3 ms·

These days not much but personal computers were a lot less powerful (and less expensive) than UNIX workstations. In terms of experience though - think tricked o

• yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  > In terms of experience though - think tricked out Linux desktop but with working sound. I've spent some time thinking about this, mostly in terms of "why do I like Solaris more than GNU/Linux, even in 2022?". I think it really does boil down to it being 1. a single coherent system, 2. including running on hardware that was designed to run it, 3. with paid support by a company that actually has skin in the game to make the thing work. (And in my case a certain amount of rose-tinted glasses.) IMO, the Bazaar can build amazing things at probably-lower cost (certainly lower per-party) and it has a diversity that is good, but the Cathedral can, in fact, Get Stuff Done and build a more coherent system. And when you're successfully selling workstations at $10k+ a pop you can afford to do high quality engineering:)
  • nine_k 4y ago
    So, returning to the question upthread: how a Mac is not a commercial Unix workstation? It checks all the boxes you listed.
    • pvg 4y ago
      It totally is. This was an explicit selling point when they originally announced the move to OS X. They bought a Unix workstation maker and were going to make macs that were also Unix workstations.
      • runlevel1 4y ago
        Looks like Apple is still getting macOS versions UNIX® Certified, right up to Ventura: https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/ https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/
    • yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
      > So, returning to the question upthread: how a Mac is not a commercial Unix workstation? It checks all the boxes you listed. If I were attempting to answer that, I would say that Apple de-emphasizes and neglects the unix "powertool" side of the system. But I'm not actually sold on that angle; I actually half-typed and then deleted a comment arguing that Macs are precisely unix workstations - they run a Unix™ OS on mostly custom hardware that is, at least with the latest ARM chips, more powerful than much of the market and which commands a high price (although far less so than was traditional for unix workstations:]). EDIT: Comment downthread says they're still getting certified as an official Unix, so I've updated this comment to reflect that.
      • kjellsbells 4y ago
        Back when Apple was convincing people to transition to OS X, their website had areas that were strongly dedicated to people for whom a UNIX workstation might have made sense. I was working in life sciences back then and the workflow was Macs running Perkin Elmer gel machines and Solaris and Irix running the analysis. Apple pushed really hard to convince us that OS X was Real UNIX. I dont have the wayback urls now but here is a relatively recent example of their marketing to the UNIX crowd, circa 2011. https://www.apple.com/media/us/osx/2012/docs/OSX_for_UNIX_Users_TB_July2011.pdf https://www.apple.com/media/us/osx/2012/docs/OSX_for_UNIX_Us...
        • Tsiklon 4y ago
          I’d love them to focus more on their unix underpinnings in the next few releases. License issues aside :/
  • pvg 4y ago
    a certain amount of rose-tinted glasses I'm sure that's a factor but maybe the particular point in the technology development curve accounts for a lot of the perceived difference. There was a striking qualitative difference between a $2000 computer and a $20000 computer and if you had access to both, the latter felt like some sort of glimpse of the future like you got a ride in a prototype flying car. A computer that is 10x more expensive than a high-end smartphone is not Indigo² better than a 386. That gap just happened to be a brief and memorable outlier.
• kaladin-jasnah 4y ago
  Why would a Linux desktop these days have a broken sound configuration? PipeWire is quite reliable and tends to never break.