this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2025
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 hours ago

OK make a graph of swear words used by Linus and all others against Linus's age. I've a theory.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I quite liked how the original Linux fix for the Spectre-style speculative execution bug on Intel processors was called "Forcefully Unmap Complete Kernel With Interrupt Trampolines", but alas, in the interest of diplomacy it was renamed to "Kernel Page Table Isolation" (KPTI) rather than "FUCKWIT".

Doesn't feel like it was that long ago, but of course, all search results are dogshit in this new age: https://wccftech.com/intel-kernel-memory-leak-bug-speculative-execution-performance-hit/

[–] [email protected] 4 points 13 hours ago

I never really looked into what they were doing with KPTI.

Assuming it's accurate, that first one is a much better technical description, even if it was intended to spell FUCKWIT

[–] [email protected] 6 points 16 hours ago

now … how many of those were by Linus?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (2 children)

How does that compare to the growth in size of the overall code base?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 21 hours ago

The kernel recently surpassed 40 million lines of code, so there's lots of room to add more fucks and shits.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (2 children)

The sharp uptick of crap flown around 2.6 piques my interest. As does someone's introduction of 'retard' into the vocabulary shortly prior. Must have been popcorn times.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago

I don't think this uptick of 2.6 sounds fair to be interpreted as a timeline because it stuck around for five years. Also around that time embedded devices boomed, and LTS kept it alive well into 2010s. I bet there have to be a large amount of swears from the later developers tried hard to fix bugs.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Meh, crap is barely a swear word is it?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Moreso than idiot though. It's almost always been considered a swear-word, but if you're looking for a stricter, smaller set, those go by "cuss-words".

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 hours ago

I've never considered it a swear word. It's more of a euphomism for "shit". My criteria for "swear" word is whether it is something a kid can say in school with getting yelled at. I realize this may have changed since I was a kid.