I've used the desktop version. It's amazing: it looks, and feels, and operates, just like a Unix, except if you want it it's got this ultra-fast real-time core.
When I say 'just like a Unix', I mean: you log in and start up some terminal windows and it's sh and you can compile and run X11 software with configure scripts and gcc and you can print stuff with lpr and it all just works. It even runs Java --- my copy was completely self-hosting via Eclipse!
Years ago there was a single-floppy QNX demo disk: you booted from this and you got a basic desktop with dialup modem support and a web browser. SINGLE FLOPPY.
Hey, look! I was all set to write a paragraph about how sad it was that you couldn't get the bootable QNX CD any more, but look what I found!
It doesn't even need registration and a login any more! Holy crap, I have to see if this still works...
Edit: looks like it won't install without a license key. I'll see if I can get one...
Edit: apparently I have an account with QNX dating back from 2012, with three hobbyist license keys, one of which makes the installation CD happy. I don't know whether these are still available, though.
Edit: so it installed into a VM in about two minutes flat, and I now have a very old copy of Firefox running. It can't see the network, but that's nothing to do with QNX and everything to do with my inability to set up kvm. I need to find a real machine to run this on.
Edit: it will only install from CD, not from USB (unetbootin doesn't help). And I've lost the power cable for my CD burner. So until I find it, I won't be able to proceed here. Sorry. Still good to know this still exists, though...
> Years ago there was a single-floppy QNX demo disk: you booted from this and you got a basic desktop with dialup modem support and a web browser. SINGLE FLOPPY.
and "What people are saying" (to give folks today an idea of the excitement around a 1.44MB GUI OS with networking and Japanese support back in the 90s):
I really enjoyed using QNX (I had a job porting Unix programs to QNX---it was not that hard of a job actually). What really blew me away as the inherent transparent networking. I could, from the command line, run a program on my computer, referencing a file on a second computer, pipe the output to a program on a third computer which sends the output to a file on a fourth computer. Really mind blowing stuff.
And fast. I knew the owners of a company that sold X Windows commercially, and their fastest version ran under QNX, using the native QNX message passing facilities. The fact that the QNX kernel on a Pentium was only 8K in size was also mind blowing.
When I say 'just like a Unix', I mean: you log in and start up some terminal windows and it's sh and you can compile and run X11 software with configure scripts and gcc and you can print stuff with lpr and it all just works. It even runs Java --- my copy was completely self-hosting via Eclipse!
Years ago there was a single-floppy QNX demo disk: you booted from this and you got a basic desktop with dialup modem support and a web browser. SINGLE FLOPPY.
Hey, look! I was all set to write a paragraph about how sad it was that you couldn't get the bootable QNX CD any more, but look what I found!
http://www.qnx.com/download/feature.html?programid=19602
It doesn't even need registration and a login any more! Holy crap, I have to see if this still works...
Edit: looks like it won't install without a license key. I'll see if I can get one...
Edit: apparently I have an account with QNX dating back from 2012, with three hobbyist license keys, one of which makes the installation CD happy. I don't know whether these are still available, though.
Edit: so it installed into a VM in about two minutes flat, and I now have a very old copy of Firefox running. It can't see the network, but that's nothing to do with QNX and everything to do with my inability to set up kvm. I need to find a real machine to run this on.
Edit: it will only install from CD, not from USB (unetbootin doesn't help). And I've lost the power cable for my CD burner. So until I find it, I won't be able to proceed here. Sorry. Still good to know this still exists, though...