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.'"

Comments

Re:I agree

[kesuki]

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

Re:I agree

[Daniel Dvorkin]

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.

Re:Unix is not the Future

[AKAImBatman]

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.

Re:Unix is not the Future

[Bob Uhl]

I think what he was probably thinking of was the fact that most modern languages prevent buffer overflows and the rest. Lisp actually partakes of both natures, though: by default the language is safe but not as fast as it could be; you can tweak it to make speed more important, and you can even tweak it to make safety less important. It's kinda cool, actually.

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.