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Leo Laporte On UNIX As the Future
TractorJector writes "In a well-written interview with Mad Penguin, techmeister Leo Laporte (formerly of G4/TechTV fame) discusses his vision of the future of proprietary and open platforms: 'I think there's a lot of hope for Linux, although I don't think that Linux is the answer. I think that UNIX is the answer, in some form or fashion. It might be BSD, it might be Linux, it might be some third thing. But UNIX is such a well understood and smart to handle the issues that an operating system has to handle that it ultimately will prevail.'"
HMmmmmmmmmmm
AMIGA Anyone ??
>> MacOS X and operating systems that can marry the power of a good command line with the ease of an excellent GUI shall inherit the earth
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
Naive.
... were not in UNIX 40 years ago. Heck ReiserFS is a relatively new addition. I recall using ext2/ext3 and having to "fix up" the drive after every unclean shutdown.
... etc.
ReiserFS and O(1) schedulers and IPv6 and
I have yet to lose a single file to a ReiserFS on a medium that still operates. Even through several blackouts [before I got my UPS] and other shutdowns [emergency and otherwise].
I think you just need to reflect on what is actually in the Linux kernel to realize it is nothing like UNIX of 40 years ago.
Sure the overall design (e.g. monolithic with a touch of micro going on) is similar but that's about it. Sure the userland is the similar [with many UI enhancements!] but why not? Do you know a better way to remove files? What does "rm" lack?
I think in the near future any OS improvements [e.g. new mm or FS or taskscheduler] will just find their way into Linux just like many new compiler breakthroughs find their way into GCC.
What Linux [and GCC in this case] give people is a well studied and tested framework to base new ideas on.
Tom
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Is it just me?
... in the article?!?
I cant find the quote: 'I think there's a lot of hope for Linux, although I don't think that Linux is the answer. I think that UNIX is the answer, in some form or fashion. It might be BSD, it might be Linux, it might be some third thing. But UNIX is such a well understood and smart to handle the issues that an operating system has to handle that it ultimately will prevail.'
It has spawned a discussion, but the linked article is much more about Open Source, than UNIX. Try search for 'hope for Linux'. Am I the only one who try to read the article before posting?
-:) Oh no - not again.
www.rednebula.com
Do people buy Xserves so that they can use the OS X command line?
Yes, powerful Command lines are more than 'just' for end use, they open up the entire core functionality of the OS to non-interactive scripting. By having a powerful, flexible shell you can have powerful scripts that run fast, do everything you want, and can be quickly edited, they run as fast as compliled code, but since they're just a text file that gives comands to a precomplied binary you can modify them much more easily than a full fledged program.
System administrators need a powerful command line interface, and while standard 'unix' tools sometimes have areas that need improvment. for instance chroot on BSD require the setting of a shell variable to change shell, but linux chroot which accepts it on command line, but can't change the user or group(s) that you're chrooting them to. That means you can't create a chroot jail to disable (remote) root access on linux (that allows remote logins)... but you can on FreeBSD/MacOSX
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
I wonder why MS is working on a new command line at all. Do people buy Xserves so that they can use the OS X command line?
They buy Xserves so they have a choice -- use the nifty OS X Server GUI admin tools (which are really good, I have to say) if they fit the task, and use the command line if that fits the task. Choice is a Good Thing.
Do people run linux because they love staring at those grey characters on a black screen?
Very often, yes; (usually multicolored, these days) characters on a black (or whatever) screen may seem primitive to you, but to many people they represent an extraordinarily efficient way to get things done.
No one really likes the command line...
*falls over laughing*
plenty of people get by with it, but it's obviously the most primitive computer interface.
No, manually unplugging and plugging in vacuum tubes is the most primitive computer interface. It may not be obvious to you -- or to Neal Stephenson, for that matter -- but today's Unix shells represent an extraordinary level of abstraction from the underlying bare metal.
So why is Microsoft developing it? Do they really believe that *NIX users like their OS because of the command line?
In a word: yes.
Look, not everything is best done on the command line. GUI's are wonderful things, if they're done right. (Which pretty puts any flavor of Windows out of the running, but that's a whole 'nother argument.) But as I said above, they are not the right tool for every task. For power users, especially admins and developers, the command line is very often a better tool. And the best of both worlds, as in Apple's current OS, which Microsoft is again trying (and no doubt failing) to emulate, is being able to switch seamlessly between them as the task at hand demands.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
You're basically regurgitating what the pundits and "experts" have been saying forever.
:-)
Yes and no. Anything I say as a tech professional will ALWAYS be standing on the shoulders of giants. There's simply no way around that. However, these "experts" you're referring to have always been insensitive to the timing, and have offered no solid solutions to solving problems. While I'm making an abstract prediction now, I fully plan to make a solid prediction in the near future.
We've yet to see any of these things....
Not true. It is becoming quite popular to purchase a computer with a Video Capture Card, use a LCD TV as the monitor/television, hook your computer up to your Dolby 5.1 speakers/stereo, download music and videos from the 'net, and use applications via WebApps. I'd say it's staring us right in the face.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Thin clients have been well received by our corporate IT due to the ease with which applications can be updated, users can be given remote access, and local support people can be terminated.
Users hate them because there are weird sync issues, files change or disappear at random intervals, they can't listen to music via their "pc".
There is no one "server" that can go down to screw everyone up. A farm of three or more machines is standard practice here. Thin clients are NOT cheaper than PCs, until you factor in the headcount that gets cut.
I remember an IIS flaw that was exploited because the server decoded a URL, checked to see if it was valid (i.e. not pointing to some arbitrary thing outside the document root), then before opening the file, decoded it AGAIN! This second decode was done without a second check, meaning that a URL that decoded twice into something harmful passed through.
:-)
This is where Java's security model would have gotten in the way. When the file open request was received, it would have said "You don't have access to these directories, go away!" and it would have failed to open/run the file. Of course, that takes a token security system to implement, but Java is particularly well suited to this, as are many other managed code environments.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I urge anyone who's not read it to take a look at Practical Common Lisp, which is an excellent introduction to an excellent language.
- can be done remotely over even the slowest network link.
- can be put into a script...
...which can be scheduled with CRON- produces textual output, which can be
- instantly sent to a printer (hack-proof!--hard to delete logs when they're already printed*)
- emailed
- shown on a web page
Without a command line's texty goodness, how could I do something like this?* without physical access, of course.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
So, no, he won't say "I was right I tell ya!!! Its the third thing!!" when Marshmallows evolve into the dominant lifeform of this planet. Unless they are a breed of UNIX by that time and that UNIX has transformed into a lifeform which I seriously doubt....