Nate Duehr wrote:
On Jan 28, 2008, at 11:32 PM, don wrote:
The PDP series ran unix, and I still have the original Bell System Journals here at home describing the philosophy and design behind the unix system. I tried over the last few days of re reading these journals to find any reference to the denigrating of any other systems or their users... Are linux users and prophets now straying far from the original tracks for unix?
http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/commandline/index.html
Reading it, anyone can gain huge insights into the "OS Business" as well as some very personal insights about why people like/dislike, or use particular OS's -- and perhaps even how silly that all is, when it's all said and done.
[,,,]
Those are great references, I'll add one more the relates to the whiny poster's point that Linux has lost its way and strayed from the original Unix philosophy. Rob Pike gave a hilarious talk way back in 1983 called "cat -v considered harmful" that makes the same point about Unix becoming bloated and being "the victim of cancerous growth":
http://harmful.cat-v.org/cat-v/
Managing growth of a complex software system is really difficult. The good part about Unix/Linux is that the conversation happens out in the open from a wide range of viewpoints rather than an edict from the back room of a monolithic corporation.
Linux makes me much more productive. I look back on my last two projects. Most recently I designed a spectrometer for the radio telescope in Arecibo. I used Linux as the OS in the spectrometer and as the OS on the server machines that store the data. This let me focus on being a chip designer and most of the systems problems were easily solved with Linux. This project is open for all to see: http://www.mock.com/pdev
Prior to that I was a chip designer on the team that designed the graphics chip for the Nintendo Wii. We used Linux extensively as the platform for the simulation and test environment. It was a large complex design and Linux was a fantastic platform for a large design project with lots of custom test software.
For me, Linux is a reliable and useful tool that makes me much more productive, but you should use whatever works well for you.
jeff