this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2024
1 points (100.0% liked)

Linux

48229 readers
948 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
1
"In The Beginning Was The Command Line" An essay by Neal Stephenson that talks about proprietary operating systems and FOSS operating systems. Written in 1999. (archive.org)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
34 comments fedilink hide all child comments
top 34 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I just finished this, yes it took me a month.

I found his literary style, very compelling, it was a fun read.

I found his predictions while interesting, not very clairvoyant. BeOS is sadly no longer with us.

I did like his tie-in to the Church of the simulation at the end, though this predates the official organization of such an church.

I think it was a thought-provoking essay, I disagreed with some aspects of this predictions, especially around what a monopoly is. It's thought-provoking. It's a good read. It is not gospel

He did talk about hacker culture, and anybody being able to fix anything, but was not able to make the connection between BeOS and proprietary license and Linux with an open license. The death of BOS followed one year from the creation of this essay

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I agree with all you've said. Especially the monopoly part is where I disagreed the most. This is a good document to inform people about the ideology behind computers. Well, would be if not for those mistakes you have mentioned.

Other than those, as you have said, it's a thought-provoking essay.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

It's a good read, but he then back on it all and went all Apple. So it's a bit bitter sweat. Snow Crash is probably better.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I knew quite a few linux fans who went with Apple laptops when OSX came out. At the time it was the best thing available that had unix under the hood which made it really powerful in the right hands.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

If they were more about UNIX than freedom, that could make sense back then. These days, you miss out on loads on of open stuff and are very much a third class citizen. After Linux and Windows, as the platform has neither freedom or a large user base. Macports seams to regularly have talks about how they are shunned and ignored.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Our tanks break down here and there but i appreciate the compliment

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

Lamina1 is enough to prove Stephenson is kind of full of shit.

It's such a joke it doesn't even have its own Wikipedia entry. It's just a footnote on Stephenson's.

I'm just gonna call it like I sees it:

I put Stephenson in the same camp as Orson Scott Card.

He had a single book with some really brilliant and thoughtful ideas... and that's about it. People need money to stay alive, and can always be swayed by it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

That's not fair. Multiple books of his books are award winning. Even if you only like one, the critics rate him. Other writers, rate him.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

Which of his amazing books is the "single good book" you're referring to?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Anathem came to mind for me. Each reply naming a different book is pretty funny.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Speaker for the Dead is my guess

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

That's the sequel to Ender's Game. It is good, but it is Orson Scott Card.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Probably Snow Crash

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Which is kinda silly anyway, and I love Snow Crash, but it wasn't even close to his most interesting book.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Maybe SeveNeveS

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Them again, "a single book with some really brilliant and thoughtful ideas" is one book more than most authors, much less internet commenters will ever put out.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Hang on a second. Orson Scott Card is a homophobic motherfuck. What'd NS do that is so bad?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

He's into NFTs, if there's something else idk about it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Snow Crash is one of my favorite books.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm a Cryptonomicon person. The modern timeline is dated now, but the overall information warfare themes are delicious.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Anathem is my personal favorite. One of the very few books I've read multiple times.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I have it on the shelf, but haven't gotten to it. I'll put it in the reading queue.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I am only a few pages in, but speaking as a Linux user in the 2020s, I am skeptical of the claim that Linux in 1999 would "never, ever break down."

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Hell my home server, running on low end Xeon hardware had uptime numbers around 3 years....then there was a power cut. Next down day was another power cut a year or so later. Total around 8 years running with 5 outages, all but one due to power loss (other was Ubuntu 16.04 - 18.04 upgrade).

Just updated to Ubuntu server 20.04 so uptime is only 7 days at this point.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I was there Gandalf...

In comparison to the alternatives we had at the time, Linux was a fucking tank. Once it was up, you could expect to get 6 months to years of uptime unless you were installing new tools or changing hardware (no real USB/SATA yet, so hardware was a reboot situation).

If you got a Win98 machine up, it would eventually just hang. Yes, some could got a whole, but if you used it for general use it would crash the kernel out eventually. Same for MacOS (the OG MacOS).

The only real completion for stability was other UNIX systems, and few of those were available to the general public at a reasonable price point.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Netware was rock solid.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Do you remember the article about some university that accidentally walled in a Network server? It ran for years until they needed to put hands on it for something. They had to do the "follow the Ethernet cable" game until it went through the sheetrock into a dead space.

The Register still has the article from 2001: https://www.theregister.com/2001/04/12/missing_novell_server_discovered_after/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

How the f does that even happen ._.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

VAX/VMS was still around then, and as far as I recall, that was the king for uptime.

Linux back then supported much less hardware. I can remember even in the early aughts, there was while families of popular wireless network chipsets that weren't supported.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

VAX/VMS was such a beast! The hardware wasn't readily available to the public, though.

Oh, the wireless chipsets in the 90's into about 2005? or so...that was a bad time for anyone trying to run wireless. Hell, MS Windows didn't even have network drivers baked in until what, WinXP? Wiring computer together in the 90's was such a a trial, both for hardware and software fronts.

I was lucky to score a 3Com 3c905b fast 10/100 Ethernet card from a bussy in 1996. That was well supported across the board (Linux and Windows), and the IRQ settings for the PCI bus memory mapped I/O and IRQs was well documented.

Edit: buddy, not a hussy, though he kinda was... Your call in how you want to read it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

from a bussy

I assume that word also means something else than what I'm thinking...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Daily updates with rolling distro may cause issues but a stable system that wasn't tinkered with would run and run and run. Our Linux fileserver at work had a 2 year uptime, only broke that for some drive additions and other adjustments, otherwise it would have just kept on chugging along without interaction. My debian ARM NAS runs without incident, the only shutdowns it sees are when I move equipment to different rooms or want to reroute power cables. Otherwise it would just always be working fine.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Written in 1999

Never forget that in 2001 he switched to Mac OS X and has been using it since.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

That’s when Unix (Mach kernel and FreeBSD) based OSX launched. It included command line and OOP development tools that really were a huge improvement over the previous OS 7-9.

I bought my first Mac a few years later 2003 because I needed a reliable laptop, there was no competition (anyone remember the Sony Viao?) in good laptops, unless you liked thinkpads with one nipple. Plus as a design student, I needed macromedia and Adobe products, and worked in my college’s computer lab managing Mac’s anyway.