4 ms·

I actually find Unix and Windows to be very fundamentally different. Particularly where he talks about security. Unix security concepts are built into the syste

I actually find Unix and Windows to be very fundamentally different. Particularly where he talks about security. Unix security concepts are built into the system architecture whereas in Windows they are implemented as features on top of the OS. A perfect example that he calls out, ACL. Some does exist in the architecture of Windows, but it is only a half hearted implementation. Modularity is another example of something that is fundamental both in the architecture AND the philosophy of Unix, but very far behind in Windows where many applications such as a browser exploit can tie into the kernel space. The communities and philosophies are also something I breezed over, but I think they are a non-trivial part of an operating system.

asveikau 11y ago
> Unix security concepts are built into the system architecture whereas in Windows they are implemented as features on top of the OS. A perfect example that he calls out, ACL. Some does exist in the architecture of Windows, but it is only a half hearted implementation. I think you have the layering completely the opposite way. NT has security descriptors on everything that has a name. Then above there is Win32, originally bolted on top of NT as a compatibility mode among others, which is historically an API for not very security conscious systems. And most Windows programs out there don't care about the security features. So it's more like the higher layers suck in this regard.
- codelitt 11y ago
  I absolutely may have the layers the wrong way. My working knowledge of Windows is very limited compared to Unix and I may not have fully understood how Windows is put together.
TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
> Unix security concepts are built into the system architecture whereas in Windows they are implemented as features on top of the OS. A perfect example that he calls out, ACL. Some does exist in the architecture of Windows, but it is only a half hearted implementation. Huh? The fundamentals of Windows NT (the object manager, the registry and NTFS) all have ACLs.
kragen 11y ago
> I actually find Unix and Windows to be very fundamentally different. There is a small child growing up in El Paso who thinks English and Spanish are "very fundamentally different", too, because in English there's no word for "quererte" or "sacartelo". But that's just because they've never heard Chinese, let along Lojban or Python, and they don't know how to read yet, so they have no idea along what lines languages might vary. Unix and Windows are both single-node monolithic multi-user non-real-time operating systems built on a hierarchical filesystem (with names that are sequences of strings) with ACLs for discretionary access control, no mandatory access control, a global user namespace controlled by a single system administration authority, and in which executables (which share code using dynamically-linked libraries) run with the full permissions of the user who invoked them. In both systems you communicate with I/O devices as if they were files. The interface they provide to user processes uses system calls to present a programming interface that is much simpler than that of the underlying machine; those processes can have multiple threads sharing memory that block in system calls independently and can pre-empt one another, and by default their memory is not shared with other processes. They are both written mostly in C with some C++, and other programming languages are more or less obliged to use C calling conventions to interoperate. Both of them use sockets for network I/O. Users typically use them via a windowing system, which provides a huge variety of complicated ways of setting pixels inside a rectangular region on a virtual screen, and accommodates up to one mouse pointer. Compared to any of PolyForth, Pick, Genera, Oberon, VMS, KeyKOS, VM/360, SqueakNOS, MacOS up to 9, MS-DOS, Spring, Sprite, QNX, and Amoeba, Unix and Windows are as alike as two peas in a pod.
- tedunangst 11y ago
  This is a good point, though also a bit curious, proposing as it does, that msdos is perhaps a superior alternative. Protected memory is indeed an argument that windows and Unix are the same. I'm less inclined to agree it is a reason they should be bashed in unison.
  - cwyers 11y ago
    Well, he said DOS was more different than either than they are from each other, not that DOS was different in any way that was better.

asveikau 11y ago

> Unix security concepts are built into the system architecture whereas in Windows they are implemented as features on top of the OS. A perfect example that he calls out, ACL. Some does exist in the architecture of Windows, but it is only a half hearted implementation. I think you have the layering completely the opposite way. NT has security descriptors on everything that has a name. Then above there is Win32, originally bolted on top of NT as a compatibility mode among others, which is historically an API for not very security conscious systems. And most Windows programs out there don't care about the security features. So it's more like the higher layers suck in this regard.

codelitt 11y ago
I absolutely may have the layers the wrong way. My working knowledge of Windows is very limited compared to Unix and I may not have fully understood how Windows is put together.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

kragen 11y ago

> I actually find Unix and Windows to be very fundamentally different. There is a small child growing up in El Paso who thinks English and Spanish are "very fundamentally different", too, because in English there's no word for "quererte" or "sacartelo". But that's just because they've never heard Chinese, let along Lojban or Python, and they don't know how to read yet, so they have no idea along what lines languages might vary. Unix and Windows are both single-node monolithic multi-user non-real-time operating systems built on a hierarchical filesystem (with names that are sequences of strings) with ACLs for discretionary access control, no mandatory access control, a global user namespace controlled by a single system administration authority, and in which executables (which share code using dynamically-linked libraries) run with the full permissions of the user who invoked them. In both systems you communicate with I/O devices as if they were files. The interface they provide to user processes uses system calls to present a programming interface that is much simpler than that of the underlying machine; those processes can have multiple threads sharing memory that block in system calls independently and can pre-empt one another, and by default their memory is not shared with other processes. They are both written mostly in C with some C++, and other programming languages are more or less obliged to use C calling conventions to interoperate. Both of them use sockets for network I/O. Users typically use them via a windowing system, which provides a huge variety of complicated ways of setting pixels inside a rectangular region on a virtual screen, and accommodates up to one mouse pointer. Compared to any of PolyForth, Pick, Genera, Oberon, VMS, KeyKOS, VM/360, SqueakNOS, MacOS up to 9, MS-DOS, Spring, Sprite, QNX, and Amoeba, Unix and Windows are as alike as two peas in a pod.

tedunangst 11y ago
This is a good point, though also a bit curious, proposing as it does, that msdos is perhaps a superior alternative. Protected memory is indeed an argument that windows and Unix are the same. I'm less inclined to agree it is a reason they should be bashed in unison.
- cwyers 11y ago
  Well, he said DOS was more different than either than they are from each other, not that DOS was different in any way that was better.