Re: Unix Haters

Re: Unix Haters

[Dr.Dmitry A.Kazakov]

ian@rsd.bel.alcatel.be (Ian Ward) wrote:

>James McIninch writes >
>
>> you write for those, not because they're powerful, efficient, easy to work
>> with, etc., but because people will buy your stuff. If you write large-scale
>> projects for mission-critical applications in networked environments, chances
>> are pretty good you'll work with UNIX, which has the greatest market share
>> for that sort of thing.
>
>That is more to do with the fact that mostly graduates work in
>those areas. The were weaned on Unix which was really cheap for
>their college to buy (or free,) and they did not want to use
>anything else when they left, twenty years on, and the graduates
>now order equipment and stock.
>
>I see a lot of the people who these days saying VMS is crap and
>difficult to use, but a lot (not all) have not even used it, and
>some of those that have not ventured past DCL.
>
>These two operating systems, to me, define the differences between
>something that had to be sold, and something that was never
>originally designed to be. I am not taking away from the unix team
>there are as many clever, nifty, things in Unix, as there are in
>the Fiat 500. I am also not saying I cannot use it successfully
>either, I have tolerated it now for a few years.
>
>What I am saying is that :
>
>1. Its not reliable, no operating system worth its salt could
>have a list of bugs in its manual tables without making serious
>attempts to fix them in future releases. This can not now be done
>because of the huge numbers of people who have worked on it over
>the years, there are reams of software that depend on the bugs.
>It is like a bad golfer aiming right to correct a slice,
>rather than addressing the root problem.

Yes. I worked under VMS on a machine with a hard drive that stopped 
several times per day. When I fired it up, nobody lost his edit
session. This is far beyond of reach of any UNIX.

>2. It is not efficient. Ok, so loads of people are bound to argue
>with this one. You'll say, as I have heard hundreds of times before
>that you can solve any problem in ten different ways. This, in my
>eyes is not efficiency, because it simply means that nine out of the
>ten solutions are not as efficient as they could be.

I agree.

>3. Its utilities are not intuitive either, grep, as was quoted
>in an earlier article as being a good unix utility, cost me a
>weeks work last year, when it could not find simple strings in
>a catenation (admittedly massive) series of files. As for tar,
>well, the most hilarious thing is that people who use it daily
>think it is quite good.

Again yes.

>4. One sees few books on comparative strengths and weaknesses
>of say, MSDOS and VMS, but there are acres of unix books in
>existence comparing unix to MSDOS. What does this say about
>its power?

Nothing, because neither MS-DOS nor Windows is an operating system.

>5. It only supports one language, (really.)

Today things look better (gcc+gnat). Although it cannot be compared 
with VMS (LSE editor and debugger for all languages, sigh).

>6. It is cheap, which is why it succeeded, and it is so simple
>(requires so little support) that it will run on anything.
>Though I wish it truly supported VMS's asynchronous system traps
>in all their power, (and messaging, and command definition)
>but it doesn't.

Yes, but "requires little support"? Every day I must something
configure. And these thousands of configuration files that migrate
from one directory to another when a new OS version come ...

>7. It is cheap, like a cheap whore, but I can cope with that,
>and as an engineer, I find some of the things it does quite
>clever, but I would rather work with an heavily engineered
>operating system that has cost money to develop, and works,
>than one which no matter how clever it is, and it is clever,
>always leaves you with the feeling that the highly stressed
>nature of its solutions are just about ready to crack.

The main pain is that the question is not "Unix or VMS (or better
a new modern OS)", but "Unix" or "MS-Windows (2000)". And it seems
to me that "MS-Windows" will win!

That will be the end of the world. (:-()

Regards,
Dmitry

Re: Unix Haters

[Alan Brain]

jmartin@cs.ucla.edu (Jay Martin) wrote:

> By the
>way after 10+ years of using Unix I am having trouble thinking of a
>standard Unix utility that is not a total misdesigned piece of crap!
>Maybe someone can help me.

Disagree strongly. Having done some work on Unix since 1976, I can assure 
you that Unix as implemented is NOT mis-designed. It is not designed at 
all, it has 'just growed'.

What was once a neat toy and useful tool to fit in 16K words is now a 
monstrosity whose time (should have) passed long ago. But that's another 
thread...

Re: Unix Haters

[moi]

: > By the
: >way after 10+ years of using Unix I am having trouble thinking of a
: >standard Unix utility that is not a total misdesigned piece of crap!
: >Maybe someone can help me.

you must not have know how to use it at all. Or maybe you don't like the 
features that win95 and others are just now getting that unix has had for 10+
years. truth is.. unix is and will always be ahead of everything else.


--
David Shaffer
http://traffic.jam.net/~dshaffer

Re: Unix Haters

[Tore Joergensen]

moi (moi@news) wrote:
: you must not have know how to use it at all. Or maybe you don't like the 
: features that win95 and others are just now getting that unix has had for 10+
: years. truth is.. unix is and will always be ahead of everything else.

I'm not sure if I will agree with your last statement :-), but I must admit
that the only "widespread" GUI I've heard about that is comparable in power
to OS/2 WPS is NextStep, and the only photo-editing program I've heard
about that is comparable to ColorWorks 2.0 for OS/2 is the bitmap module
in OneVision for NextStep (1. I've used PhotoShop and Picture Publisher,
but they are not the state of the art anymore (and I'm not sure if they
ever was). 2. I'm not a NextStep-person, it's just that a lot of the programs
that does stuff a little bit different comes from that direction). Sorry
for keeping a thread that is only slightly related to programming alive...
it's just that I can't resist to preach a little bit OS/2 every now and then.
-- 
+-------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Tore B. Joergensen      | e-mail : tore@lis.pitt.edu                |
| Centre Court Villa      | web    : http://www.pitt.edu/~tojst1      |
| 5535 Centre Avenue # 6  |                                           |
| Pgh, PA 15232, USA      | Norwegian MSIS-student at Univ. of Pgh.   |
+-------------------------+-------------------------------------------+

Re: Unix Haters

[Robert Dewar]

Tore reacted to

"moi (moi@news) wrote:
: you must not have know how to use it at all. Or maybe you don't like the
: features that win95 and others are just now getting that unix has had for 10+
: years. truth is.. unix is and will always be ahead of everything else.

"

Tore, when someone posts something like that, either they don't know what
they are talking about and should be ignored, or they are trolling. I
would guess the latter in this case :-)

Re: Unix Haters

[Wallace E. Owen]

In article <dewar.827685726@schonberg>, Robert Dewar <dewar@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>Tore reacted to
>
>"moi (moi@news) wrote:
>: you must not have know how to use it at all. Or maybe you don't like the
>: features that win95 and others are just now getting that unix has had for 10+
>: years. truth is.. unix is and will always be ahead of everything else.
>
>"
>
>Tore, when someone posts something like that, either they don't know what
>they are talking about and should be ignored, or they are trolling. I
>would guess the latter in this case :-)
>

I don't see it as a troll.  Take X-windows, for example.  What other windowing
system works on so many platforms, and allows the compute-intensive portion
of your application to run on a compute server while displaying output
on a graphical server that's not colocated?  What was the first OS to permit
mounting another computer's disks over the net? Unix, with RPC/XDR/NFS.
Yes, it's now available for some other OS's but none integrate it
so well.

Unix is also probably the best non-proprietary OS, with fair standards.
Compared with Windows NT/95 or OS/2 (Sorry to put OS/2 in the same category
as Windows), you're not locked in to a small collection of hardware ven-
dors.

There are several other firsts, of course.  These are probably the most
well-known.


I'm not saying that it's the best OS.  But it's good enough, and more standard
than most.  I know that in the Ada world we sometimes get a little pedantic
(All of us), so when something's not 'perfect' in some regard we get a bit
peeved, and that 'C' got where it is today by being 'good enough'.  But
until someone can point out a better OS available on all the platforms I
use, I'll live with it.


+-------------------------------------------------------+---------------------+
| "I can see nothing, sire.", the bowman said.          | Wally Owen          |
| "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked in a | VisiCom Laboratories|
| fretful tone. "To be able to see nobody? And at that  | (619) 457-2111      |
| distance, too! Why, it's as much as I can do to see   |       457-0888 Fax  |
| real people by this light!"                           | owen@cod.nosc.mil   |
+-------------------------------------------------------+---------------------+

Re: Unix Haters

[Robert Dewar]

"I'm not saying that it's the best OS.  But it's good enough, and more standard
than most."

Well that brightens up the morning, I good joke is always a nice way to
start the day :-) More standard than most, ho ho!

Re: Unix Haters

[Richard Pitre]

In article <dewar.827846950@schonberg> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> "I'm not saying that it's the best OS.  But it's good enough, and more  
standard
> than most."
> 
> Well that brightens up the morning, I good joke is always a nice way to
> start the day :-) More standard than most, ho ho!


They all suck big hooters.
The last worthwhile change happened somewhere around 1984.
That innovation is being systematically buried in foolishness. If everyone 
demanded functionality instead of bragging rights the computer 
industry would change overnight. Things have finally gotten to the 
point where hardware and software doesn't even have to work in 
order to be *great* i.e. achieve a significant religious 
following. Someone I know refuses to use a computer made by company
X because in 1979 he was offended by a salesman from that company.
So now he uses a computer that only works correctly when it is 
disassembled. The hard drive sits on a box or whatever. Its damned fast
too. Another friend knows that his system is ok because he
touched the heat sink and it didn't burn his finger. His is even faster
There is a *stability enhancement patch* for a popular operating system that 
keeps it from destroying the data that its designed to manage.
50 years of technological advancments. Wow. I can't wait to see what
the next 50 years brings. Fortran will probably have nthtaprecision
and spinor algebra, UNIX will have standardized partially functioning SMP
and PC's will all run UNIX by another name with a mouse, pictures and 
animated singing icons. 

Hey, lets start a new group and compile the idiocy.
Near as I can tell  its going into overdrive. 

I wouldn't be so exhasperated
if all this miscreant marketing boolshite hadn't taken chunks out 
of me and everyone around me. 
One more failed install and I'm going to 
convert all my computers into boat anchors and use
one of those new CD32 game machines for all my 
real world simulations.

richard

Re: Unix Haters

[Robert I. Eachus]

In article <4j94fp$e3i@ra.nrl.navy.mil> pitre@n5160d.nrl.navy.mil (Richard Pitre) writes:

  > One more failed install and I'm going to convert all my computers
  > into boat anchors and use one of those new CD32 game machines for
  > all my real world simulations.

    Believe it or not, the CD32 wouldn't be a bad choice...GNAT is
available on the Fred Fish CD-ROMs, and if you are interested I have
some bindings to the graphics routines. ;-)


--

					Robert I. Eachus

with Standard_Disclaimer;
use  Standard_Disclaimer;
function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...

Re: Unix Haters

[Richard Pitre]

In article <EACHUS.96Mar27112441@spectre.mitre.org> eachus@spectre.mitre.org  
(Robert I. Eachus) writes:
> In article <4j94fp$e3i@ra.nrl.navy.mil> pitre@n5160d.nrl.navy.mil (Richard  
Pitre) writes:
> 
>   > One more failed install and I'm going to convert all my computers
>   > into boat anchors and use one of those new CD32 game machines for
>   > all my real world simulations.
> 
>     Believe it or not, the CD32 wouldn't be a bad choice...GNAT is
> available on the Fred Fish CD-ROMs, and if you are interested I have
> some bindings to the graphics routines. ;-)
> 
> 

Touche.
That'll teach me to ignore my old sweetheart. 

richard

Re: Unix Haters

[Kenneth Mays]

Unix standard? Did I miss something? Do all Unix clones sprout from 
the same seed (V5R4.2)? A good class in "Unix System Adminstration" 
would squash that thought. We have a hard enough time trying to make 
commercial compilers compile each other's Ada95 code. Nevermind the 
complexities and monstrousity of the beast we call UNIX!

"Standards? We don't need no stinkin' standards!"

Re: Unix Haters

[Tore Joergensen]

Wallace E. Owen (owen@nosc.mil) wrote:
: >"moi (moi@news) wrote:
: >:truth is.. unix is and will always be ahead of everything else.

: I don't see it as a troll.  Take X-windows, for example.  What other windowing
: system works on so many platforms, and allows the compute-intensive portion
: of your application to run on a compute server while displaying output
: on a graphical server that's not colocated?  What was the first OS to permit
: mounting another computer's disks over the net? Unix, with RPC/XDR/NFS.
: Yes, it's now available for some other OS's but none integrate it
: so well.

Take SOM and DSOM. I think SOM (System Object Model) was available for OS/2
before it was available for AIX. A language independent object model is nice 
(OK, I'm not sure what is/was available on NextStep, but at least it is 
something that most Unixs don't/didn't have). DSOM allows language independent,
OS independent, Computer independent objects that can be accessed across a
network. I'm not sure how well CORBA will implement language independence,
but DSOM is supposed to be compliant with the CORBA standard (which as far
as I know isn't finished yet... don't ask me how something can be compliant
with something that don't exist :-). Anyway, since Unix has been so popular in
academic/research communities, it has more "I was first"s than most OSs. That
doesn't mean that it is first with everything. OS/2 has some "I was first"s,
and Amiga has some. The supprising thing is that Windows don't have more (if
they have any). 

: Unix is also probably the best non-proprietary OS, with fair standards.
: Compared with Windows NT/95 or OS/2 (Sorry to put OS/2 in the same category
: as Windows), you're not locked in to a small collection of hardware ven-
: dors.

Unix is one of very few non-proprietary OSs. I think it is wrong to say that
you are locked to a small collection of hardware _vendors_ if you use PCs
though :-). Of course there aren't much difference between the products
from PC vendors, but there are lots of them. You are locked to one OS vendor
if you use Windows or OS/2 though (and hardware vendor for Mac, Amiga, Atari
ST and lots of others). 
-- 
+-------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Tore B. Joergensen      | e-mail : tore@lis.pitt.edu                |
| Centre Court Villa      | web    : http://www.pitt.edu/~tojst1      |
| 5535 Centre Avenue # 6  |                                           |
| Pgh, PA 15232, USA      | Norwegian MSIS-student at Univ. of Pgh.   |
+-------------------------+-------------------------------------------+

Re: Unix Haters

[Erik W. Anderson]

Moi wrote:
ASS>By the
ASS>way after 10+ years of using Unix I am having trouble thinking of a
ASS>standard Unix utility that is not a total misdesigned piece of crap!
ASS>Maybe someone can help me.

MOI> you must not have know how to use it at all. Or maybe you don't
MOI> like the features that win95 and others are just now getting that
MOI> unix has had for 10+ years. truth is.. unix is and will always be
MOI> ahead of everything else.

Although I hate to continue an obvious "religious" thread, I'm in total
agreement with you Moi. The things I really love about UNIX is the
almost unlimited-in-power command-line, shell programming, and all
those little "misdesigned piece of crap" code. Hey, you don't have to
write a 'C' program to most text file manipulation. Just create a
sequence of pipes using awk, sed, tail, paste, cut! And you don't even
have to recompile! Way Cool!

Re: Unix Haters

[Erik W. Anderson]

ASS>By the
ASS>way after 10+ years of using Unix I am having trouble thinking of a
ASS>standard Unix utility that is not a total misdesigned piece of crap!
ASS>Maybe someone can help me.

MOI> you must not have know how to use it at all. Or maybe you don't
MOI> like the features that win95 and others are just now getting that
MOI> unix has had for 10+ years. truth is.. unix is and will always be
MOI> ahead of everything else.

Although I hate to continue an obvious "religious" thread, I'm in total
agreement with you Moi. The things I really love about UNIX is the
almost unlimited-in-power command-line, shell programming, and all
those little "misdesigned piece of crap" code. Hey, you don't have to
write a 'C' program to most text file manipulation. Just create a
sequence of pipes using awk, sed, tail, paste, cut! And you don't even
have to recompile! Way Cool!

Re: Unix Haters

[Anthony Shih Hao Lee]

We can hate any kind of OS. But! Please do not hate C and C++ (or Ada?).

:)

tony

-- 
! Anthony S. H. Lee [Lee, Shih Hao]   Internet: tony@necta.nec.com.tw
! Lee-fruit, Shih-scholar, Hao-hero   URL http://necta.nec.com.tw/~tony
! SISD, NEC TAIWAN LTD.               #pragma C++ worrior forever
! TEL:886 2 5150000 ext:273           #pragma Long life of BC & OWL

Re: Unix Haters

[Erik W. Anderson]

Moi wrote:
ASS>By the
ASS>way after 10+ years of using Unix I am having trouble thinking of a
ASS>standard Unix utility that is not a total misdesigned piece of crap!
ASS>Maybe someone can help me.

MOI> you must not have know how to use it at all. Or maybe you don't
MOI> like the features that win95 and others are just now getting that
MOI> unix has had for 10+ years. truth is.. unix is and will always be
MOI> ahead of everything else.

Although I hate to continue an obvious "religious" thread, I'm in total
agreement with you Moi. The things I really love about UNIX is the
almost unlimited-in-power command-line, shell programming, and all
those little "misdesigned piece of crap" code. Hey, you don't have to
write a 'C' program to most text file manipulation. Just create a
sequence of pipes using awk, sed, tail, paste, cut! And you don't even
have to recompile! Way Cool!

Re: Unix Haters

[Verne Arase]

In article <4iutmh$790@ionews.ionet.net>, moi@news (moi) wrote:

 >you must not have know how to use it at all. Or maybe you don't like the 
 >features that win95 and others are just now getting that unix has had for
 >10+ years. truth is.. unix is and will always be ahead of everything
else.

Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap hardware.

Not that there's anything wrong with economy, but let's not get carried
away ...

---
The above are my own opinions, and not those of my employer.

Re: Unix Haters

[Robert Dewar]

"Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap hardware."

Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,
and typically you find Unix only on high end machines, while the 99%
of lower end machines are running other OS's (System 7, DOS, WIndows)

Re: Unix Haters

[Gary Fiber]

dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:

>"Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap hardware."

>Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,
>and typically you find Unix only on high end machines, while the 99%
>of lower end machines are running other OS's (System 7, DOS, WIndows)

Used to be in the early 1980's you could have a 2 Mhz machine with 512
K of memory with 10 users attached. Now there was no graphics, but you
surely could not do that with DOS.  Unix has been around since before
the microprocessor.  It has been a multitasking, multiuser system from
the start,  pretty intresting operating system.  Right now I have at
least 20 programs running and a small netwrok doing TCP / IP to my
Amateur radio station all in Linux.  Give X windows a try.  I can have
over 20 virtual windows, OH yea with Linux, no more 640 k barrier as
all memory is treated as virtual memory.

Gary

Re: Unix Haters

[Robert L. Spooner, AD3K]

In <dewar.827955102@schonberg>, dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
>"Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap hardware."
>
>Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,
>

Of course, the only reason all that memory is needed is because of memory 
leaks in the X-window system.  All those millions of lines of C code...


Robert L. Spooner             Applied Research Laboratory
(814) 863-4120                             PO Box 30
RLS19@PSUVM.PSU.EDU      State College, PA 16804-0030

Re: Unix Haters

[Kazimir Kylheku]

In article <4jea7b$at1@hearst.cac.psu.edu>,
Robert L. Spooner, AD3K <RLS19@psuvm.psu.edu> wrote:
 >In <dewar.827955102@schonberg>, dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
 >>"Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap hardware."
 >>
 >>Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,
 >>
 >
 >Of course, the only reason all that memory is needed is because of memory 
 >leaks in the X-window system.  All those millions of lines of C code...

A friend of mine just got a demonstration version of XInside for Linux. The
server is a 300K+ stripped executable and lightning fast.

What was that about X being bloated?
-- 

Re: Unix Haters

[Dan Pop]

In <4jea7b$at1@hearst.cac.psu.edu> RLS@psu.edu    (Robert L. Spooner, AD3K) writes:

>In <dewar.827955102@schonberg>, dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
>>"Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap hardware."
>>
>>Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,
>
>Of course, the only reason all that memory is needed is because of memory 
>leaks in the X-window system.  All those millions of lines of C code...

Are you sure you actually understand the meaning of the expression
"memory leak"?  Methinks not.

X is big because it's big, not because it contains memory leaks (it usually
doesn't).  If you're looking for memory leaks, have a look at Perl 4 and
(at least) the first releases of Perl 5.

Dan
--
Dan Pop
CERN, CN Division
Email: danpop@mail.cern.ch 
Mail:  CERN - PPE, Bat. 31 R-004, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland

Re: Unix Haters

[James McIninch]

Robert Dewar (dewar@cs.nyu.edu) wrote:
: "Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap hardware."

: Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,
: and typically you find Unix only on high end machines, while the 99%
: of lower end machines are running other OS's (System 7, DOS, WIndows)

I dunno about that. Linux only requires 4 Meg of memory (and, actually, it is
possible to run a stripped down kernel in about 2 Meg), and on a 386 no less.
You'd be really hard pressed to find another OS that can run with so few
resources and on such inexpensive hardware.

The reason that most machines are running System 7, DOS, or Windows (NT/95) is
mostly the result of marketing and has nothing to do with the OS per se. The
Mac OS touts itself as the OS for morons and Windows is good because Bill Gates
says it is and alot of other people use it (therefore, it must be good). So far,
quality for consumer level computer products has yet to surpass decent marketing
as the predominant affector of consumer purchasing decisions. From a developer
standpoint, you write software that people will buy. In the absence of a
standard OS (or even API), you just pick which is likely to sell for the
application concerned. Since there are alot of people using MacOS and Windows,
you write for those, not because they're powerful, efficient, easy to work
with, etc., but because people will buy your stuff. If you write large-scale
projects for mission-critical applications in networked environments, chances
are pretty good you'll work with UNIX, which has the greatest market share
for that sort of thing.

Personally, my experience with a wide array of OS's on various platforms is
that most UNIXes are fairly small, Linux being one of the best. Most PC UNIXes,
with the possible exception of Solaris, have system requirements similar to
those of Windows NT (but usually less) and generally perform considerably better
than Microsoft-based software (from the standpoint of numerical computation,
integer and floating point, which is my central concern). The MacOS is sort
of cumbersome, but it's going for the idiot niche, not my market share. OS/2
has some very nice features, but is also often cumbersome and it's been more
or less orphaned by IBM and the rest of the industry. VMS is a pain in the butt,
but I can't think of a nicer OS for the management of large databases.
NeXTStep is pretty damned cool, too cool to ever be popular to the masses.
The Amiga Exec was very nicely done but is more or less an orphan now too (but
you can see parts of it popping up in newer versions of all sorts of OS's,
which is kind of cool). There's all sorts of others, I've fiddled with too.
I use Linux for work and play, Windows95 for word-processing and a spreadsheet.

Note: this has nothing to do with comp.lang.c, so move it somewhere else...

Re: Unix Haters

[Ian Ward]

James McIninch writes >

> you write for those, not because they're powerful, efficient, easy to work
> with, etc., but because people will buy your stuff. If you write large-scale
> projects for mission-critical applications in networked environments, chances
> are pretty good you'll work with UNIX, which has the greatest market share
> for that sort of thing.

That is more to do with the fact that mostly graduates work in
those areas. The were weaned on Unix which was really cheap for
their college to buy (or free,) and they did not want to use
anything else when they left, twenty years on, and the graduates
now order equipment and stock. 

I see a lot of the people who these days saying VMS is crap and 
difficult to use, but a lot (not all) have not even used it, and
some of those that have not ventured past DCL.

These two operating systems, to me, define the differences between
something that had to be sold, and something that was never
originally designed to be. I am not taking away from the unix team
there are as many clever, nifty, things in Unix, as there are in
the Fiat 500. I am also not saying I cannot use it successfully
either, I have tolerated it now for a few years.

What I am saying is that :

1. Its not reliable, no operating system worth its salt could
have a list of bugs in its manual tables without making serious
attempts to fix them in future releases. This can not now be done
because of the huge numbers of people who have worked on it over
the years, there are reams of software that depend on the bugs.
It is like a bad golfer aiming right to correct a slice,
rather than addressing the root problem.

2. It is not efficient. Ok, so loads of people are bound to argue 
with this one. You'll say, as I have heard hundreds of times before
that you can solve any problem in ten different ways. This, in my
eyes is not efficiency, because it simply means that nine out of the
ten solutions are not as efficient as they could be.

3. Its utilities are not intuitive either, grep, as was quoted
in an earlier article as being a good unix utility, cost me a
weeks work last year, when it could not find simple strings in
a catenation (admittedly massive) series of files. As for tar,
well, the most hilarious thing is that people who use it daily
think it is quite good.

4. One sees few books on comparative strengths and weaknesses
of say, MSDOS and VMS, but there are acres of unix books in
existence comparing unix to MSDOS. What does this say about
its power?

5. It only supports one language, (really.)

6. It is cheap, which is why it succeeded, and it is so simple
(requires so little support) that it will run on anything.
Though I wish it truly supported VMS's asynchronous system traps
in all their power, (and messaging, and command definition)
but it doesn't.

7. It is cheap, like a cheap whore, but I can cope with that,
and as an engineer, I find some of the things it does quite
clever, but I would rather work with an heavily engineered 
operating system that has cost money to develop, and works,
than one which no matter how clever it is, and it is clever,
always leaves you with the feeling that the highly stressed
nature of its solutions are just about ready to crack.

Best regards,

---
Ian Ward's opinions only : ian@rsd.bel.alcatel.be
Just in case you play golf and noticed the mistake, the golfer
I was talking about is left handed, and works in Tayntons
solicitors in Gloucester.

Re: Unix Haters

[Larry Weiss]

Ian Ward wrote:
 > 
 > 5. It only supports one language, (really.)
 > 

With respect to the C language's standard library here's a snippet
from K&R2 (pg 3):

 "Most of the library is closely modeled on the "standard
I/O library" of the UNIX system."

Re: Unix Haters

[Laurence Barea]

In article <4jel4b$9nn@btmpjg.god.bel.alcatel.be>
           ian@rsd.bel.alcatel.be "Ian Ward" writes:

[ huge snip ]

What a load of bollocks that was.


-- 
Laurence Barea
larry@tarik.demon.co.uk

Re: Unix Haters

[Ian Ward]

Laurence Barea writes:

> What a load of bollocks that was.

Has you wife just left you, or perhaps an 
excess of British made gelatin.?

Please supply arguments, reasoning, not just 
destructive criticism (you thickhead :-))
Plenty of talented people haven't agreed entirely
with me and E-mail has flown back and forth
accordingly.



---
Ian Ward's opinions only : ian@rsd.bel.alcatel.be

Re: Unix Haters

[Laurence Barea]

In article <4jqjbv$dp2@btmpjg.god.bel.alcatel.be>
           ian@rsd.bel.alcatel.be "Ian Ward" writes:

> Laurence Barea writes:
> 
> > What a load of bollocks that was.
> 
> Has you wife just left you, or perhaps an 
> excess of British made gelatin.?
> 
> Please supply arguments, reasoning, not just 
> destructive criticism (you thickhead :-))
> Plenty of talented people haven't agreed entirely
> with me and E-mail has flown back and forth
> accordingly.
>

Haven't you ever been speechless.  What I read showed that
there was no point in arguing because the writer (I don't
know whether it was you) would not be able to understand.
Hey but don't worry, we cannot all have the experience and
intelligence required to.

Now, you see, 'thickhead' and all the 'wife just left you',
'excess of British made gelatin'- that's real reasoning,
argumentative and not destructive in any way.


-- 
Laurence Barea
larry@tarik.demon.co.uk

Re: Unix Haters

[Ian Ward]

Laurence Barea writes:
:
;In article <4jqjbv$dp2@btmpjg.god.bel.alcatel.be>
;           ian@rsd.bel.alcatel.be "Ian Ward" writes:
;
;> Laurence Barea writes:
;> 
;> > What a load of bollocks that was.
;> 
;> Has you wife just left you, or perhaps an 
;> excess of British made gelatin.?
;> 
;> Please supply arguments, reasoning, not just 
;> destructive criticism (you thickhead :-))
;> Plenty of talented people haven't agreed entirely
;> with me and E-mail has flown back and forth
;> accordingly.
;>
;
;Haven't you ever been speechless.  What I read showed that
;there was no point in arguing because the writer (I don't
;know whether it was you) would not be able to understand.
;Hey but don't worry, we cannot all have the experience and
;intelligence required to.

;Now, you see, 'thickhead' and all the 'wife just left you',
;'excess of British made gelatin'- that's real reasoning,
;argumentative and not destructive in any way.
;

Simply fighting fire with fire in the first sentence.
I was terribly shocked at your appalling manners, and
was putting forward suggestions for you apparent bad mood :-)

Ok Laurence, even though you saw the smiley, you chose to
ignore it. That is fine, but you still have not given any
reasons for why you thought it was bollocks. Perhaps
I have no intelligence or experience, but I am truly 
interested in your opinions. I would dearly love to be
enlightened.

So, with as much humility as I can offer, please tell
me the reasoning behind your formidable conclusion.

Best regards,


---
Ian Ward's opinions only : ian@rsd.bel.alcatel.be

Re: Unix Haters

[Robert Crawford]

Robert Dewar <dewar@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>"Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap hardware."
>
>Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,
>and typically you find Unix only on high end machines, while the 99%
>of lower end machines are running other OS's (System 7, DOS, WIndows)

	Funny. I'm running Linux on a 486/33. Used to have just 8 Meg,
recently upgraded to 16 Meg. Sitting next to my desk is an AT&T UNIX
PC that runs UNIX on a 6800(0?) with a Meg or two. It has an immense
67 Meg harddrive...

-- 
Robert Crawford	     crawford@iac.net     http://www.iac.net/~crawford

God created the world in seven days, but millions of years later we're
still writing the specs.

Re: Unix Haters

[Jeff Dege]

On 27 Mar 1996 14:32:37 -0500, Robert Dewar (dewar@cs.nyu.edu) wrote:
: "Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap hardware."
: 
: Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,
: and typically you find Unix only on high end machines, while the 99%
: of lower end machines are running other OS's (System 7, DOS, WIndows)
: 

    Yet another newbie.   Unix ran on cheap hardware in that a bare
PDP-11 cost less than an IBM 370 or a Cyber 76.  Most of the history
of computing predates the desktop.

-- 
You'd think that after all this time
I would have dreamed up a really clever .sig!

Re: Unix Haters

[Robert Dewar]

Jeff said

": Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,
: and typically you find Unix only on high end machines, while the 99%
: of lower end machines are running other OS's (System 7, DOS, WIndows)
:

    Yet another newbie.   Unix ran on cheap hardware in that a bare
PDP-11 cost less than an IBM 370 or a Cyber 76.  Most of the history
of computing predates the desktop."

Sure, we all learnt Unix on the PDP-11, at least I did (I'm not such
a newbie), but note "today require" vs "Unix ran". There is a big
difference between the past tense and the present tense.

Sure, in terms of years, it is true that most of the history of
computing predates the desktop, but measured in terms of wideness of
use, this pre-desktop history is of minimal significance at this stage.

Re: Unix Haters

[Verne Arase]

In article <dewar.827955102@schonberg>,
dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:

 >"Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap
hardware."
 >
 >Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,
 >and typically you find Unix only on high end machines, while the 99%
 >of lower end machines are running other OS's (System 7, DOS, WIndows)

I meant in the multi-user realm.

Unix boxes are still cheap compared to alternative solutions to service the
same number of users.

---
The above are my own opinions, and not those of my employer.

Re: Unix Haters

[Thomas Koenig]

In comp.lang.ada, dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
>"Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap hardware."
>
>Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,

Uh, yeah.  Like my Linux box which runs fine in 8 Meg, and feels a
lot faster running Linux than it does running Windows 3.1 (and which
doesn't stand a prayer of running Windows 95).

Re: Unix Haters

[fredex]

Robert Dewar (dewar@cs.nyu.edu) wrote:
> "Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap hardware."

> Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,
> and typically you find Unix only on high end machines, while the 99%
> of lower end machines are running other OS's (System 7, DOS, WIndows)

It isn't necessary to have a PentiiumPro/200, 128mb RAM, 8Gig disk
to run Unix. Runs fine on my 386dx40 (as long as I don't want to run X,
that is, dragging awindow is kinda painful) 16mb RAM 800mb disk. Cheap
486's a la 486dx2/66 8mb RAM half gig disk can be had for a thousand
or less and are entirely capable of running Unix or clones and giving
good performance for many needs.

Fred
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 .----                 /                                             Fred Smith
( /__  ,__.   __   __ /  __   : /                 fredex@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us
 /    /  /   /__) /  /  /__) .+'                             Home: 617-438-5471
/    /  (__ (___ (__(_ (___ / :__     Jude 1:24,25         Office: 508-663-2524
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Unix Haters

[Robert Dewar]

Robert said:

"> Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,
> and typically you find Unix only on high end machines, while the 99%
> of lower end machines are running other OS's (System 7, DOS, WIndows)
"

For me, typical Unix systms = AIX, IRIX, Dec UNIX, HPUX etc. Lots of
people rushed to say that Linux could run on small systems. True
enough, but Linux is NOT a "typical Unix system"! 

It is also true that Unix once ran fine on 128K byte PDP 11's, but I
am talking of a typical commercial Unix implementation, including X
and Motif.

Re: Unix Haters

[Dan Pop]

In <dewar.828332940@schonberg> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

>Robert said:
>
>"> Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,
>> and typically you find Unix only on high end machines, while the 99%
>> of lower end machines are running other OS's (System 7, DOS, WIndows)
>"
>
>For me, typical Unix systms = AIX, IRIX, Dec UNIX, HPUX etc. Lots of
>people rushed to say that Linux could run on small systems. True
>enough, but Linux is NOT a "typical Unix system"! 

What exactly makes Linux less of a "typical Unix system" than AIX, IRIX,
Dec UNIX, HPUX etc?

>It is also true that Unix once ran fine on 128K byte PDP 11's, but I
>am talking of a typical commercial Unix implementation, including X
>and Motif.

So, you dismiss BSD Unix as well, because it's not "commercial".

You need a PC with 8MB RAM (this is precisely the configuration I'm using
right now) to run Unix, including X and Motif.  The cheapest PC you can 
buy today will do.

Dan
--
Dan Pop
CERN, CN Division
Email: danpop@mail.cern.ch 
Mail:  CERN - PPE, Bat. 31 R-004, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland

Re: Unix Haters

[Peter Seebach]

In article <dewar.828332940@schonberg>, Robert Dewar <dewar@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>For me, typical Unix systms = AIX, IRIX, Dec UNIX, HPUX etc. Lots of
>people rushed to say that Linux could run on small systems. True
>enough, but Linux is NOT a "typical Unix system"! 

No?  How so?  It's at least as common as any other, probably, and quite
widely distributed.  It's recently been POSIX certified, or so we hear.

Part of the charm of Unix is that there are two completely unrelated free
implementations, and one of those has a small family (OpenBSD, FreeBSD,
and NetBSD.)

But the cool thing is that NetBSD-1.1, or Linux-1.2, is a perfectly usable,
complete system, and you get a source license.  I use NetBSD professionally,
and SunOS professionally, and right now, NetBSD has only one weakness
SunOS doesn't (an arcane VM problem, which has no effect on most systems),
and tons of advantages over SunOS.  It's certainly, by far, a more mature
and stable system.

It also beats out other commercial OS's like NT, for performance on any
given supported hardware, number of platforms supported (>10), and, of
course, price and availability.  :)

>It is also true that Unix once ran fine on 128K byte PDP 11's, but I
>am talking of a typical commercial Unix implementation, including X
>and Motif.

Ahh.  So I could point out that DOS is much bigger than Unix - that is,
DOS including an X server, networking software, word processors, a couple
gigs of shareware games, and an Amiga emulator.

Hardly fair.

-s
-- 
Peter Seebach - seebs@solon.com - Copyright 1996 Peter Seebach.
C/Unix wizard -- C/Unix questions? Send mail for help.  No, really!
FUCK the communications decency act.  Goddamned government.  [literally.]
The *other* C FAQ - http://www.solon.com/~seebs/c/c-iaq.html

Re: Unix Haters

[Robert Dewar]

"No?  How so?  It's at least as common as any other, probably, and quite
widely distributed.  It's recently been POSIX certified, or so we hear."

Citation please? As far as I know, there is no POSIX certification
procedure, so I think this is bogus.

Re: Unix Haters

[Dan Pop]

In <dewar.828415653@schonberg> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

>"No?  How so?  It's at least as common as any other, probably, and quite
>widely distributed.  It's recently been POSIX certified, or so we hear."
>
>Citation please? As far as I know, there is no POSIX certification
>procedure, so I think this is bogus.

Who cares?  Was Version 7 POSIX-compliant? 

Dan
--
Dan Pop
CERN, CN Division
Email: danpop@mail.cern.ch 
Mail:  CERN - PPE, Bat. 31 R-004, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland

Re: Unix Haters

[Edwin Lim]

In article <dewar.828415653@schonberg>, Robert Dewar <dewar@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>"No?  How so?  It's at least as common as any other, probably, and quite
>widely distributed.  It's recently been POSIX certified, or so we hear."
>
>Citation please? As far as I know, there is no POSIX certification
>procedure, so I think this is bogus.
>

Yes, it is true, Linux _is_ POSIX.1 (FIPS 151-2) certified.  Since this is
already grossly off-topic, I'll just point you to where you can get the
info:

http://www.dejanews.com

Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.announce

Search keyword:  POSIX


Cheers,
e.
-- 
_______________________________________________________________________________
Edwin _Lim_ Aun Whei  | U of Calif., Irvine   |  Never let truth stand in the
elim@dodo.eng.uci.edu | Mech & Aerospace Engr |  way of pride.

Re: Unix Haters

[Wallace E. Owen]

In article <dewar.828415653@schonberg>, Robert Dewar <dewar@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>"No?  How so?  It's at least as common as any other, probably, and quite
>widely distributed.  It's recently been POSIX certified, or so we hear."
>
>Citation please? As far as I know, there is no POSIX certification
>procedure, so I think this is bogus.
>

                    POSIX.1 (FIPS 151-2) Certification
         (Availability : Intel and Digital ALPHA Architectures)

Linux has achieved certification against a major International Standard
recognised and implemented throughout the computer industry. Announced
at the Open Group meeting of X/Open and the OSF in San Fransisco on 9th
March 1996 and at CeBIT in Hanover, Germany. The interest in this
release from the Application vendors is considerable (this is English
understatement :)  as this release allows almost seamless porting of
almost all UNIX applications to Linux.


  // Wally

Re: Unix Haters

[Tom Payne]

Peter Seebach (seebs@solutions.solon.com) wrote:
: In article <dewar.828332940@schonberg>, Robert Dewar <dewar@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
: >For me, typical Unix systms = AIX, IRIX, Dec UNIX, HPUX etc. Lots of
: >people rushed to say that Linux could run on small systems. True
: >enough, but Linux is NOT a "typical Unix system"! 
: 
: No?  How so?  It's at least as common as any other, probably, and quite
: widely distributed.  It's recently been POSIX certified, or so we hear.

My subjective impression is that at the USENIX Technical Conference in
San Diego in January there was more discussion of Linux and than of
AIX, IRIX, Dec UNIX and HPUX combined.  Certainly there was far more
discussion of Linux than of any one of them.  Linux seems to be
rapidly becoming the de facto standard to which UNIX implementations
are compared, especially for performance.

Tom Payne (thp@cs.ucr.edu)

Re: Unix Haters

[Lawrence Kirby]

In article <dewar.828332940@schonberg> dewar@cs.nyu.edu "Robert Dewar" writes:

>For me, typical Unix systms = AIX, IRIX, Dec UNIX, HPUX etc. Lots of
>people rushed to say that Linux could run on small systems. True
>enough, but Linux is NOT a "typical Unix system"! 

Intel based systems are probably still the most numerous commercial
Unix systems out there (SCO, Unixware, Solaris plus others). These are full
UNIX(tm) systems.

>It is also true that Unix once ran fine on 128K byte PDP 11's, but I
>am talking of a typical commercial Unix implementation, including X
>and Motif.

Right.

-- 
-----------------------------------------
Lawrence Kirby | fred@genesis.demon.co.uk
Wilts, England | 70734.126@compuserve.com
-----------------------------------------

Re: Unix Haters

[Steve Detoni]

Lawrence Kirby (fred@genesis.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: In article <dewar.828332940@schonberg> dewar@cs.nyu.edu "Robert Dewar" writes:

: >For me, typical Unix systms = AIX, IRIX, Dec UNIX, HPUX etc. Lots of
: >people rushed to say that Linux could run on small systems. True
: >enough, but Linux is NOT a "typical Unix system"! 

: Intel based systems are probably still the most numerous commercial
: Unix systems out there (SCO, Unixware, Solaris plus others). These are full
: UNIX(tm) systems.
Please, please don't add SCO Unix to this list as I had to write some 
multiuser, client/server software for it, and it's not as easy to program 
named pipes as one would hoped! However, when compared to the microsoft 
beast 'Windows', then it's a dream. 

steve.

Re: Unix Haters

[Lawrence Kirby]

In article <4kg0sh$ov3@hn.hn.planet.gen.nz>
           steve@hn.hn.planet.gen.nz "Steve Detoni" writes:

>Please, please don't add SCO Unix to this list as I had to write some 
>multiuser, client/server software for it, and it's not as easy to program 
>named pipes as one would hoped!

Well, did it or did it not conform to the appropriate standard? (whatever
they may be)? I'd rather not launch this thread into Unix advocacy (it is
far enough from the core topics of the cross-posted newsgroups anyway).
I'd be interested to hear about what problems you had though (perhaps by
email).

-- 
-----------------------------------------
Lawrence Kirby | fred@genesis.demon.co.uk
Wilts, England | 70734.126@compuserve.com
-----------------------------------------

Re: Unix Haters

[sfms]

In article <4jp1rh$22l@galaxy.ucr.edu>, thp@cs.ucr.edu (Tom Payne) says:

> Linux seems to be
>rapidly becoming the de facto standard to which UNIX implementations
>are compared, especially for performance.

How ironic.   Sun, IBM, ATT, DEC et al. cannot manage to set a standard
for UNIX.  It takes a single programmer who decides to port UNIX for his
own PC -- that's the 'de facto' standard.   (Granted, LINUX has gone far
since those early days).

I work with UNIX, administer UNIX but I still don't like it.  90% of
the time, I'd rather be working on my NT box.  But then I have the hardware
for NT and many I support are challenged enough by NT's and Win95's UI -- 
They wouldn't have a prayer of getting anything done in UNIX.  (Nothing
against them, they are good people -- it is just that if you want to do
something useful in UNIX, there is an expensive learning curve.)

Ross

Re: Unix Haters

[Kengo Hashimoto]

Well, yes, that's the *mainstream* application of unix. But when was the 
last time something like Windows was running on PDP-10? And for 
preemptive multitasking, Linux does it much better than OS/2 Warp, 
Windows 95, or Windows NT. Last I checked, System 7X did *not* 
preemptively multitask. Now it is true that most unix systems are the 
large server-style architecture, but that is partly because these systems 
are frequently close to the stat-of-the-art, and hence major development 
in OS has not been done yet. What makes unix very attractive at this 
point is the ease of porting the os to a new archtecture. 

Another reason that unix is found primarily on higher-end machines is 
that these unix systems are taking advangate of the multiuser capability 
of this OS. However, to support multiple users, you frequently need a 
larger machine. Though these larger systems cost more money per unit, 
frequently it is more cost effective on a per-user basis to employ a 
large server than to hand each user their own machines.

Nexx

Each day of a person's life is a battle;
The entire life being the war.
A war, not against anybody else;
But one fought against oneself.
One need never to fight alone;
For one shalt always have companions of the heart.


On 27 Mar 1996, Robert Dewar wrote:

> "Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap hardware."
> 
> Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,
> and typically you find Unix only on high end machines, while the 99%
> of lower end machines are running other OS's (System 7, DOS, WIndows)
> 
> 
> 

Re: Unix Haters

[Kazimir Kylheku]

In article <Pine.A32.3.91.960331200116.136611A-100000@matisse.its.rpi.edu>,
Kengo Hashimoto  <hashik@rpi.edu> wrote:
>Well, yes, that's the *mainstream* application of unix. But when was the 
>last time something like Windows was running on PDP-10? And for 
>preemptive multitasking, Linux does it much better than OS/2 Warp, 
>Windows 95, or Windows NT. Last I checked, System 7X did *not* 
>preemptively multitask. Now it is true that most unix systems are the 

Also, System 7X is _huge_. You have to count that ``dark matter'' of the Mac
that is hidden in its ROM. If you moved all the ROM code from the Mac into the
actual bottable OS, you would end up with a ``kernel'' that is larger than
probably any UNIX. 
-- 

Re: Unix Haters

[The Amorphous Mass]

On 2 Apr 1996, Kazimir Kylheku wrote:

> Kengo Hashimoto  <hashik@rpi.edu> wrote:
> >Well, yes, that's the *mainstream* application of unix. But when was the 
> >last time something like Windows was running on PDP-10? And for 
> >preemptive multitasking, Linux does it much better than OS/2 Warp, 
> >Windows 95, or Windows NT. Last I checked, System 7X did *not* 
> >preemptively multitask. Now it is true that most unix systems are the 
> 
> Also, System 7X is _huge_. You have to count that ``dark matter'' of the Mac
> that is hidden in its ROM. If you moved all the ROM code from the Mac into the
> actual bottable OS, you would end up with a ``kernel'' that is larger than
> probably any UNIX. 

  Those Unix advocates who don't want to include the X and Motif 
libraries when considering the size of Unix should not consider the 
Toolbox ROM when considering the size of MacOS. :-)  Besides, since it's 
in ROM you could theoretically install Unix on a Mac with full access to 
the Mac Toolbox (although you'd have to do a little trickery to pass the 
parameters correctly), so is it really part of the kernel? :-)
  That said, I have 7.0.2 (Max. 700K resident in RAM) and I'm getting 
increasingly alarmed at the bloatedness of 7.5.x, etc.

  Now what exactly does this have to do with C, C++, or Ada?
  Oh that's right.  Unix and MacOS are written in C. :-)

/**James Robinson***********************            
  "If a fatal error occurs, the program should not be allowed to continue."
 -- Oracle Pro*C User's Guide         *************james-robinson@uiowa.edu**/

Re: Unix Haters

[Max Waterman]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> 
> "Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap hardware."

Can do but (as others have pointed out) can also run on the biggest and
most expensive.

Also, cheap hardware with UNIX on doesn't have to be a PC/MAC. For about
5K you can get an SGI which is only slightly more expensive than the
same config of a PC (and, I believe, the SGI is faster).

> 
> Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,
> and typically you find Unix only on high end machines, while the 99%
> of lower end machines are running other OS's (System 7, DOS, WIndows)

Generally, UNIX based workstations do require more memory. I see this as
true for the following reasons :

1) UNIX can do more. If you don't want to do much (eg one user, little
I/O cacheing, small number of concurrent processes) then you can get
away with very little memory by stripping down the OS to reduce buffer
sizes etc etc. The machines I have used can run on 8MByte but they're a
bit old now. The new machines ship with 32MBytes as standard (but these
are 64-bit CPUs!).

2) UNIX often runs on RISC. I believe RISC requires more memory due to
larger image sizes. Correct me if I'm wrong. People would quite often
compare UNIX memory requirements on a RISC machine and a CISC PC (I
have).

I do believe that the gap is narrowing. A reasonable config for a PC is
with 16MByte RAM these days. This is because Windows95 can do more than
Windows 3.X could. It still can't do what UNIX can (ie multiuser etc
etc..anyone like to add to this list?) but I'm sure, as it increases in
functionality and as the Intel etc chips become more RISC like (and shed
their X86 compatibility) the memory requirements will become similar.

The problem with UNIX is the lack of s/w for it compared to Windows. Of
course, theres always SoftWindows - anyone had experience of
SoftWindows?

Max.

PS I have limited experience of PCs and extensive experience of UNIX in
its IRIX flavour.

-- 
    ___                      mailto:max@lton.u-net.com 
  /  /  /  _       /     /  _  __ __   _   __   _
 /  /  / /_/ |/  /  /  / /_/  /  /_   /_/ / / / /_/ /| /
/  /  / /  / /|  /_/_/ /  /  /  /_  /  |  / / / /  / / |/

Re: Unix Haters

[Richard Pitre]

In article <AD7EB33C9668919A@mcdiala13.it.luc.edu> VArase@varase.it.luc.edu  
(Verne Arase) writes:
> In article <4iutmh$790@ionews.ionet.net>, moi@news (moi) wrote:
> 
>  >you must not have know how to use it at all. Or maybe you don't like the 
>  >features that win95 and others are just now getting that unix has had for
>  >10+ years. truth is.. unix is and will always be ahead of everything
> else.
> 
> Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap hardware.
> 
> Not that there's anything wrong with economy, but let's not get carried
> away ...
> 
> ---
> The above are my own opinions, and not those of my employer.

The rest of the world is either converting to UNIX or trying to
make their kernels provide all the services of UNIX. 
Beyond that we have increases in capacity and speed, 
some mucking about with the use of with multiple processors,
we have little 2D pictures and a mouse thingie and we're moving toward
singing animated 3D icons and stereo glasses. Sounds like a lot of
fun to me. I would like a smarter OS too though. 
Just a little more of that old time AI to help me with 
my mountains of information in oodles of formats. The need for explicit
system administration should be going away too but it does seem, with the
exception of some not so successful products, to be getting worse.

richard

Re: Unix Haters

[Dan Pop]

In <AD7EB33C9668919A@mcdiala13.it.luc.edu> VArase@varase.it.luc.edu (Verne Arase) writes:

>Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap hardware.

Like Cray's, SGI Challenge's or DEC TurboLasers, right?
Or maybe you were thinking about large parallel systems, like IBM SP/2
or the Meiko's.

Dan
--
Dan Pop
CERN, CN Division
Email: danpop@mail.cern.ch 
Mail:  CERN - PPE, Bat. 31 R-004, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland

Re: Unix Haters

[Lawrence Kirby]

In article <danpop.828020070@rscernix> danpop@mail.cern.ch "Dan Pop" writes:

>In <AD7EB33C9668919A@mcdiala13.it.luc.edu> VArase@varase.it.luc.edu (Verne
> Arase) writes:
>
>>Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap hardware.
>
>Like Cray's, SGI Challenge's or DEC TurboLasers, right?
>Or maybe you were thinking about large parallel systems, like IBM SP/2
>or the Meiko's.

Unix does run on cheap hardware. Of course it also runs on extremely powerful
(and expensive) hardware. One 'charm' is that you pay your money and you
take your choice.

-- 
-----------------------------------------
Lawrence Kirby | fred@genesis.demon.co.uk
Wilts, England | 70734.126@compuserve.com
-----------------------------------------

Re: Unix Haters

[Robert Dewar]

Dan Pop said

"In my book, one of the main charms is that Unix runs on almost any kind
of hardware, from the most expensive to the cheapest PC (currently the
Power Mac is the exception, but Apple is actively involved in a Linux
port)."

That's wrong, Machten, a pretty complete system 5 port, runs fine on
a Power Mac.

Re: Unix Haters

[Dan Pop]

In <dewar.828365229@schonberg> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:

>Dan Pop said
>
>"In my book, one of the main charms is that Unix runs on almost any kind
>of hardware, from the most expensive to the cheapest PC (currently the
>Power Mac is the exception, but Apple is actively involved in a Linux
>port)."
>
>That's wrong, Machten, a pretty complete system 5 port, runs fine on
>a Power Mac.

Machten is not a "native" OS on the PMac.  It runs on top of MacOS,
which means that any MacOS application can disrupt its operation.

Dan
--
Dan Pop
CERN, CN Division
Email: danpop@mail.cern.ch 
Mail:  CERN - PPE, Bat. 31 R-004, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland

Re: Unix Haters

[Michael Feldman]

In article <danpop.828381256@rscernix>, Dan Pop <danpop@mail.cern.ch> wrote:

>Machten is not a "native" OS on the PMac.  It runs on top of MacOS,
>which means that any MacOS application can disrupt its operation.

So?

Mike Feldman

Re: Unix Haters

[Dan Pop]

In <4ju3qn$rb2@felix.seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes:

>In article <danpop.828381256@rscernix>, Dan Pop <danpop@mail.cern.ch> wrote:
>
>>Machten is not a "native" OS on the PMac.  It runs on top of MacOS,
>>which means that any MacOS application can disrupt its operation.
>
>So?

Unix has the reputation of being a stable operating system, providing
preemptive multitasking.  Machten, being actually a MacOS application,
is exposed to all the problems inherent to MacOS applications, due to the
flakiness and brain damage in the internals of the current MacOS 
implementation.

For those who haven't figured out yet what I mean, a broken MacOS 
application can crash the whole system, including Machten and a badly
designed one can let Machten starve of cpu cycles, suspending its
operation for an indefinite amount of time.

If Apple decided to invest money in a Linux port, which would have to be
given away for free when it's ready, maybe they realized the importance
of a real Unix implementation to the hardware sales.
 
Dan
--
Dan Pop
CERN, CN Division
Email: danpop@mail.cern.ch 
Mail:  CERN - PPE, Bat. 31 R-004, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland

Re: Unix Haters

[Michael Feldman]

In article <dewar.828365229@schonberg>, Robert Dewar <dewar@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>Dan Pop said

>That's wrong, Machten, a pretty complete system 5 port, runs fine on
>a Power Mac.

And it doesn't take your Mac away; it runs as a Mac application.
From what we've been able to find out about Linux/Mac, switching from
Linux to MacOS will require a re-boot.

I think MachTen is actually a BSD port.

There is a comp.os.unix.machten newsgroup for more on this.

Mike Feldman

Re: Unix Haters

[Mike Young]

Robert Dewar wrote:
> 
> Dan Pop said
> 
> "In my book, one of the main charms is that Unix runs on almost any kind
> of hardware, from the most expensive to the cheapest PC (currently the
> Power Mac is the exception, but Apple is actively involved in a Linux
> port)."
> 
> That's wrong, Machten, a pretty complete system 5 port, runs fine on
> a Power Mac.

======
Does anyone else find it odd that everything (it seems) runs on a Power 
PC, but not OS/2?

Re: Unix Haters

[morphis]

In article <3160B659.D3B@mcs.com>, Mike Young <mikey@mcs.com> writes:
>Robert Dewar wrote:
>> 
>> Dan Pop said
>> 
>> "In my book, one of the main charms is that Unix runs on almost any kind
>> of hardware, from the most expensive to the cheapest PC (currently the
>> Power Mac is the exception, but Apple is actively involved in a Linux
>> port)."
>> 
>> That's wrong, Machten, a pretty complete system 5 port, runs fine on
>> a Power Mac.
>
>======
>Does anyone else find it odd that everything (it seems) runs on a Power 
>PC, but not OS/2?

no, OS/2 isn't on PPC for business reasons. 

1)IBM wants to sell its unix on the PPC and would lose some unix sales 
	if they put OS/2 on it
2) IBM has a limited amt of resources they are willing to put behind
OS/2, and have made the (IMvHO) wise decision to concentrate on intel.
The P6 is a pretty hot little puppy and OS/2 takes good advantage of it.

Ummm, why is this conversation going on in an ADA group?

In any case VMS is superiour (sp?) in all ways to UNIX! so there!
(and he quickly leaves stage left)

Peace, 
Robert

Re: Unix Haters

[James McIninch]

morphis@fnalv1.fnal.gov wrote:
: In article <3160B659.D3B@mcs.com>, Mike Young <mikey@mcs.com> writes:
: >Robert Dewar wrote:
: >> 
: >> Dan Pop said
: >> 
: >> "In my book, one of the main charms is that Unix runs on almost any kind
: >> of hardware, from the most expensive to the cheapest PC (currently the
: >> Power Mac is the exception, but Apple is actively involved in a Linux
: >> port)."
: >> 
: >> That's wrong, Machten, a pretty complete system 5 port, runs fine on
: >> a Power Mac.
: >
: >======
: >Does anyone else find it odd that everything (it seems) runs on a Power 
: >PC, but not OS/2?

: no, OS/2 isn't on PPC for business reasons. 

You can get OS/2 for the PowerPC, but you must order it directly from IBM.
As far as IBM is concerned there's little reason to expend the money or
effort to market OS/2 for the PowerPC (since the most popular PowerPC
platform is the Power Macintoshes and few Power Mac hardware developpers
seemed interested in writing device drivers for Power Mac peripherals for
OS/2).


: 1)IBM wants to sell its unix on the PPC and would lose some unix sales 
: 	if they put OS/2 on it

Doubtful. For the most part, OS/2 really is poised as a desktop OS that is
more easily maintained by a single user. It runs a wide array of low-cost
(relatively speaking) off-the-shelf software. It has some very nice features,
but probably wouldn't be applied to the same tasks as AIX would be (at
least we use our OS/2 and UNIX boxes for very different uses).


: 2) IBM has a limited amt of resources they are willing to put behind
: OS/2, and have made the (IMvHO) wise decision to concentrate on intel.
: The P6 is a pretty hot little puppy and OS/2 takes good advantage of it.

True, and true. Though, to be honest, Intel is beating a dead horse with
their new CPUs. It's time to make some radical changes and dispense with
backwards compatibility (or, at least, provide a separate compatibility
layer for the CPU).


: In any case VMS is superiour (sp?) in all ways to UNIX! so there!
: (and he quickly leaves stage left)

  :) I have to admit VMS' RMS is pretty cool. Other than that...

Re: Unix Haters

[morphis]

 james@amber.biology.gatech.edu (James McIninch) writes:
>morphis@fnalv1.fnal.gov wrote:
>: In article <3160B659.D3B@mcs.com>, Mike Young <mikey@mcs.com> writes:

>: >Does anyone else find it odd that everything (it seems) runs on a Power 
>: >PC, but not OS/2?
>
>: no, OS/2 isn't on PPC for business reasons. 
>
>You can get OS/2 for the PowerPC, but you must order it directly from IBM.

True, but it is apparently like pulling teeth to get them to sell it to you.

>As far as IBM is concerned there's little reason to expend the money or
>effort to market OS/2 for the PowerPC (since the most popular PowerPC
>platform is the Power Macintoshes and few Power Mac hardware developpers
>seemed interested in writing device drivers for Power Mac peripherals for
>OS/2).

Hmmm, I hadn't heard this reason before.

>: 1)IBM wants to sell its unix on the PPC and would lose some unix sales 
>: 	if they put OS/2 on it
>
>Doubtful. For the most part, OS/2 really is poised as a desktop OS that is

It looks to me that with OS/2 server coming and the new bundling with Merlin
there is going to be some significant overlap in the near future.  In any
case the complaint in *.os2.* is that the AIX folks wanted the powerpc to
themselves... take it with a grain of salt

>: In any case VMS is superiour (sp?) in all ways to UNIX! so there!
>: (and he quickly leaves stage left)
>
>  :) I have to admit VMS' RMS is pretty cool. Other than that...

<bemused smile> that's interesting, most Unix based VMS bashers consider RMS
(file types in particular) to be a major liability ... clearly for hacking
around (that is meant in a positive way) Unix has certain advantages*, from
a system management POV I think VMS has some serious strengths... in between,
to each his own.

Robert

*disclaimer: the following is running at the mouth by someone who does more
lurking than contributing on comp.os.vms.

(by fall VMS will finally get pipes, I will be interested to see just how
they are going to implement them, it is amusing that VMS is more complient
with various UNIXish standards than some Unices... but in the real world 
if you want to port code that requires a lot of forking off of processes
the difference in process creation is so great that you are going to take
a big hit in performance moving from Unix to VMS)

Re: Unix Haters

[Teresa Reiko]

james@amber.biology.gatech.edu (James McIninch) wrote:

>: The P6 is a pretty hot little puppy and OS/2 takes good advantage of it.
>
>True, and true. Though, to be honest, Intel is beating a dead horse with
>their new CPUs. It's time to make some radical changes and dispense with
>backwards compatibility (or, at least, provide a separate compatibility
>layer for the CPU).

Well it they dispense with backward compatibility we would all have to
buy new software, and I suppose they would not pay for it!

------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Teresa Reiko    Chief Programmer, Tenbyte Software    tjr19@nwlink.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Unix Haters

[Ralf Graf]

In article <dewar.827955102@schonberg>, Robert Dewar wrote:
>"Unix's main charm is and always has been that it runs on cheap hardware."
>
>Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,
>and typically you find Unix only on high end machines, while the 99%
>of lower end machines are running other OS's (System 7, DOS, WIndows)
>
Wrong! They don't run an OS, they run Windows!!!

Greetings

Ralf Graf
*****************************************
* Using OS/2 Warp & Linux 1.2.13        *
* Location: Duesseldorf / Germany       *
* e-mail:   101611.2710@compuserve.com  *
*****************************************

Re: Unix Haters

[Philippe Verdy]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1082 bytes --]

dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) s'�crit :
> Robert said:
> 
> "> Another chuckle. Typical Unix systems today require skads of memory,
> > and typically you find Unix only on high end machines, while the 99%
> > of lower end machines are running other OS's (System 7, DOS, WIndows)
> "
> 
> For me, typical Unix systms = AIX, IRIX, Dec UNIX, HPUX etc. Lots of
> people rushed to say that Linux could run on small systems. True
> enough, but Linux is NOT a "typical Unix system"! 
> 
> It is also true that Unix once ran fine on 128K byte PDP 11's, but I
> am talking of a typical commercial Unix implementation, including X
> and Motif.
> 
You should include Sun (and compatible) Sparc stations in your
list. Prices for them is not very expensive as compared to
advanced configurations of PC (now some PC or Mac models are
much more powerful with Pentium or PowerPC than many Unix
stations sold only three years ago).

And true commercial version of Unix for PC exist:
you can use Sun Solaris 2.5 for Pentium or PowerPC
and use the same software as for many Sun Sparc stations.

Re: Unix Haters

[Alain Graziani]

At 05:21 AM 3/26/96 GMT, Wallace E. Owen wrote:
>In article <dewar.827685726@schonberg>, Robert Dewar <dewar@cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>>Tore reacted to
>>
>>"moi (moi@news) wrote:
>>: you must not have know how to use it at all. Or maybe you don't like the
>>: features that win95 and others are just now getting that unix has had for
>10+
>>: years. truth is.. unix is and will always be ahead of everything else.
>>
>>"
>>
>>Tore, when someone posts something like that, either they don't know what
>>they are talking about and should be ignored, or they are trolling. I
>>would guess the latter in this case :-)
>>
>

[snipped here]

>What was the first OS to permit
>mounting another computer's disks over the net? Unix, with RPC/XDR/NFS.
>Yes, it's now available for some other OS's but none integrate it
>so well.

I disagree!  From a user perspective, I think DEC's VMS OS is the most
elegant and mature way of integrating several machines of varying
capabilities.  System resources and disks are completely transparent to the
users.  System managers can (and freqently do) move applications and data
from one disk to another or across several disks without the users even
knowing about it.

>Unix is also probably the best non-proprietary OS, with fair standards.
>Compared with Windows NT/95 or OS/2 (Sorry to put OS/2 in the same category
>as Windows), you're not locked in to a small collection of hardware ven-
>dors.

I found that moving Unix apps and code between hardware vendors is not the
coompile-and-run system the vendors would have you believe.  There is no
real common Unix OS.  Sure Unix has the same feel but each vendor adds their
own features which could make your code just as un-portable as any
proprietary OS.

>There are several other firsts, of course.  These are probably the most
>well-known.
>
>I'm not saying that it's the best OS.  But it's good enough, and more standard
>than most.

I'll agree with that.

>I know that in the Ada world we sometimes get a little pedantic
>(All of us), so when something's not 'perfect' in some regard we get a bit
>peeved, and that 'C' got where it is today by being 'good enough'.  But
>until someone can point out a better OS available on all the platforms I
>use, I'll live with it.

Web browsers seem to be a good example of how an OS should work from a user
perspective.

>+-------------------------------------------------------+---------------------+
>| "I can see nothing, sire.", the bowman said.          | Wally Owen          |
>| "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked in a | VisiCom Laboratories|
>| fretful tone. "To be able to see nobody? And at that  | (619) 457-2111      |
>| distance, too! Why, it's as much as I can do to see   |       457-0888 Fax  |
>| real people by this light!"                           | owen@cod.nosc.mil   |
>+-------------------------------------------------------+---------------------+


Alain Graziani

Rocketdyne Division, Rockwell International
Ground and Test Support Software
International Space Station Alpha
graziani@gtss.rdyne.rockwell.com

Re: Unix Haters

[Robert I. Eachus]

   At 05:21 AM 3/26/96 GMT, Wallace E. Owen wrote:

   > What was the first OS to permit mounting another computer's disks
   > over the net? Unix, with RPC/XDR/NFS.  Yes, it's now available
   > for some other OS's but none integrate it so well.

   If we fail to learn from history... ;-)

   I don't really know how to answer this, since there are some
ambiguities in the question.  If net refers to the Internet, the
answer has to be either Multics, DEC-10's, or Honeywell 316's.  If
not, we can go a bit further back.  Most fault-tolerant computer
systems support, and have always supported cross-mounting of disks.
Tandem had this feature when the ARPAnet consisted of a few computers,
but IBM set many System 360s up this way when Tandem was still at the
IPO stage. (Disk drives were connected to two disk controllers, one on
each machine.)  NASA had four IBM 7094s which I think had cross
mounted disks, as did a pair of 7094s at Project MAC.  (And many 7094
computers used IBM 1401s as I/O controllers/devices but I digress.)
If you allow drums instead of disks, I think you can even add PDP-1s
--yes PDP-ONEs not PDP-11s--at Project MAC into the mix.  That gets us
back to, say, 1964.

   But let's go a little farther...  The Univac division of Remington
Rand built two LARC computer systems in the mid 50's. (One for Los
Alamos and one for the Navy's David Taylor Model Basin.) They
consisted of a high-speed binary computer and a decimal computer which
mostly did I/O and binary/decimal conversion.  How did they
communicate?  Via a shared drum.

   But that should come as no surprise...the first delivered product
from Eckhart-Mauchley Computer Corporation, the ancestor of Univac,
was the BINAC, a dual processor fault-tolerant computer.  BINAC was
originally purchased by the new US Air Force for use on board
aircraft.  Of course this was pushing the limits of both aircraft and
computers in the forties, but it did result in pioneering work on
shared I/O devices. ;-)
--

					Robert I. Eachus

with Standard_Disclaimer;
use  Standard_Disclaimer;
function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...

Re: Unix Haters

[Wallace E. Owen]

In article <EACHUS.96Mar27142328@spectre.mitre.org>,
Robert I. Eachus <eachus@spectre.mitre.org> wrote:
>
>   At 05:21 AM 3/26/96 GMT, Wallace E. Owen wrote:
>
>   > What was the first OS to permit mounting another computer's disks
>   > over the net? Unix, with RPC/XDR/NFS.  Yes, it's now available
>   > for some other OS's but none integrate it so well.
>
>   If we fail to learn from history... ;-)
>
>   I don't really know how to answer this, since there are some
>ambiguities in the question.  If net refers to the Internet, the
>answer has to be either Multics, DEC-10's, or Honeywell 316's.  If
>not, we can go a bit further back...
>
... Much deleted ...

These systems you describe all provided homogeneous proprietary
solutions.  NFS is a freely available standard that supports
heterogeneous collections of disk and compute servers.

BTW, this thread is getting a little far afield of the charter
for this newsgroup.

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Constructing a program is like painting a room.   A beginner at   |
| either will start in one corner and end in another, left there    |
| to discover just how important approach and technique, and ex-    |
| perience with tools and materials are in obtaining a good result. |
|   // Wally Owen, VisiCom Labs                                     |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
--
| "I can see nothing, sire.", the bowman said.                       |
| "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked in a fretful tone.|
| "To be able to see nobody? And at that distance, too! Why, it's as |
|  much as I can do to see real people by this light!"               |