Happy 21st Birthday to Linux

The revolutionary operating system that is Linux today, on August the 25th, turns 21.

Linux forms the basis of our everyday lives whether we know it or not. Android based smartphones, run Linux, Android is a derivative of Linux. over 850,000 smartphones running Linux-based Android get activated daily. Nearly 700,000 TVs sold everyday have some form of Linux based operating system.

The financial markets use Linux too. 8 out of 10 financial trades were conducted on a Linux based operating system. Supercomputing needs Linux, with 9 out of 10 of the world’s meanest, fastest and biggest machines running a Linux based OS.

Web hosting is an interesting case. The majority of the world’s websites are powered by Linux based servers, that includes: Google, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter.

Linux is probably the biggest thing that has happened to computing, bigger than Windows. Because its open source and free, everyday thousands collaborate on the use of Linux and the development of Linux , it never stops. Every couple of months a new Linux Kernel is released yet with Windows we get a new Windows Kernel every 2 to 3 years.

Impressively Linux has over 10,000 patches, individually submitted and reviewed, going into each new Linux Kernel release. That’s 6 patches being applied to the Linux Kernel every hour. A level of development that just can’t be matched by Windows.

So hats off and Birthday cheers to Linux – someone get Linus Torvalds a drink.