kernel can be found on more than 87% of systems on the world's Top 500 supercomputers.
- A "vanilla kernel" is not an ice cream flavor but an unmodified version of the Linux kernel.
- The Linux Kernel is not in any way related to the army rank called ‘Colonel’. (hehe)
Cheers!
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