Linux was created in 1991 in Helsinki with the beginning of a personal project by Finnish student Linus Torvalds to create a new free operating system kernel. He created the program specifically for the hardware he was using and free of an operating system because he wanted to use the functions the capabilities of his new PC. The finished Linux kernel has been marked by constant growth throughout its history. When discussing Manovich’s eight principals he assesses technology as new media and how it’s connected to everything. When comparing his first principle to Linux it shows how it created a community to work on developing on Linus’s program. His next principal discusses how it helped create a new cultural object. When comparing his third principal to Linux it can be seen that Linux is a form of software which created more software. In his fourth principal Manovich talks about how digital data is controlled by software; Linux is an open sourced platform created for anyone to use, but not many know how to use it. The fifth principal talks about how everything once is new media and eventually becomes old, but in the case of Linux it may take longer than others have because it is used as a foundation for many of the “new” things that we have today. Manovich’s sixth principal discusses how new media is constantly adapting and changing creating more proficient ways for it to be use. Linux is constantly being rewritten or adapted in some way to cater to a different need with over 18 million source code. Next he mentions that new media is a form of multimedia which can be seen because Linux is made off of source code which is a text listing of commands to be compiled into an executable computer program. This can create anything from multimedia to software. Finally he relates how old media and technology is similar to the ideas of today. This is a little difficult to relate to because this idea was the first of its time. There might have been similar thoughts people have had but none seemed to have been followed through till 1991. Linux embraces almost all the aspects of web 2.0 because it’s an open source platform. The only one it might not comply with is O’Reilly’s 4th principal because within that principal he states that the all tools come to an “end of a release cycle” which can be argued because it’s constantly being manipulated to create new software and programs therefore it can be argued it’s endless.
Technology is a force that is constantly moving forward that has breached new barriers and has created more opportunity. With more opportunity we were able to learn and create new things. Without the creation of computers and the internet Linux would never have existed because the internet helped other people reach out to Linus to help him better his program; and without computers there wouldn’t be a reason for Linux to exist. The creation of Linux was in 1991 in Helsinki, Linus Torvalds started a project that later became the Linux kernel. He wrote the program specifically for the hardware he was using and independent of an operating system because he wanted to use the functions of his new PC with an 80386 processor. This wouldn’t be possible without having a computer already running off the basic existing command lines. Linux was and still written in “C” which is one of the most basic computer languages created.
Linux doesn’t embody a characteristic of social media because it is the reason social media exits so it becomes impossible to determine a single characteristic when it’s responsible for all of the characteristics. It has become foundation for eversion because it created all of the distractions causing eversion. Linux is an open idea which is subject to user change which Castell would support because it’s dynamic and constantly changing.
