Linux Is 34 Years Old Today
Key topics
As Linux celebrates its 34th birthday, nostalgic users are reminiscing about their early experiences with the OS, sharing tales of running it on ancient hardware like 386SX machines with a meager 2MB of RAM. Commenters are marveling at how far they've come, with some revealing they started using Linux in the early 90s and are now, ahem, significantly older. Amidst the nostalgia, a tongue-in-cheek debate is brewing about Linux's prospects on the desktop, with one commenter dryly noting its current 5% market share and doing the math on when it might finally achieve "total domination." Meanwhile, others are keeping things in perspective, pointing out that software development – like hip-hop music – is still a relatively young field.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Light discussionFirst comment
8m
Peak period
4
6-8h
Avg / period
1.7
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Aug 26, 2025 at 4:41 AM EDT
5 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Aug 26, 2025 at 4:49 AM EDT
8m after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
4 comments in 6-8h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Aug 27, 2025 at 12:28 AM EDT
5 months ago
Step 04
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It was really really great. Then everything went downhill with glibc/eglibc split and mandatory ELF binary format. [same stuff could no longer boot at 2MB of RAM].
Although, I run it around 1999/2000 :P [then Slackware 7.1, 8.1, and NetBSD 1.6.1].
Shitty times but great software and hardware. [it was fun to try boot/install system at 4MB of ram :) ]
I once installed 7.1 at a modern machine and I was able to compile the default kernel in like 14 seconds instead of 45 minutes with 486DX2.
I had my first Linux exposure in late 1992 or early 1993 with the SLS bootable floppy distribution. I started putting it to use almost immediately to do some of my CS coursework from my bedroom instead of always going to the terminal rooms on campus.
I think I started using Slackware later in 1993 when I was ready to go from floppy to HDD installation. I found a computer lab, accessible to undergraduates, where I could FTP the floppy images over the campus network and write them to floppy. It took multiple trips but was much faster than trying to do it via a dial-up SLIP connection.