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Comment by SwellJoe

10 years ago

I've read that "sourceware" article before, in the distant past when it was still a roughly accurate picture of the market (maybe 1995 or 1996). It's weird to read it again now, in a world that is so remarkably changed. Linux, the scrappy little upstart with a million or so users at the time of the paper, is now the most popular OS (or at least kernel) on the planet, powering billions of phones and servers. NT was viewed as the unfortunate but inevitable future of server operating systems.

I remember looking at IT jobs back then, and seeing a business world covered in Windows NT machines; I even got my MCSE (alongside some UNIX certifications that I was more excited about), because of it. Looking at jobs now, the difference is remarkable, to say the least. Nearly every core technology a system administrator needs to know is Open Source and almost certainly running on Linux.

And, the funny thing is that the general prescription (make a great Open Source UNIX) is exactly what it took to save UNIX. It just didn't involve any of the big UNIX vendors in a significant way (the ones spending a gazillion dollars on UNIX development at the time). Linux got better faster than Sun got smarter, and ate everybody's lunch, including Microsoft. Innovator's Dilemma strikes again.

Apple is an interesting blip on the UNIX history radar, too...though, they're likely to lose to the same market forces in the end, as phones become commodities. I'm a bit concerned that it's going to be Android, however, that wins the mobile world since Android is nowhere near the ideal OS from an Open Source and ethical perspective; but, I guess they got the bits right that Larry was suggesting needed to be right.

Anyway, it was a weird flashback to read that article. Things change, and on a scale that seems slow, until you look back on it, and see it's "only" been a couple of decades. In the grand scheme of things, and compared to the motion of technology prior to the 1900, that's a blink of an eye.

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SwellJoe

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qwertyuiop924  10 years ago

Eh. Linux does have a LOT of problems. Well, so does everything, but it's not like it's "great." More like "good."

But yeah, it was weird that everybody thought NT was going to be the future. And now, MS has opensourced a good deal of infrastructure, is working with Node, has announced an integrated POSIX environment for Windows. And since it's in corporate, it might even be able to fix the fork(2) performance problems.

  • SwellJoe  10 years ago

    Great is a relative term. But, can you name an OS, especially a UNIX, that is better in the general case? By "general case", I mean, good for just about anything, even if there's something better for some niche or role. Also, take into account the world we live in: More computing happens on servers and phones than on desktops and laptops; and judge the OS based on how it's doing in those roles.

    I sincerely consider Linux a great UNIX. Probably the best UNIX that's existed, thus far. There are warts, sure. Technically, Solaris had (and still has, in IllumOS and SmartOS) a small handful of superior features and capabilities (at this point one can list them on one hand, and one could also list some "almost-there" similar techs on Linux). But, I assume you've used Solaris (or some other commercial UNIX) enough to have an opinion...can you honestly say you enjoyed working on it more than Linux? The userspace on Solaris was always drastically worse than Linux, unless you installed a ton of GNU utilities, a better desktop, etc. But, Linux brought us a UNIX we could realistically use anywhere, and at a price anyone could afford. That's a miracle for a kid that grew up lusting after an Amiga 3000UX (because it was the closest thing to an SGI Indy I could imagine being able to afford).

    • qwertyuiop924  10 years ago

      Fair 'nuff. And no, I haven't used commercial UNIXes all that much, but I have experienced plenty of Linux's warts. I do agree with a lot of those points, but containers on Linux just aren't there, systemd is a mess that's going to get pushed in no matter what we say, and there are plenty of issues to be had, although the ladder is true of any UNIX. If you want to know what the rest of the issues are, just start googling. And while you're at it, listen to some of Bryan Cantrill's talks. They are biased (obviously), but they're entertaining, and they do point out some things that I think are real problems (posix conformance (MADV_DONTNEED), and epoll semantics, mainly).

      Oh, and don't flame me for speaking in ignorance. I've been a Linux user for half a decade at least now, and I CAN say I see problems with it. I can also say, as a person who is programmer, that some of the things that Cantrill pointed out are actually evil. Note, however, that I don't claim Solaris, or any other OS is better. Every UNIX is utterly fucked in some respect. I just know Linux's flaws the best.

      By the way, I've been trying to get Amiga emulation working for a while. It basically works at this point, but the *UAEs are a misery on UNIX systems. Without any kind of loader, you have to spend 10 minutes editing the config every time you want to play a game. But if you're in any way interested in the history you lived through, check out youtube.com/watch?v=Tv6aJRGpz_A

      4 replies →

    • Annatar  10 years ago

      > Great is a relative term. But, can you name an OS, especially a UNIX, that is better in the general case? By "general case", I mean, good for just about anything, even if there's something better for some niche or role. Also, take into account the world we live in: More computing happens on servers and phones than on desktops and laptops; and judge the OS based on how it's doing in those roles.

      Okay then, SmartOS. Why is an exercise left for the reader, because it would just take too much and too long to list and explain all the things it does better, faster and cheaper than Linux in server space; that's material rife for an entire book.

      > can you honestly say you enjoyed working on it more than Linux?

      Enjoyed it?!? Love it, I love working with Solaris 10 and SmartOS! It's such a joy not having a broken OS which actually does what it is supposed to do (run fast, be efficient, protect my data, is designed to be correct). When I am forced to work with Linux (which I am, at work, 100% of the time, and I hate it), it feels like I am on an operating system from the past century: ext3 / ext4 (no XFS for us yet, and even that is ancient compared to ZFS!), memory overcommit, data corruption, no backward compatibility, navigating the minefield of GNU libc and userland misfeatures and "enhancements". It's horrible. I hate it.

      > The userspace on Solaris was always drastically worse than Linux,

      Are you kidding me? System V is great, it's grep -R and tar -z that I hate, because it only works on GNU! Horrid!!!

      > But, Linux brought us a UNIX we could realistically use anywhere, and at a price anyone could afford.

      You do realize that if you take an illumos derived OS like SmartOS and Linux, and run the same workload on the same cheap intel hardware, SmartOS is usually going to be faster, and if you are virtualizing, more efficient too, because it uses zones, right? Right?

      It's like this: when I run SmartOS, it's like I'm gliding around in an ultramodern, powerful, economical mazda6 diesel (the 175 HP / 6 speed Euro sportwagon version); I slam the gas pedal and I'm doing 220 km/h without even feeling it and look, I'm in Salzburg already! When I'm on Linux, I'm in that idiotic Prius abomination again: not only do I not have any power, but I end up using more fuel too, even though it's a hybrid, and I'm on I-80 somewhere in Iowa. That's how I'd compare SmartOS to Linux.

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dave2000  10 years ago

"I'm a bit concerned that it's going to be Android, however, that wins the mobile world since Android is nowhere near the ideal OS from an Open Source and ethical perspective; but, I guess they got the bits right that Larry was suggesting needed to be right."

They've already won; Apple isn't coming back (did they "go thermonuclear" in the end or did that nonsense die with Mr Magical Thinking?).

Don't confuse Android with Google; you can grab the source and do what you want with it, like Cyanogenmod have, or like millions of hobbyists are doing themselves. It's all available with bog standard open source licenses - no need to worry about ethics.