11 ms·

Because you like the tinkering and believe there should be (fringe) alternatives to mainstream OSes?

bayindirh 7y ago
> ...mainstream OSes? Look how far we've come. Linux was the alternative OS just ~15 years ago. Now it's one of the mainstream OSes. TBH, I'd like to see one of the BSDs to become one of the mainstream OSes too. :) edit: Except macOS ofc. :)
- criddell 7y ago
  Is Android still built on Linux?
  - bayindirh 7y ago
    Yes.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    It is, but userspace isn't aware of it. For userspace what matters is ART, ISO C, ISO C++ and Android NDK APIs.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    It uses a (slightly modified) Linux kernel, yes, although its user land is decidedly not GNU or particularly Unix-like.
    - loeg 7y ago
      Doesn't each phone basically ship its own modified Android-Linux with hacked up drivers specific to the model?
      - Fnoord 7y ago
        Ever since Project Treble it got standardized.
        yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
        I thought Treble just made the hacked up drivers use a standard ABI so you could combine them with a different userspace?
- thaeli 7y ago
  Well, a BSD-branded BSD isn't. (MacOS is technically a BSD.)
  - TallGuyShort 7y ago
    Some BSD userspace only, and with few of the things most BSD people like about BSD.
    - azinman2 7y ago
      What’s it missing?
      - berbec 7y ago
        Zfs
      - TallGuyShort 7y ago
        Open-source, for one, but that's more than just a philosophy in BSD. One of the key design considerations touted by BSD communities is that the kernel and userspace are distributed and built as one cohesive system for which you can get all the source / rebuild on your system. And that's done far more often than in Linux and other more mainstream OSs. But it's not a BSD kernel and what's distributed / used is very far removed from open-source Darwin and anything you could rebuild yourself. On the more subjective side of things, BSDs tend to value simplicity and correctness over new features. OpenBSD takes this to an extreme, but FreeBSD still takes it a lot further than Apple does. But other than having more claim to the UNIX title than Linux and having some BSD userland, it's really not technically a BSD at all. I'll grant you it's arguably a distant descendant of BSD under the surface or in your shell.
      - loeg 7y ago
        Updates since 2004? It's like they took an old snapshot of BSD userspace and some of the syscall interface, except somewhat broken (see the long saga of broken select/kqueue in OSX). Fundamentally Darwin is a completely different beast based on Mach. It's radically different from the core BSD kernel. Most of their userspace is built on Objective-C, which has 0 overlap with BSDs. It's cool that the Mac community used some BSD code way back when — that's why we use a permissive license — but they've forked whatever they took; they never work to integrate their changes back upstream. To the extent that they're a BSD, they're a very very divergent fork of a historical BSD. And that's fine, for them. I don't know if that makes them a BSD or not in some ontological sense.
- nh2 7y ago
  "Stardate 2020. There is a mainstream OS with great driver support and the best gaming performance, that everybody uses (Linux). There are two other OSs battling for survival: One run by open source fanatics that release open source editors, browsers and programming languages and which frantically tries to emulate the mainstream OS (WSL), and one where stuff constantly breaks on upgrades, fundamental hardware like keyboards doesn't work, and keeping enter pressed logs you in as root (OSX)."
  - drewbug 7y ago
    open source browsers?
    - nine_k 7y ago
      They joined the Chromium project.
  - Thorrez 7y ago
    Linux has the best gaming performance?
    - tpxl 7y ago
      Some games see a significant performance boost running through Wine.
      - Thorrez 7y ago
        Sure some get a performance boost, but I believe more get a performance hit than a boost (and that's not counting the ones that don't even run at all).
    - nh2 7y ago
      Check out some of the recent Phoronix benchmarks.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Stardate 2030: Everyone is now doing Chrome apps, with three major companies sharing the cloud OS resources. Some old people keep talking about the crazy idea of owning computers and installing OSes.
- swalsh 7y ago
  I think Linux went mainstream when the default installation of one of the distributions came with an icon that opened up "Amazon.com"
  - FillardMillmore 7y ago
    Color me ignorant, but which distribution is that?
    - bayindirh 7y ago
      coughubuntucough IIRC, they recently discontinued the link and related data sharing though.
      - Fnoord 7y ago
        It was always possible to uninstall it. Just a nuisance that you have to, while clearly no users ever desired it. It was also terrible that all search requests went plaintext to Amazon.
    - carterehsmith 7y ago
      Ubuntu did some years ago; it did cause some uproar. Just search for "Ubuntu Amazon"
- GordonS 7y ago
  > Now it's one of the mainstream OSes ...on servers. It's still far, far from "mainstream" for desktops. Still, that's a really big deal. I work for what is firmly a Microsoft shop, and nobody bat's an eyelid now if we use Linux VMs (as long as they're cloud-based). I think 3 things in particular have driven the rise of Linux as a mainstream server OS: 1. docker/containerisation. Sure, Windows containers exist, but have you ever seen one in the wild? 2. The shift to the cloud, in conjunction with (3) 3. The rise of DevOps, in tandem with (2)
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    > 1. docker/containerisation. Sure, Windows containers exist, but have you ever seen one in the wild? I have. What is done on .NET stays on Windows, for UNIX like OSes we get to use Java. Yes there is .NET Core, it is the future, not all MS shops are buying into it due to the current limitations, waiting to see how .NET 5 will actually look like.
    - GordonS 7y ago
      I'm truly surprised you've seen Windows containers in the wild - across dozens of engagements with very firm Microsoft shops, I've never seen them, nor seen the need. Gods, even MSSQL runs on Linux these days! I'm also very surprised you'd claim that not all Microsoft shops are buying into dotnet core - I've seen the very opposite; every client I've worked with has known dotnet framework has been superceded by core, and has been eager to move. A decent portion of this is driven by certain containerisation, which (realistically) means dotnet on Linux. The only real limitation with dotnet core has been the lack of managed C++ support - a niche use case, and only relevant on Windows, but even this has been resolved in dotnet core 3.1. Considering the not insubstantial performance improvements in dotnet core, and of course the benefit of cross-platform code, I'm really interested to hear about the limitations of dotnet core you've found (the switch for me and all the enterprise clients I've worked with has been great)?
      - pjmlp 7y ago
        Plenty of Microsoft shops are deeply invested in technologies like WCF, EF6, ODP.NET, WPF/Forms component libraries, commercial CMS stacks (e.g. Sitecore), and aren't willing to allocate budgets to rewrite what is working perfectly fine. The kind of enterprises where deployments on IIS, with AD infrastructure on premises, Windows on all company layers are still the name of the game, with some Linux servers for running SAP and a couple of other Java based services. What is missing from .NET Core 3.1? Besides what I have listed above, EF 6 on Core doesn't support the Visual Studio graphical tooling nor the EF 6 .NET Framework EF providers, WPF/Forms designers are still WIP and have issues with commercial component libraries, WCF well, no one is looking forward to rewrite their working code with gRPC. And many are still a little burned with Silverlight and how the whole WinRT, UAP, UWP story went. Back in the .NET Code 2.0 days, I had a project to rewrite a .NET Application into Java, because the customer in question saw a better business value in doing so than investing in .NET Core. Mainly because .NET Core didn't had support for some critical libraries being used in the .NET Application, while the libraries vendor did support a Java counterpart for them. Yes, they will eventually move to .NET Core, when it makes business sense to allocate budget to do so. That is just my experience, others will vary.
- umanwizard 7y ago
  BSD was mainstream before Linux existed... (and macOS can't really be called a BSD derivative; it is a mostly different OS that has taken some of its code from FreeBSD)
jordache 7y ago
who cares if its not a mainstream os? how many people in the world actually cares?
- dpbriggs 7y ago
  Apparently OP does -- What are you asking? Some people are motivated by the allure of fringe projects. There's usually a lot of exploration and learning involved with those projects, which can be very rewarding. Not to mention you gain a deeper appreciation for the unbelievable amount of work that goes into the projects.

> ...mainstream OSes? Look how far we've come. Linux was the alternative OS just ~15 years ago. Now it's one of the mainstream OSes. TBH, I'd like to see one of the BSDs to become one of the mainstream OSes too. :) edit: Except macOS ofc. :)

criddell 7y ago
Is Android still built on Linux?
- bayindirh 7y ago
  Yes.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  It is, but userspace isn't aware of it. For userspace what matters is ART, ISO C, ISO C++ and Android NDK APIs.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  It uses a (slightly modified) Linux kernel, yes, although its user land is decidedly not GNU or particularly Unix-like.
  - loeg 7y ago
    Doesn't each phone basically ship its own modified Android-Linux with hacked up drivers specific to the model?
    - Fnoord 7y ago
      Ever since Project Treble it got standardized.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
        I thought Treble just made the hacked up drivers use a standard ABI so you could combine them with a different userspace?
thaeli 7y ago
Well, a BSD-branded BSD isn't. (MacOS is technically a BSD.)
- TallGuyShort 7y ago
  Some BSD userspace only, and with few of the things most BSD people like about BSD.
  - azinman2 7y ago
    What’s it missing?
    - berbec 7y ago
      Zfs
    - TallGuyShort 7y ago
      Open-source, for one, but that's more than just a philosophy in BSD. One of the key design considerations touted by BSD communities is that the kernel and userspace are distributed and built as one cohesive system for which you can get all the source / rebuild on your system. And that's done far more often than in Linux and other more mainstream OSs. But it's not a BSD kernel and what's distributed / used is very far removed from open-source Darwin and anything you could rebuild yourself. On the more subjective side of things, BSDs tend to value simplicity and correctness over new features. OpenBSD takes this to an extreme, but FreeBSD still takes it a lot further than Apple does. But other than having more claim to the UNIX title than Linux and having some BSD userland, it's really not technically a BSD at all. I'll grant you it's arguably a distant descendant of BSD under the surface or in your shell.
    - loeg 7y ago
      Updates since 2004? It's like they took an old snapshot of BSD userspace and some of the syscall interface, except somewhat broken (see the long saga of broken select/kqueue in OSX). Fundamentally Darwin is a completely different beast based on Mach. It's radically different from the core BSD kernel. Most of their userspace is built on Objective-C, which has 0 overlap with BSDs. It's cool that the Mac community used some BSD code way back when — that's why we use a permissive license — but they've forked whatever they took; they never work to integrate their changes back upstream. To the extent that they're a BSD, they're a very very divergent fork of a historical BSD. And that's fine, for them. I don't know if that makes them a BSD or not in some ontological sense.
nh2 7y ago
"Stardate 2020. There is a mainstream OS with great driver support and the best gaming performance, that everybody uses (Linux). There are two other OSs battling for survival: One run by open source fanatics that release open source editors, browsers and programming languages and which frantically tries to emulate the mainstream OS (WSL), and one where stuff constantly breaks on upgrades, fundamental hardware like keyboards doesn't work, and keeping enter pressed logs you in as root (OSX)."
- drewbug 7y ago
  open source browsers?
  - nine_k 7y ago
    They joined the Chromium project.
- Thorrez 7y ago
  Linux has the best gaming performance?
  - tpxl 7y ago
    Some games see a significant performance boost running through Wine.
    - Thorrez 7y ago
      Sure some get a performance boost, but I believe more get a performance hit than a boost (and that's not counting the ones that don't even run at all).
  - nh2 7y ago
    Check out some of the recent Phoronix benchmarks.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Stardate 2030: Everyone is now doing Chrome apps, with three major companies sharing the cloud OS resources. Some old people keep talking about the crazy idea of owning computers and installing OSes.
swalsh 7y ago
I think Linux went mainstream when the default installation of one of the distributions came with an icon that opened up "Amazon.com"
- FillardMillmore 7y ago
  Color me ignorant, but which distribution is that?
  - bayindirh 7y ago
    coughubuntucough IIRC, they recently discontinued the link and related data sharing though.
    - Fnoord 7y ago
      It was always possible to uninstall it. Just a nuisance that you have to, while clearly no users ever desired it. It was also terrible that all search requests went plaintext to Amazon.
  - carterehsmith 7y ago
    Ubuntu did some years ago; it did cause some uproar. Just search for "Ubuntu Amazon"
GordonS 7y ago
> Now it's one of the mainstream OSes ...on servers. It's still far, far from "mainstream" for desktops. Still, that's a really big deal. I work for what is firmly a Microsoft shop, and nobody bat's an eyelid now if we use Linux VMs (as long as they're cloud-based). I think 3 things in particular have driven the rise of Linux as a mainstream server OS: 1. docker/containerisation. Sure, Windows containers exist, but have you ever seen one in the wild? 2. The shift to the cloud, in conjunction with (3) 3. The rise of DevOps, in tandem with (2)
- pjmlp 7y ago
  > 1. docker/containerisation. Sure, Windows containers exist, but have you ever seen one in the wild? I have. What is done on .NET stays on Windows, for UNIX like OSes we get to use Java. Yes there is .NET Core, it is the future, not all MS shops are buying into it due to the current limitations, waiting to see how .NET 5 will actually look like.
  - GordonS 7y ago
    I'm truly surprised you've seen Windows containers in the wild - across dozens of engagements with very firm Microsoft shops, I've never seen them, nor seen the need. Gods, even MSSQL runs on Linux these days! I'm also very surprised you'd claim that not all Microsoft shops are buying into dotnet core - I've seen the very opposite; every client I've worked with has known dotnet framework has been superceded by core, and has been eager to move. A decent portion of this is driven by certain containerisation, which (realistically) means dotnet on Linux. The only real limitation with dotnet core has been the lack of managed C++ support - a niche use case, and only relevant on Windows, but even this has been resolved in dotnet core 3.1. Considering the not insubstantial performance improvements in dotnet core, and of course the benefit of cross-platform code, I'm really interested to hear about the limitations of dotnet core you've found (the switch for me and all the enterprise clients I've worked with has been great)?
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      Plenty of Microsoft shops are deeply invested in technologies like WCF, EF6, ODP.NET, WPF/Forms component libraries, commercial CMS stacks (e.g. Sitecore), and aren't willing to allocate budgets to rewrite what is working perfectly fine. The kind of enterprises where deployments on IIS, with AD infrastructure on premises, Windows on all company layers are still the name of the game, with some Linux servers for running SAP and a couple of other Java based services. What is missing from .NET Core 3.1? Besides what I have listed above, EF 6 on Core doesn't support the Visual Studio graphical tooling nor the EF 6 .NET Framework EF providers, WPF/Forms designers are still WIP and have issues with commercial component libraries, WCF well, no one is looking forward to rewrite their working code with gRPC. And many are still a little burned with Silverlight and how the whole WinRT, UAP, UWP story went. Back in the .NET Code 2.0 days, I had a project to rewrite a .NET Application into Java, because the customer in question saw a better business value in doing so than investing in .NET Core. Mainly because .NET Core didn't had support for some critical libraries being used in the .NET Application, while the libraries vendor did support a Java counterpart for them. Yes, they will eventually move to .NET Core, when it makes business sense to allocate budget to do so. That is just my experience, others will vary.
umanwizard 7y ago
BSD was mainstream before Linux existed... (and macOS can't really be called a BSD derivative; it is a mostly different OS that has taken some of its code from FreeBSD)

jordache 7y ago

who cares if its not a mainstream os? how many people in the world actually cares?

dpbriggs 7y ago
Apparently OP does -- What are you asking? Some people are motivated by the allure of fringe projects. There's usually a lot of exploration and learning involved with those projects, which can be very rewarding. Not to mention you gain a deeper appreciation for the unbelievable amount of work that goes into the projects.