4 ms·

Yes, because it's based on a PC. A quite standard and open specification where you can buy motherboards, CPU, RAM, disk, IO peripherals etc from many different

by plater 5y ago

Yes, because it's based on a PC. A quite standard and open specification where you can buy motherboards, CPU, RAM, disk, IO peripherals etc from many different manufacturers and build and install what software you want. However, on a Mac, you cannot install or change the hardware as you like, you cannot install what software you want. If Linus Torvalds was a teen today and there was no open PC standard, only a Mac, then it would not have been possible to create Linux the way it is today. Imagine if also Microsoft starts to make their own processors and then sell their own computers with Windows and all locked down, and don't allow anyone else to make computers with Windows or their processors. Sure Dell, HP and others could still make PC's, based on Intel or AMD CPU's or some ARM processor and then run Linux (or develop their own OS), but it's a hard sell. The PC's sold to the mainstream thanks to Windows/Word/Excel maybe, but then people who wanted could tinker as much as they wanted and where free so make and sell their software (windows based or whatever) or their HW peripherals. Now you are at best stuck within an app store if you create something.

squiggleblaz 5y ago
> If Linus Torvalds was a teen today and there was no open PC standard, only a Mac, then it would not have been possible to create Linux the way it is today. Torvalds didn't create Linux as a teen in his bedroom hacking on what he had. He created it at university studying operating systems. He would have created it on Raspberry Pi or some other platform. Linux is widely deployed on x86 because x86 is available and open enough. It replaced Unix operating systems on dedicated architectures, like Solaris on SPARC. > Sure Dell, HP and others could still make PC's, based on Intel or AMD CPU's or some ARM processor and then run Linux (or develop their own OS), but it's a hard sell GNU/Linux was a hard sell in the beginning too. In the olden days, if you put Linux on a laptop you lost special features and you had very limited software support. Web pages were designed to work with IE only and you could only run Mozilla. Your major option for producing printable documents was special purpose programming languages like TeX or using Mozilla Composer. And good luck getting your winmodem/winprinter to do anything! Today enough exists that you can buy hardware from companies that expect you to put Linux on them and then run them with full features and great intercompatibility. Your phone will be crap but it'll be good enough, and in ten years time it'll have a lot better features. Till then, if you want a great lowlight camera, buy a great lowlight camera. The inversion of trust is a frustrating aspect of modern business, and it creates many social problems. But it isn't a technical barrier to oldschool hacking about.
- samstave 5y ago
  Linux War Story: Back in ~1997/8 I was working at a software manufacturing company - we burned and printed and shipped all the Solaris Software for SUN.... We would receive EDI data from sun to burn to CDs then do the fullfillment shipping - so If you went to SUN.com and ordered Solaris, it was made and shipped by us... We needed a better way to receive the files from SUN, and so we had a few FTP servers... We hired a group of dudes who knew linux and had them setup our FTP machines, chrooting users and various security measures... So I, the IT manager, sat down with one of the consultants that we had hired and I told him "You know, If I were you - I would setup a Linux Support company and offer Linux support as a service" A few weeks later Dave Sifry came back to me and said "Guess what we started, LinuxCare... to offer Linux support as a service" He was later valued at ~$100 million and LinuxCare was a ~$1 Billion company... Chris DiBona of google fame was on the team, and I can't recall the two other guys' names... But yeah - that was when support for Linux was basically non-existent... Oh yeah - I forgot; SUN wanted us to learn this new thing that they were using to create the EDI files... XML. So we had to accomodate XML when the only people that knew XML at the time were SUN employees... And finally, I think that SUN had the best logo ever made. And the shittiest firewall, Checkpoint sucked. (sorry Checkpoint team - your lead developers on Checkpoint were friends of mine... but I hated that firewall)
- SergeAx 5y ago
  > He would have created it on Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi would be unable without Linux.
hutattedonmyarm 5y ago
> you cannot install what software you want What? Of course I can. Gatekeeper exists but can be disabled

by plater 5y ago

squiggleblaz 5y ago

> If Linus Torvalds was a teen today and there was no open PC standard, only a Mac, then it would not have been possible to create Linux the way it is today. Torvalds didn't create Linux as a teen in his bedroom hacking on what he had. He created it at university studying operating systems. He would have created it on Raspberry Pi or some other platform. Linux is widely deployed on x86 because x86 is available and open enough. It replaced Unix operating systems on dedicated architectures, like Solaris on SPARC. > Sure Dell, HP and others could still make PC's, based on Intel or AMD CPU's or some ARM processor and then run Linux (or develop their own OS), but it's a hard sell GNU/Linux was a hard sell in the beginning too. In the olden days, if you put Linux on a laptop you lost special features and you had very limited software support. Web pages were designed to work with IE only and you could only run Mozilla. Your major option for producing printable documents was special purpose programming languages like TeX or using Mozilla Composer. And good luck getting your winmodem/winprinter to do anything! Today enough exists that you can buy hardware from companies that expect you to put Linux on them and then run them with full features and great intercompatibility. Your phone will be crap but it'll be good enough, and in ten years time it'll have a lot better features. Till then, if you want a great lowlight camera, buy a great lowlight camera. The inversion of trust is a frustrating aspect of modern business, and it creates many social problems. But it isn't a technical barrier to oldschool hacking about.

samstave 5y ago
Linux War Story: Back in ~1997/8 I was working at a software manufacturing company - we burned and printed and shipped all the Solaris Software for SUN.... We would receive EDI data from sun to burn to CDs then do the fullfillment shipping - so If you went to SUN.com and ordered Solaris, it was made and shipped by us... We needed a better way to receive the files from SUN, and so we had a few FTP servers... We hired a group of dudes who knew linux and had them setup our FTP machines, chrooting users and various security measures... So I, the IT manager, sat down with one of the consultants that we had hired and I told him "You know, If I were you - I would setup a Linux Support company and offer Linux support as a service" A few weeks later Dave Sifry came back to me and said "Guess what we started, LinuxCare... to offer Linux support as a service" He was later valued at ~$100 million and LinuxCare was a ~$1 Billion company... Chris DiBona of google fame was on the team, and I can't recall the two other guys' names... But yeah - that was when support for Linux was basically non-existent... Oh yeah - I forgot; SUN wanted us to learn this new thing that they were using to create the EDI files... XML. So we had to accomodate XML when the only people that knew XML at the time were SUN employees... And finally, I think that SUN had the best logo ever made. And the shittiest firewall, Checkpoint sucked. (sorry Checkpoint team - your lead developers on Checkpoint were friends of mine... but I hated that firewall)
SergeAx 5y ago
> He would have created it on Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi would be unable without Linux.

hutattedonmyarm 5y ago

> you cannot install what software you want What? Of course I can. Gatekeeper exists but can be disabled