[ale] Difference between UNIX'es

[Jeff Hubbs]

Glenn -

I'm flattered, especially considering that I have no commercial UNIX
experience (my other OSses are NT and VMS).  But, my experience with those
two maps over to commercial-UNIX-land pretty well.  I agree with your
"flavour of unix (small u)" thought.

I also had occasion to sit in on a presentation by Sun at the home office of
my previous employer.  This was a "seducing" presentation with the overall
message of "no one else can f*** you as good as we can."  The funny thing
was, we had already signed on the dotted line for seven figures, so the
presentation came off to ME as "OK, you've gotten US off already, now we're
gonna talk for an hour and a half about how we're gonna get YOU off."  Linux
barely entered the discussion, but actually, it was Sun who brought it up,
interestingly enough.  I was a good boy; I held my tongue even as they
dissed NT

Anyway, I digress.  Knowing how to discuss this particular point regarding
UNIX/Linux is important because it's one of the first topics that will come
up when talking with the unfamiliar.  It will make a big difference
psychologically if your answers demonstrate that you know the story.



-----Original Message-----
 From: Glenn C. Lasher Jr. [mailto:critter at wizvax.net]
Sent: Monday, November 22, 1999 7:58 PM
To: Jeff Hubbs
Cc: Kalin Nakov; ale at ale.org
Subject: RE: [ale] Difference between UNIX'es


I like this response, it is detailed, and gets deeply into the
philosophical matters of difference between Linux and other Unices.  I
appreciate the point that Jeff is trying to make about Linux not being a
variant/subset/superset of UNIX, however, although the philosophies and
actual guts differ, Linux is essentially the product of
reverse-engineering UNIX, and I consider it to be a flavour of unix (small
u) when put together with all of the GNU goodies.

More to the point, however, I think that Kalin might have been more
interested in the practical at-the-keyboard differences, in which case, I
would be inclined to say that I have used a large array of unices (my geek
code contains 'ULAVH+++$' for those who understand geek code) and I find
that in actual practice, Linux is the easiest of the OS's to operate, what
with the incoropration of command line completion, editing and recall.  I
sorely miss these features when working with the DEC^H^H^HCompaq servers
at work.  Linux is far superior to any other unix flavour with which I
have worked.  

It is also smaller.  I have been able to make practical use of a cast off
'386 with 4MB of proprietary RAM (ergo, upgrades are impossible) and a 200
MB HDD.  Not only does it work, it works well, and it is reasonably quick.
I use it for a banger box (it is luggable) when making roadtrips, because
unlike a laptop, you can't kill the thing!  It only makes sense that a
machine of that ruggednes should have an operating system that is equally
rugged, n'est-ce pas?

It is also the only decent flavour of unix I can afford to have on my home
machine.... exclusively.  I don't do Windows.  What other operating system
offers itself, with a decent-sized user community, in the under $100
range, and thus frees you from Bill the Gates?


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