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Cacodemon345

What do you think of the Unix and Unix-like OSs?

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I like them as they offer access to the more underlying parts of the hardware they can run on, but the library linking schemes they provide by default sucks. There's the problem where they like to ship with case-sensitive filesystems (sometimes as default) that can be annoying as hell. But the GUIs they provide are better than what Windows ever offered in terms of design (excluding Windows 7 as I liked the Aero Glass design and maybe Windows XP as I liked the themes it offered) and the POSIX APIs are much more IPC-friendly.

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I think it must be a good OS for people who interesting about development IT and smth else.
I'm using Linux if you want to know. Stayed on Ubuntu.

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Growing up with DOS, case-sensitivity threw me off at first but now case-insensitivity seems like madness to me.

 

I quit Windows about three years ago. I still find the Unix directory structure cumbersome and I dislike constantly having to type incredibly long paths, and I don't see how the Unix multi-user/mainframe model is appropriate for modern computers that I use by myself. And trying to learn how to get something done using either man or --help gives you a crushing haystack of information to sift through.

 

But basically I'm a low-key Linux zealot. I became increasingly disinterested in computers with every version of Windows after XP. I've only used Windows 10 a few times and I found it offensive. My first install of Ubuntu reawakened my love of computers.

 

Now I run Lubuntu on my laptop, Debian Jessie on my Pi, and Debian/LXDE on my phone via UserLAnd.

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It's a matter of perspective really. First there are people who are or are not 'power users' (let's say developers fall into the power user group for the sake of argument), then you have have the level of experience which affects what could be said here. And also, the amount of money people are willing to spend. Let me give you an example: A crappy laptop versus a room full of old and new equipment/circuit cards.

 

I have had an entire old stock pile of circuit cards, and my opinion is most people are probably sissys who could afford more than a laptop, but won't because they are scared or something.

 

Imagine the sissys are 10 times worse over a decade: You used Unix and didn't barf.

 

 

 

 

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I'm a bit ambivalent. While on one hand a global standard is good, I'm not really sold on Unix for that. It's simply too old and too many of its core concepts are, for better or worse, from an era when computing was very different from what it has been for the last 25 years.

 

I find it also very interesting that the only mainstream GUI OSs based on Unix variants that were successful (macOS, iOS and Android) only managed to do this by hiding their Unix roots as good as possible.

 

As for its internal APIs, I think that POSIX is even worse than Win32, again due to its age. In Windows, most functions have at least self-describing names while large parts of POSIX are utterly cryptic.

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11 hours ago, Aaron Blain said:

I still find the Unix directory structure cumbersome and I dislike constantly having to type incredibly long paths..

 

You can press tab to autocomplete those....

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3 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

I find it also very interesting that the only mainstream GUI OSs based on Unix variants that were successful (macOS, iOS and Android) only managed to do this by hiding their Unix roots as good as possible.

Apple did a clever job hiding the Unix roots of macOS by basing it off NextStep OS and making the containers a primary method of bundling the apps. I wish that container part was adopted by Linux and BSDs, because it would help a lot with the current open-source desktop situation that Linux and BSDs suffer from.

 

iOS and Android was made so that all devices would ship locked down by default to prevent the user from modifying the internal parts of the OS, but you can see how well it actually worked...

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4 hours ago, Master O said:

 

You can press tab to autocomplete those....

I know, but still, you're going so many levels deep all the time. It's a small gripe. I use GNU/Linux whenever practicable.

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Unix/Linux (especially Linux) systems seem to be the default go-to choice when you want to make any operating system that isn't Windows. Seems that Windows is the single odd one out, thanks to Microsoft and Bill Gates's persuasive business power. Based on my experience with *nix (is that how you call Unix+Linux in general or am I misusing the word?), Windows is overall the more complicated system, especially given that it's largely closed source and filled to the brim with compatibility legacy layers (which is a good thing).

 

As for what exists in practice regarding *nix:

  1. macOS and Android are good for personal computing because they're backed by large vendors. They're as stable and well maintained as Windows. Of course macOS is crippled by lack of useful software. Android is touchscreen-centred and does its job well, though it's less convenient to program on than iOS. Maybe it got better lately as I haven't programmed on it...
  2. So far on desktop I've almost always used Ubuntu and varieties (e.g. Xubuntu). Other distros, such as vanilla Debian, are too annoying to set up (I don't even get sudo access). But even Ubuntu is annoying and inferior in some details, compared to both Windows and macOS. It's a free best-effort system anyway, it can't be that great in quality. There's little stuff such as having to fix "fstab" so that the second hard disk is mounted on startup (so that DropBox which is installed there works), which is shit I don't need to deal with on commercial platforms. Also, it has happened too many times that upgrading Ubuntu was suicide for the system! I would get some terrible errors during installation, and when I'd boot I'd start with a black terminal screen and stuff such as apt-get not working. And recommending me to install the system fresh, especially something which upgrades twice a year, is ill advice. I don't want my files and user settings to be disrupted like that.
Edited by printz

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21 minutes ago, printz said:

Unix/Linux (especially Linux) systems seem to be the default go-to choice when you want to make any operating system that isn't Windows. Seems that Windows is the single odd one out, thanks to Microsoft and Bill Gates's persuasive business power.

 

 

I think the major reason for Windows's success was what you list below as "a good thing": backwards compatibility. When the world transitioned from CLI based systems to GUIs, there were lots of incompatible solutions - but there was only one that could interact with DOS - Windows 3.x - and then Microsoft made a very smart move: Instead of forcibly migrating their user base to their new and shiny NT kernel, they instead build another system - stripped down for better DOS compatibility, so the users had time to adapt. And at that point the competition had lost the game.

 

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31 minutes ago, printz said:

Also, it has happened too many times that upgrading Ubuntu was suicide for the system! I would get some terrible errors during installation, and when I'd boot I'd start with a black terminal screen and stuff such as apt-get not working.

I usually prefer a clean install when upgrading a Linux/BSD distro.

 

3 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

but there was only one that could interact with DOS - Windows 3.x - and then Microsoft made a very smart move: Instead of forcibly migrating their user base to their new and shiny NT kernel, they instead build another system - stripped down for better DOS compatibility, so the users had time to adapt. And at that point the competition had lost the game.

Microsoft also made another smart move by porting a lot of Windows 98 consumer-focused tech into the Windows NT 5.0 and named it Windows 2000. Their Windows ME OS bombed hard as well, and plenty of people went by assuming Windows 2000 was an upgrade to the consumer-line Windows 9x and went ahead. This forced DOS out of the mainstream market and the Windows XP upgrade path was easier to endure for people running Win2k.

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I started reading Sanglard's Wolf3d book recently, and the difficulty of DOS programming fills me with respect for the games of that era. I was vaguely aware of some of the difficulties created by DOS's backwards compatibility, but it was vastly worse than I ever realized.

 

But, is it the verdict of history that this was in fact the right choice?

 

I assume there are analogous reasons for Unix-likes to still carry around so much of the 1970's, but it's also a little surprising that the open-source model hasn't given us more of a fresh start.

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On 7/28/2020 at 8:44 PM, Aaron Blain said:

Growing up with DOS, case-sensitivity threw me off at first but now case-insensitivity seems like madness to me.

 

I quit Windows about three years ago. I still find the Unix directory structure cumbersome and I dislike constantly having to type incredibly long paths, and I don't see how the Unix multi-user/mainframe model is appropriate for modern computers that I use by myself. And trying to learn how to get something done using either man or --help gives you a crushing haystack of information to sift through.

 

But basically I'm a low-key Linux zealot. I became increasingly disinterested in computers with every version of Windows after XP. I've only used Windows 10 a few times and I found it offensive. My first install of Ubuntu reawakened my love of computers.

 

Now I run Lubuntu on my laptop, Debian Jessie on my Pi, and Debian/LXDE on my phone via UserLAnd.

The Unix multiuser model applies to Windows NT/XP/7/8/10 as well, and considering how important the enterprise market is and has always been to the PC and how extensively enterprise uses multiuser, it's not going away.

 

14 hours ago, printz said:

 I don't want my files and user settings to be disrupted like that.

Have you tried making a separate partition for your home directory? That way if the rest of the OS goes kaput, you can reinstall it but keep your home directory (and thus your user files and settings) intact.

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8 hours ago, Woolie Wool said:

Have you tried making a separate partition for your home directory? That way if the rest of the OS goes kaput, you can reinstall it but keep your home directory (and thus your user files and settings) intact.

 

Strangely enough, I still have to find an operating system where this doesn't cause some sort of problems. It seems that too much software out there runs under the assumption that all mission critical data and the OS have to be on the same drive.

 

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4 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

 

Strangely enough, I still have to find an operating system where this doesn't cause some sort of problems. It seems that too much software out there runs under the assumption that all mission critical data and the OS have to be on the same drive.

 

Maybe they're using the naive rename CRT API (and any direct derivatives) to move files around?

 

Anyway @Woolie Wool's suggested workaround and @Cacodemon345's admission are proof enough that the system doesn't "just work" and needs caution from the user.

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The fact that Linux/BSD compiler toolchains link with the system libraries by default makes distributing standalone software more problematic. Even in the BSDs you generally only link with the base system libraries if you don't want trouble brewing, and even then they suffer from having generally outdated libraries for users to deal with and you will be responsible for such problems if the locally-linked libraries get ABI issues.

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7 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

 

Strangely enough, I still have to find an operating system where this doesn't cause some sort of problems. It seems that too much software out there runs under the assumption that all mission critical data and the OS have to be on the same drive.

 

That's very strange because Unix is specifically designed around the idea of those things being on separate filesystems, and being able to hop among many filesystems as if they were one. I have not yet had any problems with the Arch Linux setup on my laptop where I have my home folder not only on a separate partition but on a different type of filesystem (I wanted to play with ZFS. I haven't had any problems with it but it hasn't made anything work better either).

 

3 hours ago, printz said:

Maybe they're using the naive rename CRT API (and any direct derivatives) to move files around?

 

Anyway @Woolie Wool's suggested workaround and @Cacodemon345's admission are proof enough that the system doesn't "just work" and needs caution from the user.

I frankly don't trust systems (software, hardware, or whatever) on PC that hide useful functionality because the default setup "just works". With a platform as diverse as the PC, nothing can ever be expected to "just work" all the time. BTW, I have considered moving the home folder on my Windows PC too, because I am running very short of space on C:\ and Windows too has been known to occasionally destroy itself updating. PCs are not and cannot be foolproof, which is why people who don't want to mess with their computers are rapidly getting rid of them in favor of Chromebooks, tablets, etc.

 

E: wow the procedure for moving your users folder in Windows is terrible. You have to right-click on individual directories and move them, but you can't completely relocate your home folder. You can't even move AppData at all even though that's frequently the largest subfolder. Contrast to Linux where can you just copy your entire home folder somewhere else and remount it with a few simple console commands.

Edited by Woolie Wool

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31 minutes ago, Woolie Wool said:

I have not yet had any problems with the Arch Linux setup on my laptop where I have my home folder not only on a separate partition but on a different type of filesystem (I wanted to play with ZFS. I haven't had any problems with it but it hasn't made anything work better either).

Rolling Linux distros are different from other non-rolling Linux distros in that you gonna upgrade your shit everyday.

 

33 minutes ago, Woolie Wool said:

E: wow the procedure for moving your users folder in Windows is terrible. You have to right-click on individual directories and move them, but you can't completely relocate your home folder. You can't even move AppData at all even though that's frequently the largest subfolder. Contrast to Linux where can you just copy your entire home folder somewhere else and remount it with a few simple console commands.

You don't move your Windows home folder; you instead keep all of your files and shit on a separate volume.

 

At least damaging your Windows user with a file delete command requires you to be conscious (and Windows will not allow you to simply delete the WINDOWS directory from File Explorer; I can confirm this from my experience with Windows XP). In Unix it is far more easy to miss that "dot" symbol when deleting the current directory and that can damage your Unix installation if you're root by any chance (which is precisely what happened with me when I was trying to delete a folder inside my EFI partition).

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5 minutes ago, Cacodemon345 said:

In Unix it is far more easy to miss that "dot" symbol when deleting the current directory and that can damage your Unix installation if you're root by any chance (which is precisely what happened with me when I was trying to delete a folder inside my EFI partition).

That's why I'm reluctant to ever use "rm". It's stupidly easy to use. I either have a "trash" tool installed, or go to the graphic file manager and "delete" from there to the trash. Once, I mistyped rm instead of mv, so fuck it.

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Quote

Rolling Linux distros are different from other non-rolling Linux distros in that you gonna upgrade your shit everyday.

That has nothing to do with what I was talking about.

 

Quote

You don't move your Windows home folder; you instead keep all of your files and shit on a separate volume.

I have three hard drives on my Windows computer with programs and data. But the AppData folder is full of configuration, cache, etc. files generated by all of those programs and it cannot be moved as far as I can tell, it just sits on C:\ getting bigger and bigger and bigger over time.

 

Quote

At least damaging your Windows user with a file delete command requires you to be conscious (and Windows will not allow you to simply delete the WINDOWS directory from File Explorer; I can confirm this from my experience with Windows XP). In Unix it is far more easy to miss that "dot" symbol when deleting the current directory and that can damage your Unix installation if you're root by any chance (which is precisely what happened with me when I was trying to delete a folder inside my EFI partition).

You can't seriously damage your installation unless you delete system files in /usr or the like. Unix-likes intentionally make it difficult to do this. Deleting a dotfile in your home directory can be annoying when you have to reconfigure a program that has reset to default settings, but it's not the end of the world.

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41 minutes ago, Woolie Wool said:

You can't seriously damage your installation unless you delete system files in /usr or the like. Unix-likes intentionally make it difficult to do this. Deleting a dotfile in your home directory can be annoying when you have to reconfigure a program that has reset to default settings, but it's not the end of the world.

This does not mean it is not a problem. In my case, I nuked my entire EFI sytem partition, leaving me with only OpenBSD to boot (I use a MSI). And I was glad I didn't mount the Windows partitions RW, else I would have to reinstall it.

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How the hell did you do that? Do you just type "sudo rm -rf" commands without thinking? You should not type sudo anything without thinking let alone mass deletions.

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Just now, Woolie Wool said:

How the hell did you do that? Do you just type "sudo rm -rf" commands without thinking? You should not type sudo anything without thinking let alone mass deletions.

Again, I said I was trying to delete a folder in the EFI partition (which I can't really access without root).

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2 hours ago, printz said:

That's why I'm reluctant to ever use "rm". It's stupidly easy to use. I either have a "trash" tool installed, or go to the graphic file manager and "delete" from there to the trash. Once, I mistyped rm instead of mv, so fuck it.

 

I typically try not to use rm either, and use an alias to rm in interactive mode:

alias erase='rm -i'

It is of course possible to alias rm to "rm -i" directly, but this isn't a great habit to rely on. Logging into another machine or as another user would revert rm to its default behavior.

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