Hey Linux kernel! You're 15! You know what that means—look back on fond times, recompile, and gather all of your copyright-reform-loving, terminal-typing friends and have a rager!


After 15 hard punches to the flipper, we'll recount the important moments in your life and the accomplishments you've managed to rack up before even being allowed to legally buy cigarettes and porn in most states:

• 1987: MINIX, the more dangerous and hardcore older brother you've always idolized, was born.


• 1991: Linus Torvalds is pissed he can't access his university's UNIX servers to his liking, so he wrote the code that would become your DNA. Which I guess is better than your parents just getting blind drunk and conceiving you in their Vegas drive-through honeymoon suite.

• March 13 1994: Judging by this pretty hardcore looking log file, your version 1.0 was release on this day 15 years ago.

• 1996: You're two years old, and you already have a logo. Tux the penguin is created.


• 1998: Richard Stallman, kind of like your step dad, shaves his beard. It grows back to the same fullness the next day.

• November 2000: The first Linux-powered cellphone is announced, the IMT-2000 in Korea. It was developed by SK Telecom, Seoul National University and "PalmPalm Technology."


• 2003: IBM releases those creepy ads comparing Linux to an (autistic?) sponge-like kid soaking up all the world's knowledge.

• 2004: Ubuntu's first release. You're going mainstream kind of!

• ???: Linux will finally power the toaster in my home.

It's been a great life, and here's to many nerdier years to come.

Ok I just wrote a birthday card to an operating system. I think I need to go shotgun a Coors Lite to balance out the 1,020 geek points I just accumulated. Shotgunning it just because, not in honor of any birthday or anything.