126 lines
6.1 KiB
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126 lines
6.1 KiB
HTML
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<title>The Australian History of Tux LG #59</title>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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<H1><font color="maroon">The Australian History of Tux</font></H1>
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<H4>By <a href="mailto:ccjones@turboweb.net.au">Chris Jones</a></H4>
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<P> Gday from the land of Oz,
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<P> If anyone out there is wondering about the growing popularity of
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Linux and its adoption by Australian writers as a writers true
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operating system, perhaps the following may help explain.
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<P> On the reason for choosing Tux--the penguin mascot for Linux--Linus
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Tolvalds, the first of thousands who wrote the Linux computer
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operating system on the world wide web, had this to say:
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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When I was in Canberra a few years ago we went to the local
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zoo ... There they had a ferocious penguin that bit me...
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<P> OK now, when Linus says he was bitten by an angry penguin in
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Canberra and that is a good reason for the Tux mascot which today
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spells Linux, there maybe more to the story.
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<P> During the 1940s and 50s in Australia there was a literary
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magazine called, of all things, <EM>The Angry Penguins</EM>. This magazine
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was an avant-garde modernist poetry magazine edited by Max Harris
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and had modernist painters and writers grouped around it whose names
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are now legend in Australian art. But at that time they were just
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considered weird and way out. You know, the stereotype of mad deluded
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poets and artists starving and living in sub-standard housing.
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<P> Anyway, this literary magazine started to get a bit too much of a
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following. A couple of boring farts, both academic poets, got a bit
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hot under the collar about this and got together to write and submit
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a hoax modernist poem under the false name of Ern Malley. As it
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worked out, these farts are now better known for this hoax and the
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false name Ern Malley, then their own true names and works.
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<P> Now, since most of the archives for the Angry Penguins and a
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complete set of the journals may be found living in the National
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Library in Canberra, the question remains: was Linus bitten by a real
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angry penguin? Could it have been the ghost of Ern Malley? Or much
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worst still, could it be the ghost of Max Harris? After all, I'd
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rather be bitten by the ghost of a hoax poet then the ghost of a
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really angry penguin poet.
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<P> But as Linus later admits, it was really a fairy penguin that sucked
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gently on his finger, thinking it a fish. But, oh my, even more
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dangerous. Could he have had his digit licked by a queer poet
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becoming penguin?
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<P> So when Linus later writes:
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really
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embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never
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seen a angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph.
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They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had.
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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He isn't wrong!
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<H5 ALIGN=center>
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Copyright © 2000, Chris Jones.
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Copying license <A HREF="../copying.html">http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html</A><BR>
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Published in Issue 59 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 2000</H5>
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