this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2025
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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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I've got a fun one to share from my college programming professor. Similar situation, they had a machine that kept locking up, and this was back in the days of huge mainframes the size of rooms. So they call the repair tech from the manufacturer.
So the repair tech shows up to the office gets the run down on what's been going on, and goes out to his car and brings in a huge piece of wood and just starts wailing on the thing as hard as he could. The whole office was freaking out thinking this guy had lost it, and he later explained that the memory was a grid of magnetic coils, and the coils would rust and the rust shavings would fall between the coils below, corrupting the memory bits. So he was shaking them loose by slamming the machine with this piece of wood. Lol wild times.
Bit o' the ol' percussive maintenance.
TIL "wailing on something" = hit it with a stick.
Well, I guess after looking it up, its actually 'whaling on something'.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/usage-of-whale-wail-wale