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Is UNIX An OS?
Technik~ writes: "An Editorial at Unixreview.com discusses David. K. Every's of Macweek assertion in his column that Unix isn't an OS. Read the original MacWeek editorial here."
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Had you posted this on Everything2 (another fine BSI site), you would have got a C! for that write-up.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Brian
Your favorite
People.. people... people... Look at the original source of the article (MacWeek). That should say it all. I don't expect the Authors of such magazines to know, understand, or even be able to explain what the term OS (or any other CS term) means. Need I say more? MacWeek...
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Good grief. While I don't find much meat in the post myself, how in the world does the 3rd post on the board and the first on-topic post get modded as redundant?
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
heh - good point re: OS X.
...
;) ). Beyond that, heck, it can include lots of things.
;) [For that reason, I don't think it's all that unreasonable for MS to integrate a browser into their OS, in fact, even a good idea -- just not to claim that something which can clearly be separated cannot be!]
whenever people argue about the definition of an OS, this comes out.
An OS *can* be minimalist, but it needn't be. In other words, I think that yes, if Linus went crazy one day and added a word processor (which was someone inegral to the whole thing, not, say a module) to the kernel, then you *could* have a word processor as part of the OS
All that an OS *has* to do is allow the rest of the software on a computer to work (I think that's sufficiently vague to get past the definition police
I can buy the idea that an OS include tools for manipulating files graphically etc, but that's way past necessary *and* sufficient!
simon
"Hey Carlito, r'membah me? Benny Blanco from the Bronx!"
....but he's half-right. For example, GNU/Linux is not an OS. Red Hat, Caldera, S.U.S.E., etc etc, on the other hand, are.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
...it's a specification for an OS. You have an OS, you go to the Open Group and submit it for tests. They tell you if it's UNIX. (More accurately, they tell you if it's UNIX98 or UNIX95 compliant, which gives you the right to call it UNIX. Linux and the BSDs have not undergone this or paid for the branding and, thus, are not UNIX.)
Just nitpicking...
BeOS is great at sharing many CPU's. It's probibly the best at managing SMP for a few processors.
Every application--even the BeOS "notepad" is multi-threaded by default. In fact, when programming for BeOS, the skeleton program is multi-threaded.
folowing all of these arguments then, where does DOS come in? I mean MS-DOS, DR-DOS, IBM-DOS, PC-DOS, Free-DOS? Are they still operating systems? Cause if they aren't how in the hell did i ever get tie-fighter to run? And the statement that the OS is the software that the programmer or user need to be productive sounds a bit whacked. I'm just as productive whether i have a pc or not. I've got a blackboard painted on my wall (crayola paints, they are nifty aren't they) and I feel quite productive when i get to scribbling on it.
-
According to Silberschantz and Galvin: "An operating system is a program that acts as an intermediary between a user of a computer and the computer hardware. The purpose of an operating system is provide an environment in which a user can execute programs [..] An operating sytem acts as a resource allocation system that manages access to resources such as CPU time, memory space, file storage space, I/O devices, etc [..] An operating system also acts as a control program that controls the execution of user programs to prevent errors and improper use of the computer."
Funny, I didn't see GUI listed. Maybe he should have claimed that Unix is not an acceptable operating system to some.
OK, didn't read article... bad me...
BUT
An Operating System is a System that Operates. That is, software that operates and manages system devices and resources (hardware)... if it doesn't deal directly with managing the hardware IT'S AN APPLICATION.
Is this concept just a little too tough for marketing drones (or marketed to drones) to understand?
sig fault
The entire point of the article was misinterpreted, most importantly by the autor of the UnixReview piece.
Unix, asn an operating system, =can= be pared down to the kernal and a shell. At the core, this is the single unifying thread that runs between Ultrix, PyramidOS, FreeBSD, Slackware and MKLinux: a nugget of computer science concepts that can be universally recognized as "Unix". On top of that, daemons, shared libraries and programs ("services" in the article) are added to give any particular version of Unix its "flavor", making it useful for real work apart and aside from abstract programming.
Are Redhat and SUSE and Debian all linux? Yes. Are they all administered, operated, or tinkered with identical ways? No. Everything from RC script handling to default window managers can, and do, vary from one Linux to another. Even tho they are all considered "Unix" or "Unix Like", it takes more than Unix to make these distros usefull.
Unix is no longer enough to count as an operating system. It needs to be combined with other software to be made useable...like Linux distros or HP-UX.
This is the point DKE was trying to make. Most mac people regard an OS as integral to the user experience: the GUI is inseparable from the file system and networking services in the Mac world. Using this worldview, Mac OS X is its own operating system, and cannot be pigeonholed as "just another Unix" any more than AIX or NetBSD can. Does it have Unix at its core? Yes. Is it a Unix operating system? No. It is much, much more.
SoupIsGood Food
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
Man... that article's typical of a Mac zealot (no, Mac users are ok, the zealots are annoying.)
He rambles on about things he has no idea about, and from the first paragraph you can tell he's full of it.
I guess I'll bring up the most obvious thing: Since when does multitasking == OS? What about, say... the Disk Operating System? (DOS)
What about palmOS? How about all the others that don't multitask?
Actually, wouldn't a particularly well-written BIOS count as an OS? (Not the kind used in most PCs, but more in embedded devices such as car electronics systems.)
Sounds to me like a Mac zealot making a very flawed, very fundamentally weak argument that wouldn't prove much if it were true anyway, in an attempt to make OS/X look good. Blah, they should just rely on the smoke, mirrors, and nifty graphic effects to sell, because on a technical level I see no real advantage to OS/X, especially having read Apple sales literature. (Which features should I believe, and which ones are just to make a sale?)
Unix by itself is not an OS as the unwashed masses think of it nowadays. Unix (including virtually all the variations including Darwin/OS X) is really just a kernel that provides low-level services. The programs, tools, and shell that are bolted onto the kernel turn it into an operating system.
That doesn't make Every right (or is it Every right makes a wrong?), but he has a point. Linux, for instance, is an OS. But is the Linux kernel alone the OS? Not really, it's the kernel, GNU tools, daemons, and interface (whether just bash or the full KDE/GNOME GUI shebang) that make it into the Linux OS. Vendors may choose what goes into their particular version of the Linux OS, but they all do add to the kernel alone. MacOS X will also be an OS, but Mach itself isn't. Windows - well, who knows what that is, other than a blivet.
And I know this doesn't jibe with the textbook definition of an OS, but it's a practical definition for the non-academics.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Not so fast -
Here is some of the license document:
1.9 SUCCESSOR OPERATING SYSTEM means a SCO software offering that is (i) specifically designed for a 16-Bit computer, or (ii) the 32V version, and (iii) specifically excludes UNIX System V and successor operating systems.
2. GRANT OF RIGHTS
2.1 (a) SCO grants to LICENSEE a personal, nontransferable and nonexclusive right to use, in the AUTHORIZED COUNTRY, each SOURCE CODE PRODUCT identified in Section 3 of this AGREEMENT, solely for personal use (as restricted in Section 2.1(b)) and solely on or in conjunction with DESIGNATED CPUs, and/or Networks of CPUs, licensed by LICENSEE through this SPECIAL SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT for such SOURCE CODE PRODUCT. Such right to use includes the right to modify such SOURCE CODE PRODUCT and to prepare DERIVED BINARY PRODUCT based on such SOURCE CODE PRODUCT, provided that any such modification or DERIVED BINARY PRODUCT that contains any part of a SOURCE CODE PRODUCT subject to this AGREEMENT is treated hereunder the same as such SOURCE CODE PRODUCT. SCO claims no ownership interest in any portion of such a modification or DERIVED BINARY PRODUCT that is not part of a SOURCE CODE PRODUCT.
(b) Personal use is limited to noncommercial uses. Any such use made in connection with the development of enhancements or modifications to SOURCE CODE PRODUCTS is permitted only if (i) neither the results of such use nor any enhancement or modification so developed is intended primarily for the benefit of a third party and (ii) any copy of any such result, enhancement or modification, furnished by LICENSEE to a third party holder of an equivalent Software License with SCO where permitted by Section 8.4(b) below, is furnished for no more than the cost of reproduction and shipping. Any such copy that includes any portion of a SOURCE CODE PRODUCT shall be subject tothe provisions of such Section 8.4.
(c) LICENSEE may produce printed and on-line copies of documentation included with the SOURCE CODE PRODUCT as necessary for use with the DESIGNATED CPUs. All copies must include a legally sufficient copyright notice and a statement that the documents include a portion or all of SCO's copyrighted documentation, which is being reproduced with permission.
(d) Commercial use by LICENSEE of SOURCE CODE PRODUCTS or of any result, enhancement or modification associated with the use of SOURCE CODE PRODUCTS under this AGREEMENT is not permitted. Such commercial use is permissible only pursuant to the terms of an appropriate commercial software agreement between SCO or a corporate affiliate thereof and LICENSEE. For purposes of this AGREEMENT, commercial use includes, but is not limited to, furnishing copies to third parties in a manner not permitted by Section 8.4(b).
8.4 (a) LICENSEE agrees that it shall hold all parts of the SOURCE CODE PRODUCTS subject to this AGREEMENT in confidence for SCO. LICENSEE further agrees that should it make such disclosure of any or all of such SOURCE CODE PRODUCTS (including methods or concepts utilized therein) to anyone to whom such disclosure is necessary to the use for which rights are granted hereunder, LICENSEE shall appropriately notify each such person to whom any such disclosure is made that such disclosure is made in confidence and shall be kept in confidence and have each such person sign a confidentiality agreement containing restrictions on disclosure substantially similar to those set forth herein.
If LICENSEE should become aware of a violation of SCO's intellectual property and/or proprietary rights, LICENSEE shall promptly notify SCO and cooperate with SCO in such enforcement.
If information relating to a SOURCE CODE PRODUCT subject to this AGREEMENT at any time becomes available without restriction to the general public by acts not attributable to LICENSEE, LICENSEE's obligations under this section shall not apply to such information after such time.
(b) Notwithstanding the provisions of Section 8.4(a), LICENSEE may make available copies of a SOURCE CODE PRODUCT, either in modified or unmodified form, to third parties in the AUTHORIZED COUNTRY having Source Code Licenses of the same scope herewith from SCO for the same SOURCE CODE PRODUCT, if and only if (i) LICENSEE first requests verification of the status of the recipient by contacting SCO at the address contained in Section 8.8(a) or other number specified by SCO, and (ii) SCO gives written verification of the recipient's software license status. LICENSEE shall maintain a record of each such SOURCE CODE PRODUCT made available.
8.5 On SCO's request, but not more frequently than annually, LICENSEE shall furnish to SCO a statement, listing the location, type and serial number of the DESIGNATED CPU hereunder and stating that the use by LICENSEE of SOURCE CODE PRODUCTS subject to this AGREEMENT has been reviewed and that each such SOURCE CODE PRODUCT is being used solely on the DESIGNATED CPU (or temporarily on a back-up CPU) for such SOURCE CODE PRODUCTS in full compliance with the provisions of this AGREEMENT.
I don't find this to be *free*. I cannot use the software for business purposes, and can't give a copy to whomever I wish. I also have to furnish SCO with the serial number of the computer it is installed on. They also specifically exclude Unix System V, and restirct the license to 16 or 32 bit implementations.
Spotteddog
Sorry for the long quote - that legalese stuff shure adds to the word count.
. there used to be a sig here.....
...yeah, like cdplayers and sunroofs and fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view mirror.
/dev/null is full.
-"You'll have plenty of time to sleep when you're dead."
In the early 1900's cars were essentially buggies with an engine strapped on and were very difficult and dangerous to operate. Today cars have crumple zones, A/C, airbags, and all sorts of other nice goodies. But that doesn't make a Model "A" not a car.
Having all the niceties that have been added to modern OS's makes them much easier to use, but it doesn't mean that UNIX is now no longer an OS, simply because it doesn't have those niceties.
I stole this sig from a more creative user.
I mean, it's a vortex, a leviathan, a God, but is it an OS?
I htink a good test is to see which apps run on which OSs. For example:
Win98, Win95, and Win2000 are the same OS because they (almost always) run each other's programs. However, NT4 is missing DirectX, so it is not the same OS.
None of the BSDs are the same OS, since they aren't 100% binary compatible.
All of the Linux distros are the same OS.
Linux/KDE and Linux/GNOME are two different OSs. (Loading redundant libraries is only a notch above WINE or lxrun from a performance point of view, especially since lxrun runs near-native and RAM gets clobbered in the KDE/GNOME case)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
What interests me is why should we care to says "This is an OS" and "This is not"? The only reason to point out this kind of difference is to see to subsequently claim some are better than others.
He should be able to make the claim that Mac OS 10 or whatever is better than "UNIX", for reasons x,y,z.
Maybe. But think of the alternatives.
- Good (includes, but not just)+ open technology, good marketing
- Have we really seen this yet? I don't think so.
- Good tech, bad marketing
- Think of every company that had a brilliant idea and then went under - even lack of VC interest is poor marketing...
- Bad Tech, Good Marketing
- Don't even try to tell me that Microsoft's Marketing aren't extremely clued-up people - no one gets that much market share without someone knowing how to do their jobs.
- Bad Tech, Bad marketing
- Just sink like a stone, without trace
Let's face it - Apple's marketing, which was very good at one point (the nature of the market is changing - strong individualism isn't the main part of the market at the moment (just the geek market, and not the overall market)) has failed to adapt. But it was the fact that someone was good, somewhere, that we saw them at all.You can't really argue that the Mac wasn't/isn't an incredible influence on lots of things....
(For the record, before I get attacked for being a Mac user: My work machine runs Debian/Afterstep, and my home machine runs Win98 and Debian/Enlightenment)
... and today's pet project has
I thought it was poorly editing until I realized that "Every" was the original author's last name. That's gotta be a daily confusion-generator. "Every stand up. No, not everyone. Just Every."
--
An abstained vote is a vote for Bush and Gore.
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
Perhaps the person the author is complaining about needs to go back to school and take some fundamental CS courses. Operating System defined is "a collection of software that allows a computer to function." A GUI, developer tools, etc. are not needed to make the computer function, but the ability to copy files, view files, etc. are. UNIX has these. It is an operating system.
Here. You're welcome.
(Actually, my cow-orker behind be just stated that it's actually probably a cult since it's not quite old enough to be a religion yet.)
- Some Id10t
(Note: There are no x's in my email address.)
It seems to have become commonplace to redefine words or to simply make words up in order to promulgate ones own view of the world. Then these new words (for a word with a different definition is a new word) tend to change everyone else's view of the world. This has been going on for quite some time, but now people seem to be explicitly using it.
Before long, all English words will have many various meanings that will no longer be understandable through context.
Fuck 'im up, Tim! His views are invalid! -Pirate Corp$
This is not flaimbait, please read it fairly.
This sounds like what a Mac User would say. However, I strongly disagree - even at the purely philosophical level, with no argument over OS details. For a web server, UNIX is the ideal OS. It's lean and superbly fitted for its task. For a desktop (some will disagree here), it's also lean and superbly fitted for the task.
I'll be arguing against Windows from here on, cause I know it better than Mac OS...
Why does your webserver need a radial gradient fill of the file ghosts when you drag files to a folder? Why do you even need Drag-and-Drop? Why a GUI? Is this not something that could be better handled by a network'd workstation? The webserver should not be processing anything that does not pertain to the web apps it serves.
Why does your desktop need support for RAID arrays? Why does it need support for webserving? Why can't you use a server for storage and serving?
Why should one kernel provide a GUI system (WITH GRADIENT FILLS) and support for mounting a multi-terabyte disk array. Why should you have to go to the server room (or the server building, city, country) to get good access. I know that you can do a remote desktop via VNC, or PC Anywhere - but that is no help to a person who wants to do al their administration from a Nokia 9000, or even a fly 56k modem.
UNIX is an awesome OS! It can give everyone what they want, as long as they know what they want. NT is an awful OS! It can give everyone what they want, by giving everyone what everyone else wants too.
-------
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
... other then he's clueless and obviously never been to college-- at elast not for Computer Science.
Actually, there IS something else to say. This is a wee bit scary, the MS media amchien ash eben so successful it has managed to warp people's belief as to the meanings of words.
The mac week author shoudl do the following:
(1) Read Judge Jackson's findings of fact (he and his team did an EXCELLENT job of seperating OS for middlewar, the latter being what he thinks is missing from UNIX as an "OS".)
(2) Buy a decent machine organization text and read it (I'd recommend tannenbaum's, personally.)
When did Journalism stop being researched fact and become ignorant IMO???
These arguments sound an awful lot like the FSF' "Linux is not an operating system, Linux is GNU, even though we were pooh-poohing it and calling it nasty names for the first several years of its existence"...
While the cited articles both fall into the realm of flame bait (or at the least come close), the comments which I see posted here are failing to note the semantic disconnect between Every's original editorial and the responding editorial; this disconnect is due to the fact the articles were written for two very different audiences:
These two audiences will interpret Every's argument based on very different experiences with computers, and while I think that he has written this article poorly, he is at least trying to make an interesting point. Ordinary people, who do not value interaction with computers for it's own sake, are now the primary users of computer technology. For these users, the fundamental services of a computer are things like "email,web,word processing" - all in a familiar GUI environment. However, to the eyes of the Unix users, these are very high-level operations.
...therefore, Every's main point is:
I think that this conceptual divide only resonated with "the faithful" (i.e. Mac users) who had already internalized most of the articles's assumptions, and so were able to fill in the conceptual gaps in Every's (admittedly insufficient) explanation.So yes, the original article was an excercise in hairsplitting, but so are all but a few of the comments I see here (with a few exceptions: here and here) . Let the term "operating system" be defined by everyone's subjective computer experience and be done with it.
...parting words only indirectly related to the previous thoughts, and designed solely as flame bait: "Besides, why would I trust any Linux nerd's definition of OS? If the Linux community could define what an OS is, than the Linux Standard Base spec wouldn't suck."
Geez, I mean according to this guy.. if I buy a bunch of pc parts and put them together, I don't have a computer, but I will if I purchase one pre built from Apple, Compaq, or Dell.
Unix is like the modular/build your own OS of today. I feel it's like buying a computer, I can either build it from the ground up, grabbing that, leaving that, using this program, downloading this windows manager, etc, or I can go out and get some dist/ver with everything already set up. MacOS and Windows are the cheap websurfers you can buy that will only do a limited amount and will only let you use what they have (until they are hacked of course). I figure Apple and MS should go the way of Unix, build a core OS, and let everyone else make dists, versions, designs etc (like LiteStep), and then maybe someone like MS could finally get a stable, working OS. Of course, with OS X Apple is doing this very thing.
Stupid columnist.. I say someone go put linux on his computer
It seems to me that if Every is correct, then those of us who use Unix/Linux have a new boast: we are so manly^H^H^H^H^Hgood that we don't even need an OS to use our computers!
The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank.
-- Scotty.
Now I've taught operating systems at a major university several times, and I have a number of textbooks on the subject. All of them consider an OS to be pretty much a kernel plus a shell. Now Every would call me an "academic purist" and dismiss this definition, so lets look at how he defines an OS:
"An operating system is the software that comes with a computer (or OS distribution) that programmers and users need to make themselves productive."
Interesting...So if I need to relax in order to remain productive, and I relax by playing freecell, therefore freecell is part of the OS. Every essentially maintains that any software that is shipped with the kernel, no matter how irrelevant, is part of the OS.
Academics define categories to make useful distinctions between instances of larger categories. The currently accepted definitions of OS exist because people have found them useful. The only alternative Every have given us is clearly not useful: 'all software can be operating system, depending on how it's shipped'. Therefore I predict that most of us will continue to use the old definition until a serious replacement comes along.
cheers,
Ric Crabbe, Ph.D.
P.S. I don't consider the shell to be part of the OS, it's just another user program. But I acknowledge that's extreme.
No, UNIX is an OS, and MS Windows is an OS plus a lot of other garbage that you don't really need. The guy who said UNIX is not an OS obviously needs a vacation, he's been thinking way too hard or has had too much coffee. BTW, they should be breaking MS up into 3 companies, as follows: 1. an Applications Software company 2. an OS company 3. a GUI company
Don't post on slashdot. Get back to work.
by your logic, would Win not be an OS but a group, along with MacOS? *badbadbadveryevil*
------ This is my sig.
--
but then, according to his definition, neither is Mac OS. :) Mac OS too is just a "kernel". Hell, MAcOS X is just a kernel on top of a kernel on top of a kernel.. :
He's very proud of the "Utilities, applications and tools, including an e-mail package" which will supposedly help make users "productive", but what about the web browser? office suite? graphics program? Oops, sorry - Adobe, Microsoft, etc make those. So when you buy Mac OS X for business or for graphic art work you aren't productive right out of the box either. at least the unix versions are free.
if you want to get REALLY pedantic, define an Operating System as that which makes the System Operate. I'd define that as the hardware, software, and the user! I TOO AM THE OS.
he's right. By HIS definition, UNIX is not an OS. of course his definitions are double-edged swords - Mac OS X isn;t much of an OS either.
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
This is of course payback for all the times a unix person told a mac person that MacOS wasn't a real OS for various reasons. On an almost related note, would you believe one of the best Mac people I know considered "protected memory" of mere "buzzword" value?
They are going to have to rename OS/390 now (actually they did, to zOS, but that is a different rant altogether)
Finkployd
As we all know, Linux isn't an OS either. It's just a kernel. So is every Unix system, usually. Of course. But here's the difference - maybe Linux (or Unix) by itself isn't an OS, but then there are things like _GNU/Linux_, which imho _is_ an OS. In that sense, Mac OS X is also just a Unix-like kernel with extra software around it. I don't see a difference there. GNU/Linux with GNOME on top of it seems pretty much the same as Darwin/UNIX with Aqua on top. If anyone claims that Unix or Linux by itself is an OS, he or she might want to talk to RMS on that...
sweet, now my computer doesn't run an OS!, i wonder what makes it operate?
If this is so then wouldn't PalmOS considered not really an OS? <NOTE: I do not agree that Unix is not an OS.
-Miles
What, not enough yet? Join the
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
So embedded systems don't have OSs?
Generally, no. At least, they didn't used to. What the hell does a microwave oven need an operating system for?
--
Clear, Dark Skies
I'm so upset, I'm replying to myself!!
Imagine if this yahoo was on the committee resolving the Microsoft case. Not only would Microsoft come out smelling like roses, they would come out looking like the Borg.
"Okay, Mr. Gates. You guys are free to go. Remember, though, that any software which you supply that makes a person productive is part of the OS"
Suddendly, the sky blackens over Redmond as the Gates-Master summons the demons of software absorption...
(Thunder! Lightning! Earthquake!) Suddenly, the Microsoft corporation building collapses upon itself, leaving behind an evil black presense: The OS Black Hole!!!
(dun-dun-DAAAA)
Slurp!! In goes Sun! sluurp!! In goes IBM! (boof!) In goes Novell, Red Hat, Macintrash! Intel, Cisco! Oh my! The horror!! The humanity!
When I was in college (early 1980's), I was taught that an operating system's function was simple: to share resources. I would think that Unix shares resources quite well.
This makes it easy to assess the utility of other operating systems.
MSDOS has limited functionality - it shares disk at most. I won't even go into the windows realm...
BeOS is probably very good at sharing 1 CPU with it's threads (but I don't know BeOS).
The original Mac OS's didn't multitask well, if at all. Mac OS X may multitask, but it may not share 16 CPUs as well as Solaris.
Linux may share the disk better than Mac OS X with one of the new file systems.
You can ask all kinds of questions like this:
How well does {insert-os-here} share the sound card?
Then, there are libraries, but this is a level up from the basic functionality. Having a rich set of libraries would allow programs to share common code.
Any comments?
No thanks, I'm trying to give up.
nal 11
So embedded systems don't have OSs?
Generally, no. At least, they didn't used to. What the hell does a microwave oven need an operating system for?
Hunh? No, actually, almost all embedded systems have an OS, for exactly the same reason as any other computer having an OS - a centralized resource manager. Granted, in many cases, embedded OSes look more like DOS than *nix, which is to say, a handful of interrupt handlers and some startup/initialization code, but it depends. Remember that the UI for a microwave is only a tiny fraction of the code - there's also code to turn on the fan, optionally turn the rotary tray, modulate power to the microwave heating system, monitor the ambient temperature and/or thermometer for 'autosense' cooking, etc. It might well be sensible to put a multithreading OS inside a microwave so that your UI is a separate component from your systems controls, and if your UI gets screwed up your systems controls still shut the power off when they detect an erroneous condition and don't microwave the hapless user or burn out the microwave...
Note that embedded operating systems may well look like a single process, or a single process with multiple-threading... if you wanted to get semantical, you could argue that products sold as embedded operating systems are really 'template applications' and not operating systems at all, but then, the embedded world is just backwards that way. A better way of looking at it, is that the simplest embedded operating systems are modified by adding functional code directly to the kernel rather than having a separate application. (More complex embedded OSes have a tendency to look like unix plus or minus some system services... but those are more likely to go into factory control than a microwave... )
--Parity
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
funniest thing I've seen all morning.. except for that picture of the cigar smoking dog
"Smart companies save money by deploying MySQL instead of Oracle." - slashdot post
Found via his web page, http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~farber/
Written Testimony
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f2000/2059.htm
Cross and redirect transcript AM
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/trial/transcrip ts/dec98/12-08-am.asp
and PM
http://www. microsoft.com/presspass/trial/transcripts/dec98/12 -08-pm.asp
Unix variants power most of the world's supercomputers (and some of the worlds smallest computers, like IBM's Linux watch). Try getting MacOS or Windows to scale that well. At least a Unix GUI is optional. Actually, Unix isn't an OS, it's a classic work of art. Still, kudos to MacOS and Windows maing computers easier for everyone else.
In that case, I guess MacOS X isn't an operating system either - it and Unix are pretty much the same thing, give or take a few graphics and API calls...
Yes, I know they're not the same. It's a JOKE.
- Armage Bedar
The STATS Man
__________
If you read a little further, you'll see that the author says 'by this definition, Unix is an OS, but this definition is outdated', and goes on to say that Unix isn't an OS because it doesn't integrate streaming media, a web browser, email program, etc.
My personal favorite part of this little snippet is this:
Memory management, so that applications have an area in memory in which to run, protected from other applications' bugs that might affect them.
That's odd, by that definition, MacOS 9 isn't an OS, and Unix is...
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
Wow! I can't help having my head spin around
by how amazingly lousy this Every is at thinking let alone critical thinking.
He's created one of the most classic cases of a strawman argument I've ever seen. You want an easy opponent to attack? Well then just dress up a straw man to look like your opponent and wow the masses with your skill and daring!
I don't know where he got his impression of Unix, but "nothing but a kernel and a shell" is not the operating system I know by that name. Not only does he make Unix out to be something a lot simpler than it is - he describes it as something that doesn't even exist. There is no current distribution of Unix in the world that doesn't come with the utilities and applications he demands of a modern operating system, so we must conclude that what he talks about when he refers to Unix is a thing which does not exist.
I must agree with his impeccable logic here - non existant things make for very lousy operating systems, last time I installed a non-existant thing on my computer it didn't do anything at all. I can tell you I was not impressed.
By this same logic I could perfectly well argue that smurfs make for a very lousy OS - they just don't exist, so they can't possibly have all the things we demand of a good distribution these days. Hell, a smurf doesn't even have a kernel or a shell, just a floppy white hat. I tell you, if you IT managers go with an all-smurf solution, you'll live to regret it.
Thanks for the good laugh there Every, why don't you give that scarecrow of yours another stab - I'm sure macWeek will pay through the nose for it.
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
Dubya couldn't even spell "OS".
Clearly 'internet' support is nececcary for IOS.
And clearly, pandtne support is necessary for high end printers/imagesetters.
But a router that knows what pantone is would be stupid, and a imagesetter dosent need to know about the internet. (actualy one could make the argument that everything needs to know about the internet)
Its funny seeing a viewpoint from the other side.
I used to argue that MacOS isnt an OS, with its lack of true kernel level multitasking, and its lack of kernel controlled memory allocation. The definition of an OS that I learned in college, required a modern OS to handle both memory management and cpu swaps (as well as networking, and threads)
I am looking forward to exploring OSX since it seems to have addressed these issues, and has the makings for a truely powerful and innovative operating system. It seemed that a merging of the power of bsd and the evolved GUI of mac OS would solve a lot of problems of both. Of course they only accomplished that by intergrating unix... which isnt an OS...
--------------------- Turn evil by smiling.
I can just see him pouting now. "It's not an OS, it's not pretty! It's not friendly, it doesn't love me, it doesn't nurture me! It scares me!"
... but you don't see ME, a volvo and honda guy, offering my opinions on muscle cars, do you?
You know, there are plenty of hardcore mac enthusiasts out there too, who really appreciate performance and power. But as long as the community continues with people like this as their mouthpiece, the stereotype of the touchy-feely fuzzy-headed willfully ignorant flake will continue to stick. I have nothing against those who want their computer to "just work", and have it be aesthetically pleasing at that
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Wait, gnome? Maybe someone could come up with a good gnome vs. KDE argument for us. Hasn't been one of those in almost a week.
Everything must be virtual - take windows for instance. Virtual drivers, virtual memory, virtual Bob - it's silly.
Of course the gratuitous (but obligatory) Windows remark neglects the fact that most UNIX systems utilize virtual memory as well.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I run Linux at the office. I sit there, I type on the keyboard....wow! It works! I mean, you can change the definition of OS so anything wouldn't fit it. It's like the girls here at my club - they all say they're future doctors, or artists, or actresses. If they're dancing, they're strippers! Get real.
Sometimes you just have to say "what the fuc*!".
A cult is something that a person is indoctrinated into, while a religion is something that a person honestly belives in. Thus two people can be in the same belief system, and one can be in a religion, and one be in a cult.
:)
People born into something are indoctrinated since birth to that, rather than coming into it on their own belief, so that makes it a cult.
"Unix is no longer an operating system. An operating system is the software that comes with a computer (or OS distribution) that programmers and users need to make themselves productive."
I guess my Solaris Workstation that I do web development on isn't productive?
"Unix is only a small part of that. Today, an OS is not just the kernel and a few command line utilities. It may include a graphical user interface, hundreds of utilities, and additional applications and functions that are required for it to run: Control panels, extensions, libraries and programming kits, and so on, are all part of a modern OS. Many people consider a Web browser, media player (like QuikTime), e-mail,file manager (like the Finder or Windows Explorer) and the like all part of the OS. The OS is all the stuff that companies like Sun or Apple add to make a computer usable."
I suppose he hasn't looked at Gnome or KDE lately because they have lots of control panels and a GUI file manager. You can get a variety of email clients. Media players are available for download, which support open source formats and not necessarily Apple's PROPIETARY format (QuickTime)
"While a browser is not integral to the code of the OS (as Microsoft tried to stupidly argue in court), it is quickly becoming an integral part of the user experience (which it should have argued)."
I guess he hasn't seen Netscape either, which is odd since lots of Mac users prefer it.
"Some companies will ship hardware with a Unix distribution, but that's designed to allow companies (customers) to add their own value on top of Unix and create unique solutions.
DUH!
Here, Apple is creating an entire operating system. It has its foundation in Unix, and will use much of the Unix lower levels, but it is much more than that. Most of the Unix foundation, along with some value-added Apple technologies, lies in Darwin.
And this is different from every one else how.......
In this case CmdrTaco is the offender. 240 comments and counting. Probably trying to keep the advertisement counters moving.
They probably have a stockpile of articles like this that they use when things get slow or they have a client who's renewal time is near.
Or maybe they just do it to watch all the suckers bite.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
No, UNIX systems use swap space ;)
My plan is to pimp before they realize I'm a jackass. Hit 'em hard and fast.
If you're no longor holding the handle, then you have probably dropped the hammer on your foot, which at that point it becomes a fscking piece of @#$%. So, to answer your question, yes, a hammer is no longer a hammer if you are not holding the handle.
The best way to accelerate a windows box is at 9.8 meters per second square.
But this might be the start of a new wave of FUD from mac fans.
Linux was no direct competions to macos because linux is unix and unix is complicated. Now that macos is based in unix, apple *must* set it apart other unixes.
I feel the worst is yet to come. Contrary to win users, mac users (at least the majority of the ones I know) tend to be dogmatic evangelists.
What the hell does a microwave oven need an operating system for?
To operate the system, duh.
So what if Unix isn't an OS according to his definition. By using Linux or *BSD distributions I get a stable and usable computer with software on top of software that works. It's close enough for me to be called an OS, I'm happy, who cares.
Neil Cherry - Linux Smart Homes For Dummies
...are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
How many times must this be said? UNIX != Linux
It's quite true that Linux does not have a central authority governing everything that goes into "the OS" but IBM, Sun, HP, etc. sure do.
Why is this so difficult?
Here we go again
"My OS is better than yours"
"Mine is the only real text editor"
"Your mother is a communist"
"phurst poastttttt"
Communism is not inherently evil
Do not use the word as such
Its just been done very badly historically
Democracy has never fared well historically either
(and I hope you'll pass over the fact that I'm comparing a Political system to an Economic system)
but everyone here lives in their little "my government is omnibenevolent" world
back to the subject at hand:
I agree. Unix is not an OS.
Unix is a group of Operating Systems.
Solaris, Tru64, AIX, OpenBSD, NeXTStep,
these and many others are all Unixen.
If you'll excuse me now, I have to go
assemble my NeXT Station
if you enter ">console" instead of an user name at the login window, you get just to the core OS without any GUI. You can even start X-Windows from there :-)
There is only one good OS, MacOS, and the rest is crap.
This is Macweek after all. Windows pages don't even mention that there is something other that M$ Windows and if you double click on 'Internet' you get Internet Explorer, what else?
If you bother to find on his mackido site the RISC vs CISC debate, you'll see him refer to the pentium as a CISC.
/. archives Lo and behold, /. already discussed the merits of David's BS.
Go read that and spot the errors. He admitted in an e-mail that, yes the Pentium isn't a CISC machine as he was stating, but also refused to go change his text. (heaven forbid reality destroy his article)
He's got a history of being nuts. And, if you look back in the
Reaction to David's post
In short, nothing to see here, move along.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
1. Share system resources
2. Make applications behave
Everything else should be taken care of at the application level.
Now look at what the MacWeek article thinks an OS should be/have.
Today, an OS is not just the kernel and a few command line utilities. It may include a graphical user interface, hundreds of utilities, and additional applications and functions that are required for it to run: Control panels, extensions, libraries and programming kits, and so on, are all part of a modern OS. Many people consider a Web browser, media player (like QuickTime), e-mail, file manager (like the Finder or Windows Explorer) and the like all part of the OS. The OS is all the stuff that companies like Sun or Apple add to make a computer usable.
I'm sorry, but most of those things mentioned in there are applications that run on top of the OS, not OS responsibilities. Some people have confused what they want a computer to do with what they think an OS should do, like our friend at MacWeek .
--Rant Mode--
Maybe the large companies like Sun, Apple, and Microsoft should sell an OS and a bundle of sugested software to improve functionality, much like the Linux distros do. In the quest for increasing user friendliness, so nobody has to know anything about their machine, the fundimentals of what an operating system is have been lost. Now computers are being sold on how nice they look and how easy they are to use.
Look! So easy an untrained Monkey can use it, AND it comes in your choice of translucent colors!!!!!
Is that really how far we have sunk? Can it be that the market-droids have taken over one of the last bastions of geekdom? Is it too late to take it back? even Linux (By Geeks, For Geeks) has been simplified so that the herd of windoze and mac users can be milked for money.
Apparently some writer was having a slow week and got desperate for a story.
...I just have to say that D. Every is a nearsighted moron.
/etc for pete's sake.
The only difference bewteen what I do from a *nix console and windows (or MacOS to fit the bill) is that I don't have purdy little pictures. That's all just an extention of the GUI. Control Panel? It's called a copy of vi and
I'll admit that command line ICQ isn't all that hot, and to gimp is to need a GUI, but I'm hard pressed to find something I CAN'T do from the command line.
The article author is right. Symantics. Some-antics. Whatever.
Dirk
I keep trying to pick fights, but I can't shake this Excellent karma.
For the average user (i.e. non-programmer, since the majority of computer users are non-technical and couldn't tell RAM from ROM or VBScript from C++) is the traditionally command-line driven Unix system sufficient to make them productive? Most likely not. One of the major criticism of command-line based systems is that they are very difficult to learn and to use productively, especially for non-technical people. Thus, I feel that Every's assertion that the traditional Unices are not sufficient to make the average user productive is fairly true.
This is not say that "MacOS Rules!" and modern Unix variants suck. One of the major areas in which Linux is making progress is increased usability and less reliance on knowledge of obscure command line arguments. Ultimately, I believe, it is these types of improvements that will determine the success or failure of Linux on the desktop. I will admit, when I got my first computer (a Mac SE), the fact that it was trivial to learn how to use right out of the box was really important (especially to my parents, who are decidedly non-techical). When I was first introduced to Unix, I really disliked it, because it was difficult to learn. But, I stuck with it, and now I will likely not own another machine without a Unix variant on it. But for my parents, my Debian system would not be sufficient for them to be productive. For me, their Mac would not be.
Every's problem is that tries to use the wrong term, and gets pounced on as a result. I think what he is trying to say is that the 'insanely great' part about MacOS X is not that it is Unix, but that is has a powerful foundation and is aimed at making the average user productive. Whether or not that is true is a separate issue.
--Paul
Cocoa, NeXT's derived frameworks and programmer layers to help create business applications;
Hmm... I have g++, gtk, qt and a slew of other libs.
Carbon, the framework used to bring Mac OS applications forward by putting them on top of a better foundation/kernel;
It's not too tough to port old X apps to either gtk or QT.
Classic, the environment used to run legacy Mac applications on this new system;
God why. The only mac application I ever had that I miss is Glider. Anyways, I have Wine.
Aqua, a new user interface and graphics library, to unify the look and feel, and to put an interface on top of Unix;
Hmm... 1.)UNIX already has an interface, it's a console. 2.) XFree does a pretty good job at putting a graphical interface on UNIX. And with a WM I can pretty much make it look like anything, even apples IP Aqua.
Utilities, applications and tools, including an e-mail package, to help make users productive;
vi, grep, elm. What more do you need?
QuickTime for streaming media, which is really an operating system service;
How is QuickTime an operating system service? I'll tell you, its not. Anyway, Realplayer.
Other services, dictionaries and the like, that are not yet disclosed, and will make the operating system even more useful for users.
ispell, PostgreSQL, Apache, PHP, Gimp, wu-ftpd, and it keeps going. Hmm... Looks like I have an OS here... And all I payed for it is about an hour of download time. During which I was playing Quake.
What does this mean for real? I want to write Enterprise Java Beans, but you you are (I'm guessing it is hypothetical) are webdesigner and need Frontpage and Photoshop, now the next guy is a 3D modeller and needs 3DMax studio. I can go on this way. According to this guy, any computer should come with all these applications....even the computer my mom uses for Email.
No, this guy is wrong....simply! The power in computers lies into customization. You customize your PC to your needs, I agree that a "common denominator" can be found that should cover the needs of John Sixpack but it is just a customization of an OS. Customization is what PC's make different from any consumer products like VCR's, TV or cars.
An OS stays for me the layer between the hardware and the applications. Simple.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Hey moderators, don't waste your points moderating stuff like this down. It only encourages them.
__________
i dont even think an OS should allow I/O. I/O is so slow and ineffcient. i want my athlon running at full speed all the time... i cant allow the von neuman bottleneck ruin my day. hell, running an OS requires memory... thats ineffcient too. thats why i run my processor with the null set OS! it's amazingly fast. and it can run anything you want, or actually it doesnt run anything at all but it dosnt matter because you be able to tell the difference because my OS uses no monitor. it uses nothing, and it itself is nothing.
by the way, i've already patented the null set OS and plan to buy microsoft within the next month.
also by the way, im kidding.
That depends. Is vi a word processor?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
hey! did you write more such stories... if you did, please post some urls.
neither do i
If Unix isn't an OS then Darwin can't be one either. What is Darwin then?
people have told me ms office when asked which OS is installed on their computer.
this does not mean office is an OS. 99.9% of the world's population can be highly uneducated on a subject, so why should their opinions matter? if i had some odd illness, would i listen to a doctor or take a survey of everyone and believe the most popular opinion?
I guess you can argue that UNIX is just a common environment and a set of tools, whereas the kernel is the actual OS. Though I guess you can argue that it's the kernel and this environment together that make up an OS.....
It's :
- An OS, but not for dummies
- A lifestyle, but not for the leazy
- A religion, but not for sects
----------------
----------------
If Internet is Freedom, Linux is Democraty
calling unix a "Kernel and a shell" is fairly prehistoric, too. Had to stop reading at that point.
if unix was just a kernel and a shell, i'd agree.
but "OS" is sooooo subjective. A secretaries' OS is far different from a medical device engineers' OS. Using "OS" in the way the article does is as prehistoric as Unix itself.
AFAIK, there are no versions of Unix on the market (I'm not counting one-disk routers and their ilk) that don't ship with masses of utilties, tools, user interface stuff.
This article would have been semi-interesting about 8 years ago; just tedious horse-whacking drivel now.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Well, that depends on what you belive. Personaly, I believe that "being human" is one of the major points of existence. Freedom is a necessary ingredient to "being human". Communism would therefore be seen as inherently evil.
I used to believe that communism would be ok if people were perfect. Then I realized that it still took away freedom. I never believed communism could be good with imperfect people.
--
Duh! I think the point was that everything has to be "virtual something". It's a buzzword, and doesn't really have to MEAN virtual, but it sounds good, and it sells good.
Except in this case it does mean virtual. As far as the program can tell, the computer has, say, 400 MB of RAM, while there is not that much physical RAM - hence it is "virtual RAM." From the program's point of view it is not "swap space" (that's merely a detail of the OS's implementation), it's just a lot of RAM (which happens to not physically exist). "Swap space" is what you call it when you want normal people to think you are a smart computer geek.
It's just like this guy who came on IRC once, when a new version of IE was out, and he urged everyone to download it. "So what's so special?" I asked. "Why shoudn't I continue to use Netscape?"
"Well," he explained to me. "There's this thing called 'favourites' - Netscape doesn't have favourites." Of course not. Netscape has BOOKMARKS. Netscape are SO behind on these things...
Some guy did that to me once, except his selling point was that IE did not crash within 3 minutes of viewing any page with Java applets. I switched. (I use Opera for most of my surfing, but IE for stuff that requires Flash, Java, or other things Opera doesn't support or supports badly. Netscape has been deleted due to its being a completely piece of crap).
And Java has programming patterns, and C is completely patternless. And Java has interfaces and a class can "extend" another class and stuff. It is SO much better than C! The kicker was the comment I once read, that Java is better than C, because there are no pointers in Java!
So you mean to tell me that implementing classes, inheritence, etc. in C is desireable (or at least just as good as using an OO language)? These features of C++ and Java are not "buzzwords," they're fundamental language features. By your argument "functions" are just a bunch of buzzword crap for an automated jmp.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Well, while I disagree that all "Mac People" say UNIX is not an OS (though there are certainly those who think so, given that there's an article written by one) I do agree his view was a bit narrow.
The kernel, the shell, and services (and other basic tenets of the *nix OS) are certainly a lot more "bare" in the view of a Mac user. (I've used MacOS pretty extensively, as well as being an avid Linux user.) After all, the Mac OS as it is at the present has the Finder, extensions, icons, menus, control panels...a lot of the actual guts and such is really pretty hidden from the user.
With MacOS and Windows, so much comes "prepackaged" with the OS in itself, it's hard to draw the line anymore. Unixes (Unices?) make that a lot more clear, because once you have a kernel and a shell, you basically stick on it anything you want. Compilers, the X Windowing System, and whatever myriad of things you want to throw at it. Libraries, fun apps, utilities, whatever.
So it's not that MacOS types are a bunch of raving loonies who can't stand a CLI. And UNIX is most definitely an OS. They both control hardware and make it so humans can do things with it. They're just different.
Different is Good.
Angry IT woman in big clompy boots. And talking lint!.
Well, I reacted first with outrage -- David Every is probably one of the better tech writers out there, and in my Mac zealot days his MacKiDo site was one of my favorite sites. He should know better than to say something that stupid.
:-) )
But then I gave it a bit of thought. He has a point.
Unix indeed isn't an operating system, and calling it a religion is not necessarily inaccurate in its own way but rather too loaded for a straight description. In that respect, I agree with David that Unix is no longer an OS. V7 Unix is an OS. Solaris is an OS. Linux is an OS. netBSD is an OS. Unix per se... Unix per se is more of a more-or-less informal specification for the high-level design of an OS.
There is no Unix implementation left out there that you can point to as being the direct descendant of the original PDP-7 OS anymore. The original USL identity has become so diluted since the sale from Novell to SCO that it can't really be said to exist anymore. (And don't point to Monterey -- PR aside, Monterey is no more or less than AIX for IA64.) There are more-or-less accurate implementations of said ideal (think the BSDs, Minix, SCO), deviant implementations that still maintain a high level of quality and adherence to the Unix ideal (Linux being the canonical example), commercial implementations with Unix at the core that do things their own way (MacOS X and Solaris being the most high-profile examples), and even those that are not Unix but support Unix-like programs via Posix (BeOS, Plan9/Brazil; yes, Virginia, even Win2K). But to say any one of these many more-and/or-less similar systems is the Golden Unix is inaccurate.
I do have issues with the article, as it happens -- I don't buy David's point about an "OS development kit" for a moment, especially inasmuch as it bolsters Microsoft's fraudulent position that an OS is whatever the company making it says it is. But his essential point is that there is no Unix, only manifestations thereof. This, I think, is rendered beyond dispute with only a moment of thought (or a corresponding red pill
/Brian
well, actually Lenin didn't combine Marx ideas with fascist ones. Stalin and his successors did that...
/Erik
Erik Dalén
When did Journalism stop being researched fact and become ignorant IMO???
Journalism (except for special cases) had always been an ignorant IMO from the writer, at least it that been that way when I was born 17 years ago.
Calyth
The plural of VAX is VAXen.
The plural of Unix is Unices.
It's called common usage -- go back and read A Christmas Carol and see what Dickens had to say about the expression "dead as a doornail" for a wittier perspective than mine on the issue.
For the record, you take language far too seriously.
/Brian
...Which is the same thing, except it requires its own partition rather than using an existing one. The concept is the same - application asks for memory that doesn't exist, kernel pretends it exists by swapping some other stuff out of memory to disk and gives the application its requested memory.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
A cult is something that a person is indoctrinated into, while a religion is something that a person honestly belives in.
I'd like to know how, when meeting someone who follows a religion/cult, you make the difference between "indoctrinated into" and "honestly believing in". Because to me, that's about the same thing, except the words you choosed for a cult sound evil (indoctrinated) while the one for a religion sounds nice (honestly...).
To quote someone I forgot the name of :
"A religion is a successful cult"
Operating System
n. Computer Science
Software designed to control the hardware of a specific data-processing system in order to allow users and application programs to employ it easily.
I think Unix fits here!
This is the same sort of foolishness one hears from Mac bigots and programmers who have never touched anything but the Mac API, so much so that the article could be considered trolling, if I thought the author knew better.
Indeed, I would state flatly that the MacOS has never been a complete operating system, as it is entirely dependent on the presence of the Finder, which is the Macintosh shell. In a correct and complete operating system, a single shell should not be a critical part of the execution of the operating system.
As for OS X, big deal. Apple bought Next, took BSD, slapped a different kernel under it, and an inelegant and inconsistent interface on top of it. Yes, the interface is inconsistent. Look at an application type entity in the file browser and look at the listing for the app and tell me they aren't completely different. A recipe for disaster for Macintosh users, as one of the chief reasons for the simplicity of the Mac over other OSes is that users could easily relate files to their functions.
Apple should have bought Be, it's exactly what they needed. It is single-user based, as the Mac would like to be. It has access to most important tools. And it doesn't introduce what is certain to be the confusion caused by the implicit demands of a Unix system. As the average Mac fanatic cannot bear to admit that they're wrong, they will learn an exciting, modern interface, the command line!
As for Aqua, I don't understand how any one who has used the BeOS or OS/2 could consider the Aqua interface anything but an inelegant, indulgent, wasteful bit of eye candy. The dock is of dubious usefulness, especially if you handle many tasks simultaneously, the single window button (I undersand it has been removed) is a poorly written joke in bad taste, and the inert Apple icon is more annoying than a banner ad.
If people are honest with themselves, the Macintosh OS X, as currently constituted, is inferior to other currently available products in every area of computational utility. If you want to run a server, go with one of the tested, tried and true flavors of BSD or Linux. If you want productivity tools use Windows or Linux. If you want to play the latest games, Windows is the only way to go. If you're a developer it's really hard to beat MSDev or the traditional dev tools available on Linux. And if you want a truly elegant and functional GUI give BeOS a try. And if you want to run a Macintosh application, like Final Cut, then stick to OS9.
BTW, I think I'm allowed to criticize Mac fans, as I have owned a Mac since the Macintosh SE and have even worked at the mothership several times. I don't hate the MAcintosh, it's just another tool to be used. What I do dislike is people who twist the facts to suit their own personal biases, or worse still, people who speak on subjects of which they clearly have little understanding.
Go back to school Mr. Every.
A religion is a cult that is politically powerful enough that it cannot be safely persecuted. I would say Unix qualifies as a religion.
- Have a picture
Last time I saw this kinda thing, it was the same arguements - that Unix wasn't an OS because it wasn't bloated all to hell with stuff that I consider optional in a computer, but that he considers mandatory.
Of course, that's not saying that I'm right either. Stuff I consider mandatory in an OS may be optional as far as other are concerned. After all, as one of the graphics freaks, I think CMYK and Pantone support should be part of the base system, but others would disagree.
An OS is, and should be, what a computer needs to work. It doesn't need Internet support, so that isn't part of an OS. Sure, it's nice, and most people are going to add it right away, but it's hardly necessary. Whereas memory management, device handling (drives, vidio, printers), etc, are required.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
A collection of bytes cannot be considered an Operating System until the characters "GNU/" have been prepended to its name!
--
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
According to McClure's Technical Cyclopedia, UNIX merely provides an opportunity for an OS to function.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
=(.\')=
Is Solaris an OS? Yes. Is Mac OS X an OS? Yes. Is FreeBSD an OS? Yes. Is Linux an OS? Yes.
Is Unix an OS? This is like asking 'Is the x86 hardware architecture a computer?' No. It's a standard that defines functionality.
--
This space unintentionally left unblank.
"Unix, which later became SunOS/ Solaris"
Someone should call IBM, BSD, HP and the rest of the boys and let them know ASAP.
It seems as though the author believes that he can make up the definition of OS to suit his needs. I could make the claim that MacOS X is not an OS because it doesn't contain a Word Processor and Spreadsheet. According the the author I could say this because my definition of an OS is different than the real definition.
Technically, a cult is a religous group that bases itself around a (mortal) person rather than an incarnate. Since Unix can in theory be a universal machine, it can in 'create' within in its own subdimensions and therefore is incarnate. Hence, Unix is both god and religion.
(Bill Gates as) Sherriff of Nottingham: And what makes you think that people will follow your operating system?
(Linus Torvalds as) Robin Hood: Because, unlike other operating systems, mine has a system which operates!
Elgon
I installed linux, no GUI, along with Apache and mySQL; I found it ran nicely, reliably, and never crashed, so I've gone so far as to remove the keyboard and monitor (along with the video card). I can only access it through its ethernet.
So does the lack of all that superfluous sh*t make it an OS-less computer?
Christ, some people can be so dense.
I don't understand why:
...
The first troll editorial was news.
Why anyone would need to respond to it.
Why a reponse to a troll editorial is news.
It would have been more useful if UNIX review
wrote some new columns:
"Is Windows a GUI" - because it doesn't have a "real" tool bar or multiple desktops, or focus policy choices,
"Are MAC pointing devies mice?" - Because they don't have 3 buttons and a scrolly thingy.
... even if it not have DSL, net-ready refrigerators, ligths that turns on automatically, alarm system, a dog, a room full of computers or even electricity. Or a computer still can be called a computer even if it not have mouse, CD Writer, Quickcam, 3D video card, joystick and windows operating system installed.
When you come down to definitions, what counts is the minimum necessary to call an OS a OS, and even CPM and earlier OSs fill that requeriment (can be called the interface between the hardware and the application programs, if still is needed a basic definition for that kind of journalist).
So embedded systems don't have OSs?
__________
Because even if it's one of the first posts, we've hear this argument one zillion times.
____________________
Ni!
Clearly the man is deluded.
What is utile/ity and what is productiv/ity?
So sooner or later the spreadsheet will be part
of the OS, because I won't buy a computer without it?
What if I am so rich that I have someone else
do the spreadsheet, does that person become part of the OS too?
The granularity of naming is a choice that has to do with the usage and audience of the description.
There is no such thing as true/perfect granularity, from the same reason there is no such thing as a true/perfect fishnet. It all depends on the kind of fish you're interested in.
The author is concerned only with the granularity of marketing computers. I fail to see why we should use Apple's market strategy--which always favored poor granularity ( like the Mac )-- for any other purpose except discuss apple's market strategy.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
I'm wondering,
:p)
What if this was all that was left after some kind of apocalypse?
Or, even stranger...
What if the religion we have now was all that was left after some past apocalypse in a similar way?
Woooooo... Read the book..
(time to go home now
Your Working Boy,
[noflame]
Duh... I'm using Windows 2000 7 days a week, and while I certainly hate Microsoft as much as the next Linux freak, I've to say it's pretty darn good. Never crashed on me since I installed it, and it feels quite snappy (especially since I use it on a not-so-new laptop).
On the other hand if I could get a penny for every time X crashed, I'd be rich...
[/noflame]
There's nothing wrong with saying "MacOS rulez, other system's drool", Linux users do it all the time, BSD users, and the MSFT does as well (although evangelistic Windows users are a rare breed). It's like politics in a way... you don't get ahead by saying "the other guy's just as good, but you should give us your votes/money/time"
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Sure, an OS release WILL NEVER and should never do everything that you need on a computer be it a Spakintoss, x86 or anything else...
It seems, since IANAP (not a programmer) then since my computer does not have a compiler, it must not have an OS.
This space intentionally blank
Back in August at MacWeek: /00 /08/22/2258255.shtml
http://slashdot.org/articles
Just for the record and my personal opinion
The answer is yes...ask anyone who really knows how a computer works.
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
Something that occurred to me...
Using this definition at face value, anything that comes without a programming language (since this is the least that a programmer needs to be productive) is not an OS. This rules out Windows 9X, Windows NT, Solaris and Mac OS from being an operating system (unless you count the command interpreter as a programming language).
So there.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
More lawyers? Oh my god... Many people consider a Web browser, media player (like QuickTime), e-mail, file manager (like the Finder or Windows Explorer) ..
Yes, he's a lawyer, a Microsoft lawyer!!!
While a browser is not integral to the code of the OS (as Microsoft tried to stupidly argue in court), it is quickly becoming an integral part of the user experience (which it should have argued).
Don't cheat, it's clear...
In the future (if not the present), many programs will be written to communicate with the browsers, e-mail packages and other parts of the operating system that interface with the Internet.
Yea, yea, the .NET computer...
This is where OS X comes in. Here, Apple is creating an entire operating system..
Might be they finally decided to build an OS, but it's notorious they injected 150 Mdollars.
He's been playing with and programming Macs since 1984
Poor guy, forgive him.
He doesn't know how fork() works. He has no idea of unfragmented memory. He thinks UNIX still uses variable partitions. He is convinced the GNOME or KDE (or even Motif) are unithreaded desktops. He believes UNIX takes 18 minutes for starting up.
He's still programming in Pascal and Hypercard.
Understandable...
--ricardo
sgis ddo ekil t'nod i
No brower?
Not an OS...
*Ahem* There is Emacs... and with LISP
*Ahem* I have no complaint about C, Unix or their descent.
And at last, I think this was the mod's lunch time or something. I see a score of 1 up there.
-------------------------------------
I see 57005 people
I read this article in Psychology Today. Their concept was this... you take the top 100 companies in for a meeting, and ask all the CEOs, what's the MOST important thing for a company to successd in the 21st century? And everytone goes "Creativity and innovation!" - all across the board. But how many knew how to FOSTER creativity and innovation in their company? About 60%. And then the kicker... how many of them actually DID it? About 6%. But by all means, all companies are creative and innovative.
It's just like this guy who came on IRC once, when a new version of IE was out, and he urged everyone to download it. "So what's so special?" I asked. "Why shoudn't I continue to use Netscape?"
"Well," he explained to me. "There's this thing called 'favourites' - Netscape doesn't have favourites." Of course not. Netscape has BOOKMARKS. Netscape are SO behind on these things...
And Java has programming patterns, and C is completely patternless. And Java has interfaces and a class can "extend" another class and stuff. It is SO much better than C! The kicker was the comment I once read, that Java is better than C, because there are no pointers in Java! Hahahahaha!!! No pointers in Java my ass! They are ALL pointers! There's ONLY pointers!!! My GOD!
Who Wants To Date A Norwegian?
If the writer of the article is right, then a nintendo console, your VCR, the Mars surveyor, just about any electronic device that isn't a mac or a windows PC cannot possibly have an operating system. I guess they just have a 'kernel' or 'some unnamed software thingy stuff'.
The only example of this that I can think of at the moment is vagina, which was originally a slang term literally meaning the sheath of a sword -- the proper name for that part was c*nt.
I'm sorry, but I can't see what in the world the female genitalia has to do with the value of a penny.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
You may be as technically correct as you like.. except that 99.9% of the world's population will disagree with you. The meaning of the word (or aconym) "OS" has changed. People that use it in its traditional sense are either mega-geeks or have been in suspended animation for about 15 years.
That's a pretty wrong-headed a take on the situation. By this definition, X-Windows + KDE/GNOME is an OS. Take it to the logical extreme -- later down the track, when X and your choice of desktop manager has become commonplace, calling them an OS would be "anachronistic" once more. At that point, I suppose XMMS, Netscape, or the Gimp become an OS.
What is an OS other than a set of components designed to provide a standard set of interfaces to, and services based on, the underlying hardware? It's certainly not a set of integrated graphics libraries.
I had one, but the wheel fell off.
You know of all the people to criticize unix, I never thought the mac people would have the gall to.
Hey, buddy. My operating system doesn't grind to a halt when I click on menus.
[grin]
UNIX is an operating system. MacOS X is an operating system (BSD) with a pretty window manager. Simple enough.
It looks like the evangelism is a justification for positioning MacOS X as a replacement for UNIX on the desktop. My guess would be that it's specifically aimed at keeping Mac users from looking at Linux on the Mac. If Apple cannot signify why *their* UNIX is more than UNIX, and they concede that the reason it's superior is that it is UNIX, then they must justify their product's differentiation.
-Nev
This makes things even funnier, anyway, because expanding the OS macro, is definitions becomes:
An operating system is the software which comes with the computer ( or Operating System distribution ) ....
Somebody should teach him the danger or recursion.
Ciao
----
FB
The kicker was the comment I once read, that Java is better than C, because there are no pointers in Java! Hahahahaha!!! No pointers in Java my ass! They are ALL pointers! There's ONLY pointers!!! My GOD!
Um... Java doesn't have pointers. It has references. The JVM uses pointers to implement the references, but the user doesn't get to manipulate them.
And yes, this is a strength of Java. It enforces tightly controlled accessing of objects. One of the whole points of OOP is to restrict what other coders can do to your objects, and pointers break that model quicte sucessfully
-Ciaran
I'll try to go into the author's mind and take his defination for an OS: A pack of a text editor, browser, file manager, image editor, image viewer, desktop environment, modem softwares, internet softwares, network managing softwares, filesystem tools, AND THE MOST IMPORTANT: _GAMES_ !!! (solitaire recommended). oh, I almost forgot: and also a little-unimportant system for taking care of the hardware. ------ If you ask me, it's just a Micro$oft adv.
The author, as it said, has been 'playing' at programming since 1984. He needs a history lesson and should study what an operating system IS before stating what he things it is today. While he mentions all sorts of nicities that he seems to think people 'require' today, much is 'application'. It may have hooks INTO an operating system, which were kindly provided by the OS, but shouldn't be confused by using these aps as a definition of an 'operating system'. His world is clouded by having the proverbial blinders on also, seeing only the desktop world. I suppose while I'm at it, I would also mention I dispute the majority of his assertions as to how 'Unix' the former OS spread initially as well, and the reasons. If he started in '84, he must've started when he was about 1, because he sounds like a some teenagers (not all, of course) who don't bother to research anything, but simply think that term paper can just come off the top of their head whether there is data to support any conclusion or not.
All I can say is, consider the source.
Here you've got a journalist writing articles intended for mac users. At one time, when macs were a viable platform, this might have been a worthwhile endeavor. But today your average mac user is either a zealot who bought into Steve Jobs' idea of macs changing the world and who still hasn't woken up, or a newbie who mistakenly consulted the first type of user before buying a system. What this means is most of the people in the target audience are either ignorant or stupid.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
All of these O/S's are just toys, OpenVMS or something of that scale is a better starting point for the "what is an O/S" discussion.
You silly twisted boy, you. Have a gorilla.
... they're milder
No thanks, I'm trying to give up
Have one of my baboons
.sig
This is silly. People seem to think they can define OS to mean whatever they like. Every has perpetrated a backwards argument, by defining Operating System to mean something UNIX is not, then going on to say "UNIX is not an OS".
It's like me saying "A modern car must have a CD player built in", then going on to say "therefore a model T Ford is not a car."
We have to learn that the term "OS" is nebulous and wooly nowadays, since *nobody* agrees on what OS means. (I've been arguing for a while in the Dreamcast coding world, for a Dreamcast UNIX port to facilitate quick emulator ports to the platform. The number of lamer responses I get saying "Jesus, if you want an OS, get a PC" you would not believe.). Use "Kernel" when you mean it, use "kernel and utilities" when you mean that, and save on confusion all around.
--
UNIX is an ad-hoc standard invented by an industry consortium to halt progress and lock-in customer base (paraphrasing Dan Bernstein).
Edith Keeler Must Die
...for some people, it's a way of life. For others, it IS their life.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I used to think it meant "My Operating System Is A Dead Parrot."
No. True communism is the exact opposite. People having direct control over the decisions that affect them (cf the workers collectives in Spain in the mid 1930s), not managers (or shareholders, these days) running companies for their own profit, or kings fighting wars for their own personal glory.
The "Communist Party" system originally adopted in Russia and China was meant to a temporary system that the Leninists believed was a necessary evil, as they believed that the people were not ready to govern themselves, because the current system had kept the masses from being educated to a state where they could make informed decissions. Once the structures of a more anarchist (in the real sense - no central government, not chaos) system, such as universal education, workers collectives etc were in place, the party was meant to dissolve itself.
Unfortunately, with the party system that was assembled, it was very easy for a dictator (eg Stalin) to take power and hold on to it.
If you really want to find out about "real" socialism, do a search for people like Bakunin or Durutti. Quite a good starting place is Anarchism in action
Guess I stated the obvious, look what happens when you barely read past the title.
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
> An os does not have to be as interactive as what were used to. Look at mainframes
But many people wouldn't say that mainframes have an Operating System.
i don't think that we should get into a semantic battle over this article. every obviously just intended to promote OS X, and he unintentionly made himself into flamebait in the process.
IMHO the definition of an OS is in the eye of the beholder. I believe that Unix an operating system, just a bare OS, which allows for the utmost felxibility and expandibility.
Unix really only focuses on B & C. I often ask myself why Unix types are obsessed with machine-machine interfaces, yet pretend that user-machine interfaces are of little consequence.
Like TCP/IP, something like X (or something more streamlined) should have been brought into these kernels long ago, along with minimum standards for GUI/Shell behavior. And it should have all been settled by about 1992 (if you recall, this was the era of the PC industry's "Multimedia PC" standards bodies).
Notice that Windows and Mac developers feel compelled to follow user interface guidelines just as hardware OEMs tend to follow standards for machine interfaces. Also notice that these developers can still break the rules when they feel they must (although, fortunately, this is the exception).
The Unix kernel developers felt they were above issues of minimum user interface standards whilst they preyed at the altar of APIs and hardware interfaces. Blech! Throw these bums out!!!
Did we not already have a Slashdot story about this in the past??? Let's agree on this:
The "Mac People" say:
No, Unix is not an OS
The rest of the world says:
Yes it is.
Problem solved, move along...
This space intentionally left blank.
OK,
So will EVERYone please stand up and tell me where they can (or could) get Unix for FREE? Those who voiced an answer, please remain standing ; an AT&T - Bell Labs - Lucent Technologies - whatever they call themselves now security official and lawyer will be with you shortly.
Unix was an AT&T product (or we paid them a bunch of money for nothing all those years ago......)
Spotteddog
. there used to be a sig here.....
...because, although it's been up for nearly a year now without a reboot - running DNS, NFS, NAT, firewall etc - it doesn't have a GUI (or even a monitor in fact), nor do I use it for web browsing, composing email or "being productive".
Guess I'd better switch to OS X.
Windows is shit.
Seriouly. Text is graphical. Look at punch card and teletype based machines. A computer with a command line on a monitor (not a typerwriter...well hell even a typewriter) gives a user a visual representation of the data there giving the computer, and the data they are getting from it. Have you seen the output from a punch card computer? Half the time it takes longer to decode the result than it would to write the program in a command line driven os.
Besides, what would the origonal mac-week guy say about batch processing operating systems? An os does not have to be as interactive as what were used to. Look at mainframes....there not going away (despite what we keep hearing)
Just my 2 bits.
You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
Every's reflections are indicative of the confusion Mac and Windows specialists must feel as they survey the changing state of the industry.
That's got to be the most PC way of calling someone an idiot that I have ever heard.
So by that definition, DOS was not a real Operating System either??
Umm... Oh... Hmmm... Nevermind.
Most of the features he claims are necessary for a real operating system are, in fact, available for every UNIX version. The fact that they may have come from different sources does not mean they are not part of a coherent and cohesive system.
UNIX: coherent and cohesive? Hilarious!
BH
Fools! They laughed at me at the Sorbonne...!
It means that my Debian box runs without an OS!
It has a life of its own... I tried to unplug it and it tried to bite me!!!
Really scary, Night of the OS-less computers
Unix is not an os...
Well then MAC os is just a kernel with a GUI slapped on and a fre services running.
I love it when writers that don't have a clue write about things. The worst part is that this is from a mac head, someone that has no clue how a computer works because that is how apple wants it. (Try and get an official MAC hardware guide, or build your own mac,ppc,whatever.) Granted it's getting better cince the PC world forced the PCI bus and USB (YUCK) on crapple. but still. you cant go to your local computer store and order a mac capable motherboard/parts/case and build your own mac kernel with some scripts and a gui slapped on compatable machine.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If you access a server from a website and get information, can it not have an operating system and still perform this task?
To make this more clear, remove any GUI executables from the server and access it again. Now if it is a Windows box, it'll be sitting with a blue screen and nothing will return. The same done to a Linux machine, to anyone who know Linux, would likely entail extra work removing something you've added extra... and you'll get a response back because the other interface is not needed.
If you consider a computer from all perspectives and not just as a user, the definition of an Operating System becomes much clearer. And makes this argument less clear.
It's simple:
If the system is executing itself and its resident applications as desired then it is an OS. A system which is only accessed via a serial port directly to another machine doesn't need to have a GUI in its OS. No GUI and the system is operating fine, thank you.
On the other hand if the GUI is written into the kernel, or the system is completely useless for lack of functionality, it's not an OS. This excludes errors in code or install.
Mac and M$ boxes seem to believe it's necessary, and so the GUI IS part of their OS, whether hard tied into the code or not.
I leave my rant as to why putting UI stuff into the kernel is a BAD thing. It's like letting regular users tweak the kernel config files all the time. Yikes!
Messaging, a set of routines to help applications (processes) or parts of applications (threads) talk to each other;
Scheduler, to give the many applications (or parts of applications) some processing time to get work done;
Memory management, so that applications have an area in memory in which to run, protected from other applications' bugs that might affect them.
There are supporting elements on top of the kernel, such as drivers to help programmers talk to hardware, libraries to provide extra code functionality, and a set of commands (a shell) to enable users to tell applications or the OS what to do. But almost everything else outside the Unix kernel is considered a utility or something extra, not part of the core OS.
That makes Unix sound an awful lot like an OS to me. The author's main argument seems to be that since unix doesn't come with a standard GUI, it isn't an OS. This is so unbelievably wrong it isn't even funny.
First, I'd say... come on now... 400 MB is a lot. Anything about 48k of RAM is a lot. Don't tell me you have a harddisk, too!!!
But what I really wanted to say... I am not arguing that swap space and virtual RAM isn't the same thing. But just like "favourites" vs. "bookmarks", the original poster was talking about how everything in Windows had to be "virtual"-something. The word is like the plague. It spreads everywhere.
"Swap space" is what you call it when you want normal people to think you are a smart computer geek.
Actually, it doesn't matter what you tell normal people. Sure, "Swap space" goes above their heads, but so does "Virtual Memory"... they go... "Huh? Do computers have memory?" And if you try with RAM, they might just start bleating.
Ever tried to ask someone how much RAM they have on their computer?
"What do you mean RAM?"
"Memory. How much memory does your computer have?"
"Uhhhh... I'm not sure... uh... I think I have 2."
"No, it's usually a bigger number than that."
"Yea, I mean I have two memories or something."
"Oh... well, how big are they?"
"Uh... one is... 30, I think... does that sound like a number?"
"Let me see... three is a number, zero is a number... thirty... yeah, it's a number. But is that like 32 Megs of RAM or 30 Gigs of harddisk?"
"I don't have any RAM, I think. So... so... it's probably the last one... the hardsomething..."
Catch my drift? After THIS discussion, try thinking of what it would be like to ask them about their VIRTUAL memory!!! "You mean my computer's memory isn't real? Did they trick me?"
So you mean to tell me that implementing classes, inheritence, etc. in C is desireable (or at least just as good as using an OO language)? These features of C++ and Java are not buzzwords," they're fundamental language features. By your argument "functions" are just a bunch of buzzword crap for an automated jmp.
Actually, I prefer a bsr or a jsr, but that's besides the point. No, it is not desirable to implement a class in C, when you have a BETTER Macro Assembler, like C++. But a method within a class is still just a function (or even subroutine) where you keep passing it a pointer to its workspace, allowing these functions to work under different, simultaneous environments (as opposed to having one global environment).
Who Wants To Date A Norwegian?
I've seen it happen WAY WAY WAY to often.
"Dos is not an operating system" this being said when Dos was getting old.
It's been universally considered an Os for nearly 10 years (the 1980s) and not much diffrent from CP/M (Historicly still considered an os). Just boot loaders and some primitive interfacing but thats all a computer needed at the time.
Then there are groups who redefine the word "Religion" to mean "Christianity" as an easy political move to disguard the freedom of religion for anyone else. (In the United States.. sorry must rember the rest of this big blue marble)
Ok... So Coke a Cola isn't a Soda...
DVD movies are not entertainment
TV is not a broudcast medium
The HP 48 isn't a calculator
This BatMan coffie mug (on my desk) isn't a cup
It's not a bug it's a feature
This thing at the end of my leg is not a foot
And finnaly...
This Zip drive is NOT a disk drive...
This is getting stupid... Yes Unix is an os...
I've only seen two credable efforts to question a software pacages status as an os.
Forth: becouse it's ground up a programming language. But it's powerful enough and it is used as an Os
Windows: Becouse it's the only os to boot under annother os (Dos). This brings a sereous credability issue to the existence of Windows as an os.
However...Dos yealds all control to it leaving Windows "in control".
(Still this kind of Os design is no harder than writing a Dos app and any Dos app writer is fully experenced in all the issues faced when creating Windows)
It's fine to tolerate this to some degree...
After all in the 1970s expert programmers (who coded on mainframes etc) felt a "real computer" had to have a larg scale CPU (Not a microchip).
But this addatude didn't mean much...
To consider Unix "Not an os" simply becouse Unix is not like anything else he is familure with (thats a total of TWO other systems.. thats not much of a knowladge base to form an option) is pritty dumb.
For 30 years experts had no problem calling Unix an os.
I'm no os expert.. (I wrote one.. I've used many) but gezz...
MacOs and Windows act more like software pacages (a few apps, BIOS and an interface). They are operating systems but to me it's very hard to see it.
Then there is Unix.. everything about it SCREAMS "Operating system".. You can tell whats what. Everything in it's place and everything makes sence.
Shouldn't someone at least know a little computer history before he has a position where he can write an editorial?
I don't actually exist.
Abe Lincoln used have fun asking people "If we call a tail a leg then how many legs does a dog have?" Whenever anyone replied "five" he would say "No. Only four because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one."
"Obtuse Anger is that which is greater than Right Anger" - Lewis Carroll
>you display a running app on another display?
GGI-Project - Because lets face it, X sucks.
(my words, not theirs.)
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
This is truly a non-issue.
It's like arguing that cars minted after the first four-wheelers are not horseless carriages.
They are, and it doesn't matter. We still use them.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, The Histories
what got an operating system to do with an graphical user interface.
an operating system should be what its called. it should operate my system and thats not only for a day or two (like windows and macos too). i love that unix-machines down there in the server room. i think i havent seen some of the machines for years - the uptime is really amazing.
unix does best what its called to do: it operates the system. and that it does best of the rest for a very long time.
i dont know a fusion reaktor (very critical!), an backbone-provider or a telephon company, which ever would keep the trust on an macos!!! unix proves for more then 20 years that it can operate for a long time.
oh yes, you can recompile your whole system without having a downtime at all. and there is no other os like an unix or unixbased system which you can configure so specific for your needs.
btw: does the author know, that the new macos is unix based?
does he know, that the most complex graphical software is running on unix?
does he even know, that most parts of movie special effects are done on unix based graphics software?
does he even know ??? RelWorp p.s.: i am still wondering about the aspect, what an os got to do with an gui???
That story is so good it should be posted as a Slashdot headline by itself.
Sure, in this case David Every stepped on a semantic land mine; sure, you'd think if he was writing a whole article about a definition he might have bothered to look the term up. (Fine, okay, he could explicitly say the term is evolving beyond its old definition, but then he doesn't give us a clear definition of his own, does he, he just kind of stirs the sediment up...)
IMHO there isn't much of technology journalism that doesn't seem to need an editor just about as badly as this does. Every stands out mainly for his court-jester-as-lightning-rod swagger. Mac folks are more than a little chargrined by his gifts that way. But go scan C/Net a bit, and you'll wince just the same.
Every doesn't think the technology through any more than he does his occasional political opinion. (We had an e-mail exchange once about gays in the military, and he didn't have a clue what he'd put his foot in there either.)
Let it roll off.
An operating system is the software that comes with a computer (or OS distribution) that programmers and users need to make themselves productive.
Using this definition, neither Windows nor the Mac "OS" are operating systems either. Out of the box, they aren't productive. Windows, without the Orfice Suite, is pretty useless. I wonder if the author considered that?
In the old days, a monitor is a small resident program on a computer that lets an operator to examine the status of the machine. For example, to look at the contents of registers or to modify them, or to dump memory out to a display somewhere.
I think somewhere a village is missing it's idiot!
Well, excuse me... I must have been mistaken then... because, you see, the argument was that pointers were confusing, but references were not. Because, you see, when you pass a pointer, you're passing ... a pointer, whatever that is, and not the actual data... but when you pass a REFERENCE... then... then... you pass a ... finger that shows you where the value is, but not the actual value.
The only difference is that in Java, you don't get to manipulate the pointers. And oh... yeah... so, in Java, you can't actually pass the actual value unless it is a primitive. I see that as a castration of C++. But that's just because I happen to know what I'm doing.
Yes, the argument for not being able to manipulate the pointers is that you do less mistakes, but these mistakes occur more often with people who do not know what they are doing. Just like the argument that most Java advocates uses for Java is that the language forces you to do certain things, which is good because you don't have to be an expert on everything to do anything. But they all agree that if you know what you're doing, these protections aren't necessary. They are protections against unconditioned programmers.
Let me put it this way: Do you still use supporting wheels on your bicycle to stop you from tilting over? They are really great when you're learning, because you don't get all those fall and scratch experiences. But once you have the balance, they are just in the way.
Stick shift or automatic? Automatic is great when you're just learning to drive, but if you get used to stick, you have so much more control over your car. Of course, the stick shift is just an obstacle to people who don't know how to drive them. But automatic is an obstacle to those who have learned stick. Especially when they come to slippery roads, stick is definitely preferred - if you know how.
Same thing in C++ vs. Java: I pretty much know what I'm doing, so why should I have to have these shackles on pointers restrict me? These restrictions might be an advantage to YOU, but they are an obstacle to ME.
Same thing with the entire Linux vs. Mac discussion... a Mac user will say it is so difficult to use Linux. Well, guess what... the Mac environment is such an obstacle to the Linux power user. It is not that Mac is difficult... hell, Mac is easy peasy. But it is restricting you.
Or the Linux distribution thing... Red Hat? Great when you don't fully understand Linux internals, but once you get used to Slackware (stick shift), you wouldn't touch Red Hat with a 20 foot pole unless you really really had to. The average Red Hat user, however, would probably be lost in Slackware, because a lot of their Red Hat automation (automatic shift) is missing, and they are wondering what the hell is the deal with Slackware, anyway... it's so... primitive...
Who Wants To Date A Norwegian?
Some of the more extreme Unix geeks disagree. Many of them are academic purists who were raised to believe that only the kernel is the operating system, and that everything else is not. But they are ignoring the history of computers and how computers have evolved. Ihey have not kept up.
"Ihey have not kept up"?? Maybe this guy should invest in an operating system that comes with a spellchecker... =p~
It's people like that you wanna slap around with a large trout. Nobody else - Just them.
-The Darkener
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Wow, what a subjective definition! That means that my computer has no operating system, and most people I know don't have an operating system either, at least until they figure out how to use their computers...
Firstly, I *bought* my computer without an operating system; it had a BIOS and some blank hard drives. I did a network install of Linux, and I'm using it now to write this post. Incidentally, yes, Netscape Communicator was included in that network install. However, this isn't an operating system because, guess what, it didn't "come with my computer". Oh well, I guess I'll just have to surf the web without an OS.
But wait, it gets better! If I run Windows on this machine, it isn't an OS for *TWO* reasons; not only did it not come with my computer, but it also doesn't contain the productivity software I need! I mean, really, where's my C compiler? That goes double for MacOS; WHERE'S MY COMMAND PROMPT???
Therefore, by this argument, I'd consider a pre-installed Unix box the ONLY Operating System out there, at least for me. Now that I know that the definition is so subjective. I'm assuming that these boxes must be pre-installed at the factory or something, and must have the C compilers, word processors, etc., etc., all bundled in, because of course you couldn't install software LATER. That's just too hard...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Unix is a family of OSes rather than a specific one?
`swap space' is space that is used to swap processes out to. You can have (and use) swap space without having a virtual-memory system--you can swap tasks out of memory and back in, so you can run lots of tasks, for which the total, aggregate memory usage is greater than your amount of physical RAM, but you cannot run one processes that, itself, requires more RAM than you physically have.
See the entry for `virtual memory' in the FOLDOC.
-rozzin.
Unix is no longer an operating system. An operating system is the software that comes with a computer (or OS distribution) that programmers and users need to make themselves productive.
Unix is only a small part of that.
Last I checked an OS is:
"The three main purposes of an operating system are to attempt to schedule computational activities to ensure good performance of the computing system, they provide a convenient environment for the development and execution of programs, and convenience for the user. )
An operating system has four components. These four components are Resource Management, Hardware Control, Application Services and Applications" - Source Nia_Cial at everything2.com
So 1) this author is WAY off 2) even if Unix is defined by his diluted defination he is still WAY OFF!
I got 5-10 "OS" distrubation in the back room. If the "OS" is defined by "additional applications and functions that are required for it to run" then his statement: "Unix is only a small part of that" is way off, this guy is a dumb ass.
SuSE Linux 6.3 - 6 CDs PACKED with "Additional applications"
Freinds "custom" debain build 7 CD PACKED
Solaris 7 - 1 "os" disk and 2 CD's packed with applications (software disk 1 & 2)
Windows 95 b - 1 CD, half of which is taken up by a Weezer MPG movie
Windows 98 SE - 1 CD, half empty
MacOS 7.0 - 1 CD, half empty
So by this authors OWN defination he is complety fscking wrong, by the correct defination he is complely fscking wrong. Who is the fuck that gave him web space to put up this shit?
I am really starting to hate Mac users.
In reference to the iMac --
"MY COMPUTER IS GRAPE" -- penny-arcade.com
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Clearly Unix is NOT an operating system. To
quote from the Book of Redmond:
Operating System (OS): a fat bloated buggy piece
of software with a browser embedded in it.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Often times we hear the term "modern OS". Generally this implies some sort of windowing GUI that has N amount of applications etc. etc. It has long been my idea that this term was dreamed up by some slightly FUD oriented marketing boob to scare people away from the command line - or thinking that anything that deals directly with hardware is an "OS". All I do is examine those two letters "operating system". This term doesn't leave any room for a user part, nor does it give any context of what sort of interface that the user should have. The only thing it implies is that the software must operate. UNIX fills this void. Most "modern" OSes are no more modern than UNIX at the base - in fact they are usually so archaic under the hood that nothing can be "real" in the OS. Everything must be virtual - take windows for instance. Virtual drivers, virtual memory, virtual Bob - it's silly.
So yes, Unix is still an operating system.
The difference between a cult and a religion is that a religion has mostly "native" members--people born and raised within it.
--
An abstained vote is a vote for Bush and Gore.
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
Now, I agree that STalin made lennin look like Jefferson, but the idea of the vanguard of the people wasn't fascist?
------- Oh damn.... the Sigfile escaped... -Great OM
God doesn't have to log in. ;)
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Network *Filing* System ??? so much for the credibility of this guy...
"An operating system," he writes, "is the software that comes with a computer (or OS distribution) that programmers and users need to make themselves productive."
Hmm lemme see i know a lot of business' that are fully productive with the Windows 2000 as it ships, the developers all use notepad and the DOS version of FTP and telnet while the sales departments type their invoices out manually using notepad and accounts use the powerful Calculator tool to work out the companys finances.
If only unix could provide such powerful facilities it would become an OS, does anyone have a few hours to spare to write them?
Slashdot: Proof that a million monkeys at a million typewriters can create a masterpiece
Come, now, this is Slashdot...
It's a way of life!
Zetetic
Seeking; proceeding by inquiry.
Elench
A specious but fallacious argument; a sophism.
Just because it's not bloated and buggy, it's not an OS?!? Sounds like Mac users crying sour grapes...
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
... is a religious war, that my Operating Systems prof refused to partake in. However, the whole bundling of the window manager, applications, etc. into an "operating system" is the best way to create something with so many back doors and hooks that interface security is lost (*cough*Microsoft*cough*). Additionally, a user experience is NOT an OS.
yours,
yours,
kbs
He's a contributing editor for MacWeek. He's not Knuth. He's defining an OS from a Mac user's point of view. Clearly, he's not trying to list the essential components of an Operating System for Comp Sci teachers.
Users don't very much care that an OS abstracts hardware to make life easier for application designers. Users care about the applications themselves. At least, this seems to be Every's point.
I understand what an OS is and what I expect from it. At the very least, I want my OS to allocate enough memmory for my applications without manual interventionfrom me. I would like my OS to protect itself from uppity applications. I would like my OS to have preemptive multitasking and a solid file permissions system.
Of course, I may not be able to instantly upload pictures of my dog urinating on the carpet to my family's web site with out-of-the-box Unix, but I'll deal.
My eyes aren't at their best after a full day of work, and for awhile there I was reading "Suits" as "Sluts." I was mildly confused for a time.
Hmm.. ya know, up until I read this comment, I was totally agreeing with everything people were saying about this Every guy being an utter moron.
But I have to concede here that UNIX is not an OS. Every is right that UNIX isn't an OS, but he assumes it for absolutly every wrong reason. It is accurate to say UNIX was an OS, but not anymore. At least, it is not one that a sane person would install on a modern machine. UNIX is not being actively developed. AFAIK, you cannot actually buy UNIX from any retail store or outlet. UNIX exists these days as a template for other (typically open sourced) OSes to follow as a good example of things done The Right Way.
The most important thing is, though, that the spirit of UNIX is alive and well thanks to the many derivitives and clones that walk in it's shadow. By saying "The UNIX OS," I'm sure Every meant "Any UNIX-based OS."
And that is where the confusion lies. Someone moderate the above comment up!
Did it occur to just me that Every is stupid stupid stupid? Come on.. UNIX OS's arent OS's because they are just a kernel with some stuff on top but mac OS X is an OS because its a unix kernel with a bunch of stuff on top marketed ask separate components.. I suppose one must consider what the target audience is for macs and consider the cultish way mac fans cling to their computers/os and declining apple stock.. I swear some people will say anything to justify their os/hardware of choice.. although whats sad is something that ignorant was allowed to be widely circulated..
Odd, i thought the definition of a car has remained unchanged mostly for the past 100 years or so. A car was never just an engine, transmition and suspesion. Its always been a bit more, and now we have added features, but take away the a/c or the heater, and you stil lhave a car..
Mac !OS X
This would probably fly with the Marketing department.
It has cool punctuation in the logo.
Ok. So I don't know much about communism. Is there a short, easy to read definition anywhere?
You might want to visit www.marxists.org. It's got a lot of information, and it's students section has a nice introduction to Marxism. You might also want to read the Communist Manifesto, but remember, it was written with the aim to incite a revolution, so it's a bit confrontational.
I thought communism was about gov't taking care of most things, like telling people how to work (not what job). A small power class in control... Am I way off?
Well, the aim of Communism is to overthrow the bourgeoisie (the ruling class - the wealthy), and to form an egalitarian society of mutual cooperation, and communal property. So the description you have just given is more like the current Capitalist system than true Communism. Unfortunately, an egalitarian society is hard to maintain, and a new ruling class has always asserted itself whenever a Communist revolution has occurred. You may want to read "Animal Farm" for more information on this.
Hah! Linux... That is an offshoot cult from the great religion of Unix. And yes, you are right, it is built around Linus and that blasted penguin Tux. Denounce him now or be struck down by the Wrath of Unix!
if there's no useful software for it? does that mean that a hammer isn't a hammer if there are no nails for it to pound? is an os an os if no one is using the os? does a hammer stop being a hammer if no one is holding the handle?
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
Surely one that isn't based on UNIX? Which of course isn't an OS at all.
Of course; to Apple, it's NOT an OS, it's a nightmare...
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
Lawyers love these sort of questions because they result in days/weeks of endless bickering (a.k.a. billable hourly rates).
Take a look at the explanation at www.opengroup.org. You folks can argue about this all day and night, but in the end, all you're going to do is make a bunch of attorneys richer.
Tomorrow's Inane Question of the Day might as well be: "Is Linux UNIX?" (the answer to that is clearly NO in a court of law).
Windows doesn't have what it takes to make me productive
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
1) Doesn't crash.
2) Shares memory like a high school reunion.
3) Runs everything except Windows.
4) Infinitely customizable.
5) Infinitely flexible.
6) Did I mention it pretty much doesn't crash?
Naw, can't be an OS.
--
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
His assumption seems to be that, if you bind the various system components into an irreducible glob like Mac OS or Windows, you have built an operating system, but it you keep the components changeable, interchangeable, and freewheeling, you are merely providing "a kernel with a shell and some services on top." a rather interesting point. This being that all systems are a kernel with a shell and some services on top. Thats what I got the impression of. I think that you can't really say that UNIX isn't an OS, thats absurd. Anyhow that author makes lots of points, which essentially boil down to the same point; UNIX is an OS. I wish I had more time to discuss this but as of right now I am being kicked out of my high schools computer lab...bye bye
"Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth." John F. Kennedy
They are called spam filters you dumb fuck.
It works great, maybe you should try it after all
that shit i signed you up for.
Ignore the Anonymous Pissant trolls !!!
I started with a Mac Classic
:^P
Got serious with OS 9
And I don't worry about nothin' no
Cause Windows' a waste of my...time
I start Photoshop'ing around seven
I'll have some comps around nine
Get on the web about eleven
Downloading pr0n and feelin' fine
Chorus:
We been dancin' with
Mr. Pantone
He's been knockin'
He won't leave me alone
I used ta retouch a little
but a little wouldn't do
So the little got more and more
I just keep tryin'
ta get it lookin' a little better
Said a little better than before
I used ta retouch a little
but a little wouldn't do
So the little got more and more
I just keep tryin'
ta get it to look a little better
Said a little better than before
Chorus
Now I call for spot color whenever
I used ta finish spreads on time
But that old man
he's a real muthafucker
Gonna kick him on down the line
I know, I know.
All the article had a "MacOS X is a better OS because it has a GUI and many applications".
Well...
Maybe it's the fact that Linux is probably growing faster that MacOS is...
The short answer is yes. True communism would mean that everyone gives up all their posessions for use by the whole community. Unfortunately this only works if nobody in the entire community has any greed. This can be done freely (See the Acts of the Apostles, FWIW) or by force (all modern "communist" nations, where the wealth got concentrated with the ruling class anyway).
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
It sounds like the author thinks that the idea of an OS has changed over time. Either that or UNIX has de-evolved into a lesser state.
I will agree that the average view of an OS has changed, now the average user will stare blankly if they are asked what an OS is until one says "You mean like Windows?" Where the average user in the 70's would *know* what an OS is.
Does this take away from UNIX?
Outside of nomenclature, I don't think so. UNIX is what it is, regardless of what a fan of OSX says.
Besides, OSX must be an OS, it has OS in the name. Same as OS/2. The rest of the machines out there must be running something... but we just can't tell for sure from the name.
Following the authors discussion, do you think he would view Linux as an OS. If not, would a specific distribution be considered an OS?
These are good questions to think of because technology and terminology is being trickled to the masses. We have to be able to communicate with these people. Should we look at differing our def of an OS?
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
An anonymous coward said, "This is so 70s!!"
Well, what can I say. I must agree and disagree at the same time. The UNIX command line is unparalleled in it's power for remote administration, scripting, etc.. the list goes on. This 30 year old technology still offers usability that I can't match in any other OS. Sure, X is a monster and it's not as flashy as MacOS X, but do you know of another protocol that will let you display a running app on another display? I mean, there is give and take here.
I would argue that Unix is the best server period. However, it may or may not be the best desktop for your needs. I use linux as a desktop but I also keep other OS's around as well - including the one from Redmond. I believe in diversity. I enjoy having the power of the *nix command line and right next to it, a box running a shiny apple gui, BeOS, or even Windoze if your needs dictate so. For me, Linux is the main platform, but who says I can't have them all!
-benjy
About 2/3 of the way through he lists 7 reasons why Mac OS X is an operating system. All these reasons are that apple had taken the time to create their own programs, whether or not the programs are any good, just the fact that apple created them and included them with Mac OS X makes it an operating system. Unix and its variants have the same programs that he is talking about, and AFAIK they are bundled with the kernel as well. The only difference is that the utilitys are not created by a single entity, and according to the author, if everything was not created by a single company or group of people, then it is not an operating system. Operating System is just that, a system that operates, it does not have anything to do with who made the software.
"In the old days, monitors were simply devices for displaying text, images, etc. to us. That defnition has gradually fallen by the wayside. Nowadays, a monitor is that, plus a few post-it notes, a picture of your significant other, an optional troll doll and at least 4 toys that are important to you. Most models also come with one or two fortunes from a chinese restaurant."
If unix isn't really an OS then that means that linux isn't really an OS, so that line Microsoft has been feeding us about competition in the OS world must be bull. They really do have a monopoly!
J
A modern OS still has a card reader and line printer, and a total user memory space of 300 words (4bytes per word).
*sigh*...;)
"Unix is no longer an operating system"
Fair enough.. but in the same line, he says:
"An operating system is the software that comes with a computer (or OS distribution)"
So a distribution is separate from the OS?
"Today, an OS is not just the kernel and a few command line utilities. It may include a.."
Does the word "may" there not mean something? As in, that is perfectly possible for it to _not_ include them?
-
Meep meep
This "not a real OS" is hardly suprising from a Mac diehard. How many developers have looked at the gigantic MacOS API and fled in terror? There are many reasons for the decline of the Mac (proprietary hardware, bad marketing) but the tendency to think that the OS has to do everything is my personal favorite.
__________
An operating system is the software that comes with a computer (or OS distribution) that programmers and users need to make themselves productive
Just goes to show that emacs truly is an OS...
Wow. Is Unix an OS? I don't know... perhaps it's a taco. It never ceases to amaze me what this country's best and brightest individuals can come up with! The worst part is that WE'VE ALREADY HAD THIS DISCUSSION!! Where have these people been? Living under a start button?
"Unix" is probably best described as an abstract class. I mean "class" in the programming sense of the word. Sort of like a family... each individual of the family has similar characteristics. Some members of the "unix" family share enough characteristics that they can even execute the same programs.
--Cr@ckwhore
---------------------------
Read about Verizon's internal DSL network at http://www.psouth.net/~csb/verizon
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Before job conditions forced him to more or less abandon his personal site, I went to it daily to see what bits of wisdom he'd cough up. Often he made sense, sometimes he was merely entertaining. Sometimes scathing (It should be pointed out before you click away that he's a staunch Mac-user; devout /.ers will probably feel the urge to vomit).
In this case, I fear he's trying to squash bugs so small as to be theological.
The fundamental question in this whole debate is, "Where does the operating system end and the user interface begin?" or "How much of the UI can you scrape off before the OS underneath becomes useless or breaks?"
Microsoft's assertion all through its monopoly trial was that anything that made changes to the operating system (or DLLs that it relied upon) BECAME part of the operating system, or as they called it, 'integration.' I can see the reasoning behind it, but I don't necessarily agree with it. (The ham sandwich is a different matter -- can InstallShield remove mayonnaise?)
I can also see the reasoning behind Every's statement, though I can't quite agree with it. An OS without any sort of interoperability ceases to be the central authority of the computer and instead becomes 'that thing what makes the disk go around.' You might as well shut off at that point, because the system isn't going to do anything but make whirry noises.
The line between OS and the cruft that makes it more like a 'computer' is somewhere in the middle, and depending on how you like your semantics, it could end up being anywhere in the middle. It could include file-copying services, file browsers, multimedia services, or not.
The question much on my mind now is, "Is this really important??" The answer I come up with is "No!" , but obviously others feel it's worth arguing. I'm a little stunned that Every said it because of the wiggly nature of the argument. But then Joe Casad just had to respond, and I expect there will be much Mac-bashing before this thread is expired.
Sigh.
---
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
Every new feature and function added on top of the shell and kernel represented more code, and more cost.
Duh...I guess OS X consists of...lets see here
#include
void main(void)
{
print("Hello World");
}
Pretty neat huh? The really cool thing about this is that you never have to touch the code again to add more features. They just happen!
(Ahh, that first rant of the day feels so good.)
In mathematics, once something is defined, that definition holds until someone can prove that something is fundamentally wrong with the assumptions on which the definition is based. (Or until the end of time, which ever is sooner.) For example, a graph has the specific definition of a set of nodes and edges. (Don't remember the exact wording.)
In language, once something is defined, that definition may change based on how people use it. Change takes place very slowly, but it occurs. The only example of this that I can think of at the moment is vagina, which was originally a slang term literally meaning the sheath of a sword -- the proper name for that part was c*nt. Obviously, this has completely changed.
Computer Science falls into a weird place. CS was originally a branch of mathematics (the study of algorithms) -- remember that it existed before computing machines. The programming part came later. Now it's possible to "do computers" without doing math. There's still a historical relationship to math, but most modern computing is less about math and more about business.
So the question here is whether we're looking for a mathematical definition of an OS, or a linguistic (contextual) definition of an OS. Mathematically, Unix is an OS -- it's a layer of abstraction between the base hardware and the applications that run on the hardware. (There's probably more to the definition than that.) Linguistically, I would argue that most people expect an OS to be more than that. You sit someone down in front of a Unix console, they'll look for icons.
Perhaps the mathematical level of abstraction has be become too much of an integral part of computing. As far as most people are concerned, the OS *is* the computer -- hardware doesn't mean as much any more.
I can spell. I just can't type.
2: There exists programs which you can reading this page (output) and writing back onto it (input) and those programs do not interface with the hardware directly.
3: THEREFORE, if the program works, there must be an operating system in the mix.
4: It is possible to post a reply to this article on a computer only running "UNIX" and a second client program as in statement (2).
5: THEREFORE, if (1) is the definition of an operating system, UNIX must be an operating system.
Isn't this a repeat?
Let's assume *nix isn't an OS, in accordance with the article. We'll also assume the various flavors of Windoze and Mac OS are. What are the commonalities of these OSes? An ugly, underpowered, and not very usuable user interface and the fact that they both CRASH ALL THE TIME. I think I'll happily keep with not using an operating system ;)
Well, if *IX isn't an OS, then none of IBM's Big Iron has ever had an OS. Ditto for for Univac, Burroughs, Cray, etc.
Macweek doesn't run an Operating System That's ridiculous :)
"Linux sucks?"
"All hackers are evil?"
"Natalie Portman to appear nekkid?"
________________
________________
Private Essayist
I learned in school that the OS is responsible for things like memory managment, scheduling and so on. Never have I heard about a GUI being part of the core OS! This guy must be insane! (Or rather more to the point, trying to sell OS X :)
There are no friends
Anywhere
I lost count a long time ago at the number of different Unix's (Uniis) there are, or have been available.
I am sure that Unix now reperesents a family of operating systems, rather than a particular operating system. Sure the original AT&T stuff was called Unix, or was refered to as "A Unix", the unix name kinda stuck.
In contrast take MS-DOS, which is/was an operating system that evolved in a singular line (OK, flame me, I forgot PC-DOS, and all those others clones including A-DOS - Apricot DOS).
So I guess that Win3.0 was not an operating system, as the PC had to load an OS prior to loading the IU, is Windows NT an OS ?
Novell Netware is/was not an OS, it loaded on top of DOS too.
So, is Linux an OS in it's own right ? I am sure that it is, but Gnome/KDE/X are not OS's they are just UI's that require the base OS to boot first.
God I am confused about all of this.
Not Fragile
Unix is not an OS. It is just a pile of drivers etc for the *real* OS: Emacs!
In Murphy We Turst
It's like saying that a ford, without a radio, without power mirrors and locks, without an automatic transmission, without headlights, without a back seat is no longer a car.
Sorry, but I don't buy the idea that Unix isn't an OS. I agree that it needs to have many pieces added to it to really do anything useful. But how different is that from a car enthusiast putting a new carbourator in? or putting a new suspension in? or putting in a cruise control package? or a cd player?
I think that this is just an attempt by the original MacWeek author to cover up the fact that OSX is basically a souped-up window manager for a 'Unix core' instead of a from-scratch solution that was promised way-back in the Copland fiasco.
there are two products that came out of berkeley - LSD and BSD. We dont think that this is a coincidence...
...just many variants.
...over and over and over and over and over again.
How many times has this debate come up? I can remember at least 3 specific instances over the last 6 months...
I really don't care if Every claims Unix isn't an OS (sounds like a damn fool but he is free to say it.. certainly doesn't hurt me) but then do I get to claim that Windows is a virus (because it spreads to almsot every PC and crashes it) and MacOS is frosting on a cowpie (Mac's crash almost as often as Windows.. MacOS X does look sweet though.)??? Hrm or that Amiga is the ghost of Christmas past? Silly terms for things we may or may not like are easy to come up with and evidently keep people like Every getting paid. I don't mind as long as the money doesn't put his children through school as computer science students. I'd hate to see their warped idea of what a CPU is. "If it don't have a cable modem, video card, hard drive, and DVD drive it ain't a CPU!"
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I'm sick and tired of hearing this kind of crap again and again (from the MacWeek article):
The problem isn't that we're "purists" who don't get it. The problem isn't that we refuse to acknowledge that the market has moved on.
It's a simple difference of opinion rooted in the differences between the cultures of Unix and Windows/MacOS. Unix has a long tradition of having things be seperate for the sake of modularity and recombinability. I can use any shell I want on top of my kernel. I can use Sun's tar, or GNU's tar. I can use XFree86 or a commercial X server (or none at all). Within X, I can use any of a dozen window managers, and withing those I can use several desktop environments.
Windows and MacOS, on the other hand, have all those choices made for you, and bolted together in one particular way. No choice about which shell (DOS, or nothing in the case of MacOS 9 and before). No choice about which windowing system or window manager or desktop, etc.
There are benefits to the MacOS/Windows way: less user confusion, more consistency, etc. There are advantages to the Unix way: more flexibility and choice.
But don't tell me that I'm wrong about my conception of what an OS is just because I happen to be from a different culture that thinks of things being seperated that you are used to being one bolted-together mass.
-Esme
I think that the following statements were particularly annoying.
Unix is no longer an operating system. An operating system is the software that comes with a computer (or OS distribution) that programmers and users need to make themselves productive.
I don't need a web browser to make myself productive, quite the opposite actually.
The OS is all the stuff that companies like Sun or Apple add to make a computer usable.
That's not what they taught me in school.
--
Unix is not an OS, Pah!
OS is an operating system, that has a kernel and something on top of it. Your toast might have an OS on it, your moble phone has an OS on it, does not mean you want to use it for anything other than its dedicated purpose in life.
An OS does not have to have a GUI, there again you could say your CD player has a GUI, it has a screen on it after all.
It all does not matter in my book if iGeeks want to restrict the term who cares? I don't it will stop lots of companies buying there unix platforms. I felt the article, was another Mac are better. And personally I care not! Macs being largely irrelivent these days, let them think what they like. I doubt they will change their minds or me [we] ours.
Another non news debate in my book, its not going to change a thing.
What are Macweek talking about?
An operating system is what connects hardware to software. It manages your memory and talks to your devices. It doesn't provide a nice GUI web browser, but it does opens and manage the connections that browser needs. Software is what makes a computer productive.
Only the cushy extras. You could drive this car - it wouldn't be comfortable or warm, but it'd still move (well, ok with some wheels a chassis - but they are hardly trivial parts). The car is providing the basic features such as the ability to move and stop and absorb bumps. if you want heated seats, go right ahead and add them. But it's not like the car won't move without them.
Which is just how it should be. for your OS to interact with the hardware it's run on, you don't need a mail client or a mp3 player. These run *on top* of the OS. Come on, it's obvious.
Please. you're insulting my intelligence. Quicktime as an OS service?. Why on earth would this be an OS service? It's software. It uses OS calls to make connections and decompress the data and write it to your monitor. It runs in userspace.
Everyone knows what an OS does. Everyone apart from Macweek.
"Unix is no longer an operating system. An operating system is the software that comes with a computer (or OS distribution)that programmers and users need to make themselves productive."
"Well that all depends on what your definition of 'is', is."
:)
Give me a break! If THAT is his definition of an OS, then what is his definition of an IDE? Of a productivity suite?
Pull Over! You have been sited for writing without a brain! Your literary license has been revoked!
And I quote:
So, I beg you David, please define an Operating System as something that the above does not fulfill.
Sure, there are plenty of things a Mac may do inherently that, say, the Linux kernel does not, but this is simply being ignorant of how a Mac's OS structure works and what its hiding from you.
In the case of Windows 3.1 and in the case of Linux running XFree86 (for two examples), the user is made aware (at least at first) that the GUI is a seperate application interfacing with the base kernel functions, not an integrated piece.
Ask any kernel programmer though and you'll find out that this is simply a design decision, not an inherent shortcoming. Micro-kernel operating systems take this a step further and sometimes make everything a loadable module, right down to your memory and disk sub-systems. Are these "applications" that are loaded (automatically) on boot-up, but can be unloaded and replaced, simply applications running on a kernel that isn't an operating system?
Unix, in some forms, may simply be a shell on a kernel offering services. In that state, it provides a human interface to hardware devices and allows me to run any form of software I wish (I just have to write it in some cases ;-). As such, it is a complete operating system. It does all the low-level work, not I.
Incidentally, I guess Mac OS X won't be an Operating System anymore ... what with its new layered structure involving an overhauled *nix kernel with a translation system and a GUI running on top of that (all hidden from the user) ...
On the same note, I guess Corel Linux really is an operating system, since after installation you come straight into a GUI and can click and drag and do whatever you want without realising all these application services are running behind the scenes.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Uhh, has this guy read up on OS X? Apparently it's based on an OS that doesn't meet his definition of an OS...
Eh...
Unix is not an OS,
GNU is not Unix, Ergo
GNU is an OS (?).
if (Windows==OS && Mac_OS_X==OS){
printf('What the heck is Unix in all its flavors?');
}
-------------------------------------
I see 57005 people
enough said
The current Mac so-called "OS" simply loads programs into a shared memory space. Applications can stop on anyone else's memory (which is why the Mac slowly seems to rot after a while) and applications have to be aware of the so-called "Mac-OS" memory management by locking and unlocking handles to memory blocks. It's very similar to Window 3.1!
I have no biases here...I own two Macs and I'm excited about OS-X. I'd love there to be a commercial Unix with real OS support. It's just the Mac people are NUTS-O. (They also like to bash Intel, for no good reason. What did Intel ever to do them?)
--- Speaking only for myself,
Every's reflections are indicative of the confusion Mac and Windows specialists must feel as they survey the changing state of the industry.
Ahahahaha...
That must be a blow to Every's pride. It's true tho - I think that a lot of "computer specalists" have trouble grasping the concept that everything doesn't come in a pretty little package for them.. or that they don't even have enough patience to actually put everything together that they need to actually have a excellent open source system going. Some specalists!
Every claims that "no commercial hardware company ships its machines with just Unix as the primary OS".
Wrong. What about Penguin Computing? I even bought one, and I booted it up, created an account and typed startx. Easy.
Every is a muckraker.
Of course, like most arguments, this one comes down to semantics.
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-- Anne Marie
Dude, applications, device drivers, and APIs do NOT make the operating system. They are things that are supposed to run ON the operating system. The OS is just supposed to manage things. IE memory allocation, processor time, devices, interrupt handling. All of this other stuff is application software... As in the stuff that the OS is supposed to facilitate. By definition, an OS is MERELY a device that manages these things. Perhaps you should read up on operating systems a bit. Take an intro course to OS programming or something at a community college.
Eh...
Well, my friend...have the companies not always served the customer the 'what-costs-me-least' and 'what-is-asked-for-most' combo? Hey, that's easy. It's not about adding value, it's about being that teeny weeny bit better (insert a more suitable word here) than the competitor. Plus, most people can't tell the difference between 'Windows' and 'Word'. (This contradicts the theory of the 'well-informed consumer').
I am not trying to convey in any way that either a) all who buy a computer off-the-shelf are morons or b) all who install those pointy-clicky-draggy-droppy O/S are stupid.
But I guess that one who knows how to read a manual (let alone man pages or HOWTOs) is potentially a tweaker who doesn't buy a new PC just because his 'O/S' is broke or too slow. Well-informed consumers ask scary questions. They probe the seller. They are critical. They want to know what they buy. Or they won't buy it. Ask the man who still nurses and pampers his Nomad or 'Vette. They aren't consumers, they are investors.
Fortunately, we still have the freedom of choice ("FOC 'em!") even if M$ finds a naked PC offensive...
Use The Source, Luke!
I believe an essential componant of the term OPERATING SYSTEM is that the damned thing has to OPERATE!
I use Macs, Widiot Boxes, and Linux, and of the three the only one with genuine, unequivocal stability and fault tolerance is Linux.
Running stable software on Windows and on Macs will cause systems failure, in the Aqua Image of Doom on Windows and the Little Annoying Exploder on Macs.
Tell me you've ever crashed a Linux installation running stable software, like a point-release of a browser, The GIMP, X11...
Try saying that about Macs and Win-snore.
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
UNIX is not an OS. UNIX is an Open System, and a set of standards maintained primarily by The Open Group. Several operating systems conform to the UNIX standard, but as an Open System UNIX is far more significant than any implementation of that standard (incidentally Linux is NOT UNIX). As an Open System, there is backwards compatibility, vendor-neutrality, vendor-independence, and the ability for anyone to create an implementation. Implementations compete based on individual quality, not differing and incompatible APIs. Open Systems are really a beautiful thing, and far more important than "open" source. UNIX is one of the great manifestations of the Open Systems concept, and it really works quite well. So don't belittle it by calling it just an "operating system".
In some very limited respects Every was right. His failing was thinking that Unix ever (or will ever,) stop evolving.
When I first read the piece (was it that long ago?,) I thought he'd screwed up the facts but no worse than some of the other journalists I've read. He's a hardware guy. His editors should not have told, (and from personal experiance, I can tell you that this piece was requested according to the dictates of an editorial calendar,) [told] him to write about software.
Its a fluff OS X piece. Treat is as such and move on. OS X is a real OS in an Aqua wrapper.
Its too bad for Apple that Apple hardware lasts so long that there's a lot of old systems out there who'll have to install LinuxPPC et alia to get the benefits of a real OS...
But as the owner of several working, well designed, well built boxes (after trashing a few poorly cobbled together boxes, running a just as poorly lashed together kind-of, almost an OS,) I wish them well.
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