7 ms·

Linux Logo (1996)

147 points by baba_ramdev 6y ago

davvid 6y ago
Linus links to the author's page[1], which is delightfully still online after all these years. That page links to a nice tutorial[2] explaining how the author used The Gimp to draw the original penguin logo. [1] https://isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/ https://isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/ [2] https://isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/notes.html https://isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/notes.html
- bullen 6y ago
  They removed HTTP? Yesterday I tried to download a .zip from HTTP and now Chrome does not allow that? Now I have to paste these instuctions next to all the .zip downloads I link to: (right-click select "Save link as..." and press the up arrow in the bottom left and select "Keep" for Chrome, you can fix this permanently by going to chrome://flags and disabling #treat-unsafe-downloads-as-active-content. For any google morons reading; .zip does not execute) This is retarded, I need to encrypt penguin pictures?
  - cpach 6y ago
    One could use wget instead. Or curl.
- tomcooks 6y ago
  Was lucky enough as a kid to receive an answer by this extremely kind person when asking for permission to modify Tux for a local LAN party flyer
- crtasm 6y ago
  and a mean looking version with GNU boxing gloves! https://isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/older.html https://isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/older.html
bombcar 6y ago
I remember being exceptionally excited when I got TWO penguins on boot on my dual Celeron machine.
- avhception 6y ago
  I remember being excited about more than one penguin as well. They even got little suns on their bellies when I booted on a Sparc64 machine!
- glandium 6y ago
  I definitely remember Tux showing up in boot, but I don't remember when it started appearing or when it disappeared. (when/what kernel version).
  - Symbiote 6y ago
    It appeared on the CentOS 7 install I made earlier this year. Fortunately, only about 8 or 9 show. 96 would fill up the screen. (I had trouble on some new hardware with the usual automated install, so I watched what was happening.)
  - jlgaddis 6y ago
    AFAIK, it's still there if/when using framebuffer mode.
  - scaladev 6y ago
    It can be compiled out of the kernel (that's what most distributions do these days), or disabled with a boot option. Try: $ zgrep CONFIG_MODULE_SIG_SHA224 /proc/config.gz $ grep logo /proc/cmdline
- loeg 6y ago
  I remember seeing some penguins on boot on airline entertainment systems. It was amusing. It's definitely something they could configure off, but didn't.
thinkingkong 6y ago
I wonder what the next movement will be that recreates the same emotions and feelings that earlier mailing groups, kernel hackers, and slow internet created. Some sense of discovery and pushing the envelope.
- orbifold 6y ago
  I think that is more a matter of being young (a kid or young adult) as opposed to related to any specific technology. Think of all the books that you could potentially read if you wandered into a library. Decades of knowledge waiting to be discovered.
- hshshs2 6y ago
  what was the movement before it?
dadarecit 6y ago
love these kinds of stories. warms the heart.
xorcist 6y ago
For context, here is the semi-official Linux logotype that preceded the penguin: https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/logos/platypus/llogo.gif https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/logos/platypus/llogo.gif I think the idea was that platypuses give the idea of being put together by disparate parts. Once the cute penguin showed up on the scene it quickly took over however.
- nineteen999 6y ago
  > I think the idea was that platypuses give the idea of being put together by disparate parts. Once retired, the platypus was handed down to the Darwin people of course, to go with their Frankenstein NEXTSTEP/Mach/BSD kernel. http://www.hexley.com/ http://www.hexley.com/
  - deburo 6y ago
    Haha. I don't know what it is with open software projects and cute animals. There's also Golang's. I find them out of place (mixing cute things with technical matters), but I shouldn't complain.
    - ruph123 6y ago
      Don’t forget Ferris!
    - enw 6y ago
      > I find them out of place (mixing cute things with technical matters) I love beautifully engineered software that's represented by a whimsical cartoon character or other non-vector-perfect hand-drawn art.
- zorked 6y ago
  I thought the platypus was Slackware's, not Linux's, mascot at some point. As in the old Walnut Creek CD-ROM releases: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CLV_JkEWgAAOcdU?format=jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CLV_JkEWgAAOcdU?format=jpg
- saul_goodman 6y ago
walrus01 6y ago
see also, Tux Racer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tux_Racer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tux_Racer Once the Penguin was settled on as the logo, it really went everywhere.
- thih9 6y ago
  Is there an easy way to play Tux Racer today on a mac?
  - pantalaimon 6y ago
    I think the most up to date fork is Extreme Tux Racer
emmelaich 6y ago
The penguin was a fairy aka little penguin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_penguin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_penguin He was bitten when on Philip Island. You can't get that close to the penguins anymore. https://www.phillipislandpoint.com.au/attractions/phillip-island-penguins/ https://www.phillipislandpoint.com.au/attractions/phillip-is...
- nineteen999 6y ago
  You can get quite close to the colony at St Kilda Pier: https://stkildapenguins.com.au/skp/?page_id=93 https://stkildapenguins.com.au/skp/?page_id=93 Also you can find them on the north coast of Tasmania, commonly sitting alongside boardwalks etc.
jmartrican 6y ago
I really liked Linus' explanation of how an animal (versus an abstract shape) as a logo can have huge benefits. When you compare Red Hat's hat logo vs Linux's penguin... you can't really have a hat do as much as a penguin. A penguin can smile, and pose, and do things, where a hat can only sit there doing nothing.
- bombcar 6y ago
  You can even put the hat ON the penguin.
- jimmyed 6y ago
  Always a pleasure to hear the boss speak!
DonHopkins 6y ago
For everyone who hoped to read about the programming language instead of penguins: https://www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/logo.shtml https://www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/logo.shtml https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/logo.html https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/logo.html
dale_glass 6y ago
Fun fact: The penguin used to have a contender: https://xenia-linux-site.glitch.me/ https://xenia-linux-site.glitch.me/ I got an avatar made in the style (male though).
_joel 6y ago
I'm always reminded of the Slackware 96 release on Walnut Creek around this time. Fond memories of making disk sets to install on my inherited 486 laptop
riphdd2020 6y ago
I hope this is not too off-topic, but I can't be the only one here who thought 'I don't remember any distro called Linux Logo...' before clicking and seeing my mistake. Cute nostalgia either way.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Linux Logo (1996)

147 points by baba_ramdev 6y ago

Linus links to the author's page[1], which is delightfully still online after all these years. That page links to a nice tutorial[2] explaining how the author used The Gimp to draw the original penguin logo. [1] https://isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/ https://isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/ [2] https://isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/notes.html https://isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/notes.html

bullen 6y ago
They removed HTTP? Yesterday I tried to download a .zip from HTTP and now Chrome does not allow that? Now I have to paste these instuctions next to all the .zip downloads I link to: (right-click select "Save link as..." and press the up arrow in the bottom left and select "Keep" for Chrome, you can fix this permanently by going to chrome://flags and disabling #treat-unsafe-downloads-as-active-content. For any google morons reading; .zip does not execute) This is retarded, I need to encrypt penguin pictures?
- cpach 6y ago
  One could use wget instead. Or curl.
tomcooks 6y ago
Was lucky enough as a kid to receive an answer by this extremely kind person when asking for permission to modify Tux for a local LAN party flyer
crtasm 6y ago
and a mean looking version with GNU boxing gloves! https://isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/older.html https://isc.tamu.edu/~lewing/linux/older.html

bombcar 6y ago

I remember being exceptionally excited when I got TWO penguins on boot on my dual Celeron machine.

avhception 6y ago
I remember being excited about more than one penguin as well. They even got little suns on their bellies when I booted on a Sparc64 machine!
glandium 6y ago
I definitely remember Tux showing up in boot, but I don't remember when it started appearing or when it disappeared. (when/what kernel version).
- Symbiote 6y ago
  It appeared on the CentOS 7 install I made earlier this year. Fortunately, only about 8 or 9 show. 96 would fill up the screen. (I had trouble on some new hardware with the usual automated install, so I watched what was happening.)
- jlgaddis 6y ago
  AFAIK, it's still there if/when using framebuffer mode.
- scaladev 6y ago
  It can be compiled out of the kernel (that's what most distributions do these days), or disabled with a boot option. Try: $ zgrep CONFIG_MODULE_SIG_SHA224 /proc/config.gz $ grep logo /proc/cmdline
loeg 6y ago
I remember seeing some penguins on boot on airline entertainment systems. It was amusing. It's definitely something they could configure off, but didn't.

thinkingkong 6y ago

I wonder what the next movement will be that recreates the same emotions and feelings that earlier mailing groups, kernel hackers, and slow internet created. Some sense of discovery and pushing the envelope.

orbifold 6y ago
I think that is more a matter of being young (a kid or young adult) as opposed to related to any specific technology. Think of all the books that you could potentially read if you wandered into a library. Decades of knowledge waiting to be discovered.
hshshs2 6y ago
what was the movement before it?

dadarecit 6y ago

love these kinds of stories. warms the heart.

xorcist 6y ago

For context, here is the semi-official Linux logotype that preceded the penguin: https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/logos/platypus/llogo.gif https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/logos/platypus/llogo.gif I think the idea was that platypuses give the idea of being put together by disparate parts. Once the cute penguin showed up on the scene it quickly took over however.

nineteen999 6y ago
> I think the idea was that platypuses give the idea of being put together by disparate parts. Once retired, the platypus was handed down to the Darwin people of course, to go with their Frankenstein NEXTSTEP/Mach/BSD kernel. http://www.hexley.com/ http://www.hexley.com/
- deburo 6y ago
  Haha. I don't know what it is with open software projects and cute animals. There's also Golang's. I find them out of place (mixing cute things with technical matters), but I shouldn't complain.
  - ruph123 6y ago
    Don’t forget Ferris!
  - enw 6y ago
    > I find them out of place (mixing cute things with technical matters) I love beautifully engineered software that's represented by a whimsical cartoon character or other non-vector-perfect hand-drawn art.
zorked 6y ago
I thought the platypus was Slackware's, not Linux's, mascot at some point. As in the old Walnut Creek CD-ROM releases: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CLV_JkEWgAAOcdU?format=jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CLV_JkEWgAAOcdU?format=jpg
saul_goodman 6y ago

walrus01 6y ago

see also, Tux Racer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tux_Racer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tux_Racer Once the Penguin was settled on as the logo, it really went everywhere.

thih9 6y ago
Is there an easy way to play Tux Racer today on a mac?
- pantalaimon 6y ago
  I think the most up to date fork is Extreme Tux Racer

emmelaich 6y ago

The penguin was a fairy aka little penguin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_penguin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_penguin He was bitten when on Philip Island. You can't get that close to the penguins anymore. https://www.phillipislandpoint.com.au/attractions/phillip-island-penguins/ https://www.phillipislandpoint.com.au/attractions/phillip-is...

nineteen999 6y ago
You can get quite close to the colony at St Kilda Pier: https://stkildapenguins.com.au/skp/?page_id=93 https://stkildapenguins.com.au/skp/?page_id=93 Also you can find them on the north coast of Tasmania, commonly sitting alongside boardwalks etc.

jmartrican 6y ago

I really liked Linus' explanation of how an animal (versus an abstract shape) as a logo can have huge benefits. When you compare Red Hat's hat logo vs Linux's penguin... you can't really have a hat do as much as a penguin. A penguin can smile, and pose, and do things, where a hat can only sit there doing nothing.

bombcar 6y ago
You can even put the hat ON the penguin.
jimmyed 6y ago
Always a pleasure to hear the boss speak!

DonHopkins 6y ago

For everyone who hoped to read about the programming language instead of penguins: https://www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/logo.shtml https://www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/logo.shtml https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/logo.html https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/logo.html

dale_glass 6y ago

Fun fact: The penguin used to have a contender: https://xenia-linux-site.glitch.me/ https://xenia-linux-site.glitch.me/ I got an avatar made in the style (male though).

_joel 6y ago

I'm always reminded of the Slackware 96 release on Walnut Creek around this time. Fond memories of making disk sets to install on my inherited 486 laptop

riphdd2020 6y ago

I hope this is not too off-topic, but I can't be the only one here who thought 'I don't remember any distro called Linux Logo...' before clicking and seeing my mistake. Cute nostalgia either way.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]