

Rob Pike (2001): Presentation looking back on 1 billion seconds of Unix. [pdf] - bdhe
http://www.herpolhode.com/rob/ugly.pdf

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Rusky
Graphics, at least on Linux, seem to be headed in a much better direction than
at the time of this presentation. Intel open source drivers, Gallium3D, DRI,
etc. all are culminating in the much-simpler, less redundant, and (imo) more
Unix-y architecture of Wayland.

I also think it's interesting how he describes text files as both a strength
and a weakness. I definitely agree here- grepping or awking a log file is very
flexible, but ad-hoc, regex-style parsing-and-unparsing through pipes is very
bad for real systems (i.e. not bash one-liners).

He also says "Drifting back towards typed, binary files (Ugly)." I would have
to disagree here and say that something like a Lisp machine environment could
have many (all?) of the advantages of Unix while solving some of the problems
of text interfaces.

~~~
sjs
If Wayland delivers on the multiple monitor support that would help put Linux
back in the running for me.

~~~
thristian
X11 has great multiple-monitor support, and has done for some time now.
Unfortunately, many users are using video drivers from nVidia or ATi, and
those vendors tend to have half-finished or sketchy implementations of less-
mainstream features like multiple-monitor support. Like in so many things, if
you've got Intel graphics, everything pretty much works out of the box.

~~~
sjs
After using Linux for a few years and learning that you had to do a bit of
research and buy hardware carefully to make sure it all worked, I discovered
that I could choose ever so slightly more carefully and everything would work
with even less effort. I use a MacBook for my main workstation and since
finding Divvy and SizeUp haven't missed Linux it all.

I just want a Unix machine that I don't have to fuss over or spend time
setting up and maintaining.

~~~
thristian
Weirdly, that's the reason I switched from OS X to Debian. OS X's hardware
support is fine, but I do a bunch of hobby and open-source programming,
wrestling with getting stuff to compile under OS X is just not my idea of a
fun afternoon. MacPorts is a joke compared to the size and reliability of
Debian's package archive, and Debian doesn't make you compile everything
yourself, or leave multiple, uncleaned build-trees lying around for every
package you install.

~~~
sjs
That's a good reason to prefer Linux. If OS X didn't have pretty stable and
easy system upgrades and migrations I would miss Linux package managers.
Copying the list of installed packages to a new machine and then running
aptitude update is just awesome.

I have pretty moderate package manager needs so homebrew is good enough, and
when homebrew doesn't have it I just install from source.

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hippich
I still strongly believe that Linux strength is in so many variances. For me
it is natural way of building things. Probably, slower and taking more
resources, but evolved, not engineered.

~~~
xyzzyz
I'd rather put my faith in carefully engineered, not randomly evolved
solutions.

~~~
arethuza
What operating systems would you regard as "carefully engineered"?

~~~
tekacs
Also, perhaps OS X? If there's an OS out there where everything from top to
bottom seems engineered in harmony, it has got to be OS X...

~~~
niklasl
OSX has a MacOS user interface bolted on top of NeXTStep, and underneath it
all there is a BSD/Mach hybrid kernel.

~~~
tekacs
That may be, but a user's perception when using the OS (even as a developer)
is one of relative harmony, nowadays - Apple have worked hard to unify these
disparate parts and make them work well together - hell they even managed to
minify it successfully to produce iOS...

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jaekwon
I definitely feel what Rob feels, that there is work left to be done.

The question is, what more can be done? How can we bring more of the community
together into a flexible system?

