Ask Slashdot: Innovative Operating Systems/Distros In 2015?

iamacat writes: Back in 90s, we used Linux not only because of open source, but also for innovative features not found in commercial operating systems — better multitasking, network power features like slirp and masquerading, free developer tools for many languages. Nowadays OSX and Windows caught up in these areas and mainstream distros like Ubuntu dumbed down in default configuration. So where to go for active innovation like 3D/VR desktop, artificial intelligence, drag and drop ability to mash up UI of multiple apps or just drastically better performance? Something maybe rough around the edges but usable and exciting enough to use as daily desktop?

Comments

Do what?

[Lunix Nutcase]

Back in 90s, we used Linux not only because of open source, but also for innovative features not found in commercial operating systems — better multitasking, network power features like slirp and masquerading, free developer tools for many languages.

None of what you mention was a unique feature of Linux or even pioneered by it. All of what you talk about were already part of Unix systems that existed prior or was software that existed before Linux even existed and was already cross-platform.

Re:Do what?

[jeremyp]

If we are talking about the early 90's there was Windows NT 3.1 and OS/2 as well as BSD, SCO Unix and Xenix. Plus there were still Unixes available for several higher end work stations like Sun and Silicon Graphics.

In technical terms the Windows NT kernel compares very favourably with Linux which was pretty agricultural by the standards of the times. Taking just the example of the thread support, Linux threads were a fiasco for many years.

Re:Do what?

[drinkypoo]

Yes, technically I had a $15k HP-UX system sitting on my desk at work back then (though amusingly, my Windows PC sitting next to it had about 10x the horsepower for 1/10th the cost), but that doesn't really have much relevance to your average home power-user.

Also, who the shit wants to run HP-SUX? I got paid to figure out how to set up IPSEC on it once, holy crap. The documentation was literally backwards.

Didn't Linux do a lot of those fancy networking tricks before most commercial Unixes? Stuff like packet mangling and IP masquerading? And the free dev tools may have been available for other platforms, but there's a big difference. Most of the time, the official compiler would shit all over gcc. I worked for a company that had the sunspro compiler suite, and of course I got gcc, and anything that would build with sun's compiler would just crap all over a gcc build. Since a lot of the early work on gcc aimed at x86, you didn't get as much benefit from using some vendor's compiler on a PC Unix as you did on those more expensive platforms. So yeah, I had the GNU suite on my Sun machines, but the PC running Linux really changed the industry.

To be fair, BSD had new stuff, too. But the community was less friendly, the documentation less penetrable (use the source? I wasn't there yet) and the license apparently attracted less contributions.

Re:Do what?

[lister king of smeg]

But BSD was locked in a court battle with AT&T at the time over UNIX code copyright.