“Many non-programming types using Linux and Unix are wondering
these days if Unix and Unix-derivatives and clones (such as Linux)
will survive the Y2k crisis. This piece of content is going to be
fairly short, because the answer is also fairly short: Yes, Linux
is Y2k-safe. Why? Let’s examine just what the Y2k bug is”
“In contrast to this buggy method of storing the date, Linux
(and many Unix) systems store dates as a single large number: the
number of seconds since epoch, or the moment marked by 12:00AM on
January 1st, 1970. As you may have guessed, this is a very large
number, but it can actually be stored in a single 32-bit CPU word,
or 4 bytes, making this method of storing the date both more
accurate and more memory-efficient than the buggy method. Because
of this, most Linux systems won’t even pause when the rollover to
January 1st, 2000 occurs.”