6 Apr
2008
6 Apr
'08
2:43 p.m.
On Sat, Apr 05, 2008 at 07:10:47PM -0400, Sean Conner wrote:
It was thus said that the Great Liam Proven once
stated:
HP-UX and AIX are still alive and kicking, so commercial UNIX isn't
dead, it just smells funny.
When I was a baby geek, I remember reading about this seminal text, a
distillation from a long-active mailing list called UNIX-HATERS. Now,
it's available for free:
Darn. And to think I bought the dead tree version in the mid 90s (I still
have the barf bag that came with it).
It's a good & enjoyable read. I'm
nearly at the end of it now.
It's interesting to look back at this 1991 (-ish) book from the
perspective of 2008. How many of the criticisms levelled against Unix
were stuff that users of then-older OSs thought was deranged.
Today, the same sort of rivalry exists between Unix and Windows
people; the stuff before them is nearly forgotten now. I mean, I've
been in this business for some 20y (and another 5-10y before that as a
hobbyist) and I've never seen TOPS or MULTICS or ITS or anything like
them.
I've certainly heard of them myself, and some of the concepts they came up
with have made me want to learn more about each one, but I've yet to
actually use any of them.
What I'm wondering is, how many of the
criticisms levelled against
Unix (and thus, by association, Linux) in this book from 17y ago are
still current or valid today. I've been using Linux for 11-12y now,
but I still regard myself as something of a beginner, whereas I've
known Windows since it was 2 and can make it jump backwards through
flaming hoops.
Chapter 1---not so much any more. This was a time (94) when the ANSI-C
standard had only been out a few years so there was still quite a bit of K&R
C floating around. This was also a time when there were still plenty of
Unix versions floating around, instead of the what? Five we have left now?
(Linux, Open|Free|NetBSD, Solaris). Chapter 6---terminals. Not so much anymore. Pretty
much vt100/xterm and
you're good to go (alhough I still have issues with BS vs. DEL on Linux).
Chapter 7---Pretty much spot on, although the alternatives to X Windows
are worse (that is, if you want remote capabilities). And sadly, I do miss
NeWS (used it in college; was sad when SGI dropped it).
Chapter 8---who uses csh anymore? I think we all use bash nowadays, but
this still holds up pretty well (man, I can't make heads or tails of the
startup scripts on Linux, but then again, I never did learn to really read
shell scripts).
Ah, those are reasonably easy to read, but some people do really twisted
things with shell scripts.
Chapter 11---If anything it's gotten better and
worse in my opinion. If
you set up Unix correctly, it can run smoothly for years without problems.
The major problem comes when you have other users on the system, or trying
to get a modern Linux distribution set up correctly (when did "which" become
optional? Or "traceroute"? Don't even get me started on so-called
"package
managers").
Package managers, done _right_ are a godsend. Done wrong, they are a
nightmare.
Chapter 13---file systems. They're gotten much
better over the years, and
even Linux is slowly learning about removable media [1].
Chapter 14---I don't know anyone using NFS anymore (I think the last time
I saw NFS in a commercial setting was the late 90s, and even at home, I
don't use NFS all that much). But replace NFS with Samba, and it's spot on
(more or less).
Lets just say that NFS is _very_ much alive and in use, all over the
place. From home networks (here, $HOME sits on NFS) to small and large
companies.
Regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison