5 ms·
While UNIX has it's downsides and I have seen beautiful non UNIX OSes such as OS/2, most non-unix oses simply suck, too, and usually more.
by 1ris 10y ago
While UNIX has it's downsides and I have seen beautiful non UNIX OSes such as OS/2, most non-unix oses simply suck, too, and usually more.
- yuhong 10y agoThis reminds me of my Blue Box on NuKernel idea, the idea being to later implement the Mac OS APIs in separate processes outside the box. One interesting thing it did was to use Pascal strings.
- kgwgk 10y agoWhat operating systems do you have in mind? The only remaining systems (outside of academia/research) which are not based on unix seem to be windows, openvms and os/z. Edit: thanks pjmlp. With so many name changes I forgot that IBM still had an alternative OS for small computers. I imagined that maybe there were still other mainframe systems, but I was too lazy to check...
- pjmlp 10y agoYou forgot IBM i (aka OS/400) and Unisys MCP (aka Burroughs B5000) and the myriad of embedded and real time OSes or bare metal runtimes.
- nickpsecurity 10y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10957020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10957020 Far as surviving ones, Burroughs MCP and GCOS are still around. BeOS is being cloned by Haiku. Amigas are still around with MorphOS being good. eComstation maintains OS/2. The THEOS OS and GEM(?) window system still exist. Plan 9 of course. GenodeOS continues microkernel-style tradition. JX continues language-style security trend. Oberon legacy last iterated as A2 Bluebottle OS. So, there's several I recall.
- kgwgk 10y agoThanks. Apart from the mainframe systems, the ones having experienced commercial/industrial success in your list are either life-extension efforts to support niche users or are clones of the actual thing developed by hobbyists. Maybe they would suck less than unix if they had seen in the last 20 years a fraction of the development behind unix operating systems. By the way, you forgot to include FreeDOS (I don't know if DR-DOS is still alive).
- pjmlp 10y agoBesides adopting ideas from the mainframe world in UNIX System V architecture, what improvements has UNIX had in those 20 years in what concerns modern computing architecture?
- kgwgk 10y agoI don't know what fraction of the improvements concern modern computing architecture, but probably we all agree that there have been improvements that make it suck less in practice. I thought I was replying to the person who said that "most non-unix oses simply suck, too, and usually more." My point is that the comparison is somewhat unfair.
- pjmlp 10y agoIf by UNIX you mean *BSD or GNU/Linux derivatives then I agree the UNIX-like experience, as such has improved a lot, when comparing the BSD/GNU experience with the POSIX certified one. However, I imagine that if I seat myself in front of a 2016's fresh installation of Aix, HP-UX, Solaris, Tru64... I will struggle to find any major difference from a 2006 installation, the last time I used any of them.
- kgwgk 10y agoI agree, but the pace of development of those systems over the last ten years is not comparable with the previous ten years. By that time unix sucked already substantially less. For example, SunOS 5.6, 5.7, 5.8, 5.9 and 5.10 were all released in the 1997-2005 timeframe. Only 5.11 has been released since then.