Is UNIX An OS? 327
Technik~ writes: "An Editorial at Unixreview.com discusses David. K. Every's of Macweek assertion in his column that Unix isn't an OS. Read the original MacWeek editorial here."
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Is UNIX an OS?
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Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts which are unobtainable, and three parts which are still under development.
Of COURSE the guy's full of shit.... (Score:2)
Every's Right: Unix not an OS by itself. (Score:2)
Unix, asn an operating system, =can= be pared down to the kernal and a shell. At the core, this is the single unifying thread that runs between Ultrix, PyramidOS, FreeBSD, Slackware and MKLinux: a nugget of computer science concepts that can be universally recognized as "Unix". On top of that, daemons, shared libraries and programs ("services" in the article) are added to give any particular version of Unix its "flavor", making it useful for real work apart and aside from abstract programming.
Are Redhat and SUSE and Debian all linux? Yes. Are they all administered, operated, or tinkered with identical ways? No. Everything from RC script handling to default window managers can, and do, vary from one Linux to another. Even tho they are all considered "Unix" or "Unix Like", it takes more than Unix to make these distros usefull.
Unix is no longer enough to count as an operating system. It needs to be combined with other software to be made useable...like Linux distros or HP-UX.
This is the point DKE was trying to make. Most mac people regard an OS as integral to the user experience: the GUI is inseparable from the file system and networking services in the Mac world. Using this worldview, Mac OS X is its own operating system, and cannot be pigeonholed as "just another Unix" any more than AIX or NetBSD can. Does it have Unix at its core? Yes. Is it a Unix operating system? No. It is much, much more.
SoupIsGood Food
If you think about it, it's close to the truth (Score:2)
That doesn't make Every right (or is it Every right makes a wrong?), but he has a point. Linux, for instance, is an OS. But is the Linux kernel alone the OS? Not really, it's the kernel, GNU tools, daemons, and interface (whether just bash or the full KDE/GNOME GUI shebang) that make it into the Linux OS. Vendors may choose what goes into their particular version of the Linux OS, but they all do add to the kernel alone. MacOS X will also be an OS, but Mach itself isn't. Windows - well, who knows what that is, other than a blivet.
And I know this doesn't jibe with the textbook definition of an OS, but it's a practical definition for the non-academics.
- -Josh Turiel
A good test is. (Score:2)
Win98, Win95, and Win2000 are the same OS because they (almost always) run each other's programs. However, NT4 is missing DirectX, so it is not the same OS.
None of the BSDs are the same OS, since they aren't 100% binary compatible.
All of the Linux distros are the same OS.
Linux/KDE and Linux/GNOME are two different OSs. (Loading redundant libraries is only a notch above WINE or lxrun from a performance point of view, especially since lxrun runs near-native and RAM gets clobbered in the KDE/GNOME case)
Misc. Mac/Marketing comments. (Score:2)
Maybe. But think of the alternatives.
- Good (includes, but not just)+ open technology, good marketing
- Have we really seen this yet? I don't think so.
- Good tech, bad marketing
- Think of every company that had a brilliant idea and then went under - even lack of VC interest is poor marketing...
- Bad Tech, Good Marketing
- Don't even try to tell me that Microsoft's Marketing aren't extremely clued-up people - no one gets that much market share without someone knowing how to do their jobs.
- Bad Tech, Bad marketing
- Just sink like a stone, without trace
Let's face it - Apple's marketing, which was very good at one point (the nature of the market is changing - strong individualism isn't the main part of the market at the moment (just the geek market, and not the overall market)) has failed to adapt. But it was the fact that someone was good, somewhere, that we saw them at all.You can't really argue that the Mac wasn't/isn't an incredible influence on lots of things....
(For the record, before I get attacked for being a Mac user: My work machine runs Debian/Afterstep, and my home machine runs Win98 and Debian/Enlightenment)
Hard to read (Score:5)
--
An abstained vote is a vote for Bush and Gore.
UNIX an OS?!?! (Score:4)
(Actually, my cow-orker behind be just stated that it's actually probably a cult since it's not quite old enough to be a religion yet.)
- Some Id10t
Language as an impediment to understanding (Score:2)
It seems to have become commonplace to redefine words or to simply make words up in order to promulgate ones own view of the world. Then these new words (for a word with a different definition is a new word) tend to change everyone else's view of the world. This has been going on [memes.org] for quite some time, but now people seem to be explicitly using it.
Before long, all English words will have many various meanings that will no longer be understandable through context.
Whats to say... (Score:4)
Actually, there IS something else to say. This is a wee bit scary, the MS media amchien ash eben so successful it has managed to warp people's belief as to the meanings of words.
The mac week author shoudl do the following:
(1) Read Judge Jackson's findings of fact (he and his team did an EXCELLENT job of seperating OS for middlewar, the latter being what he thinks is missing from UNIX as an "OS".)
(2) Buy a decent machine organization text and read it (I'd recommend tannenbaum's, personally.)
When did Journalism stop being researched fact and become ignorant IMO???
Linux is not an OS, either... (Score:3)
considering Mac and Unix perspectives (Score:2)
While the cited articles both fall into the realm of flame bait (or at the least come close), the comments which I see posted here are failing to note the semantic disconnect between Every's original editorial and the responding editorial; this disconnect is due to the fact the articles were written for two very different audiences:
These two audiences will interpret Every's argument based on very different experiences with computers, and while I think that he has written this article poorly, he is at least trying to make an interesting point. Ordinary people, who do not value interaction with computers for it's own sake, are now the primary users of computer technology. For these users, the fundamental services of a computer are things like "email,web,word processing" - all in a familiar GUI environment. However, to the eyes of the Unix users, these are very high-level operations.
...therefore, Every's main point is:
I think that this conceptual divide only resonated with "the faithful" (i.e. Mac users) who had already internalized most of the articles's assumptions, and so were able to fill in the conceptual gaps in Every's (admittedly insufficient) explanation.So yes, the original article was an excercise in hairsplitting, but so are all but a few of the comments I see here (with a few exceptions: here [slashdot.org] and here [slashdot.org]) . Let the term "operating system" be defined by everyone's subjective computer experience and be done with it.
...parting words only indirectly related to the previous thoughts, and designed solely as flame bait: "Besides, why would I trust any Linux nerd's definition of OS? If the Linux community could define what an OS is, than the Linux Standard Base spec wouldn't suck."
Macho points for Unix users (Score:2)
Re:Linux is not an OS, either... (Score:3)
I expect that a whopping lot of people would not consider Linux, The Kernel to be terribly useful for terribly much. After all, it doesn't include:
- A shell such as zsh; [zsh.org] note that the notion of separating OS from shell was largely due to Multics, [multicians.org] where the command language [multicians.org] had its commands reference programs.
- A C library as an interface to programs, such as GLIBC [gnu.org]
- Some set of initialization controls as with init [sjsu.edu]
... And then the whole set of "user space" stuff, including compilers, text editors, file tools, word processors, and such... ... And if you want to do anything graphical, you'll be using something that is recognizably "not Linux," whether you use SVGAlib or XFree86.
It is entirely true that Linus and friends didn't implement much of this sort of stuff. In order to get anywhere, you have to be using GNU "stuff" of some description.The question of where the OS "stops," and where "non-OS stuff" starts is incredibly unclear.
It is not an outrageous thing to argue that Linux is "just the kernel;" that certainly does represent something that is recognizably associated with Linux, and most other components such as GLIBC, X11, GNOME, KDE, GCC, and such are decidedly not specific to Linux as they are used with other OSes of whatever provenance.
It is also not an outrageous thing to think that an "operating system" might include a bunch of additional abstractions that make it useful, which could well include GLIBC, X11, GNOME, KDE, and such.
I prefer to live in the "realm of ambiguity:"
It is a minimal OS, to be sure; note that you need the program loader, terminal controller, and ( whatever the INIT equivalent is) to have some semblance of a functioning system.
The author of the magazine article in question obviously holds to a dogma that includes some portion of the "GUI" as part of the "operating system."
I would contend that in a heterogeneous world with computer systems used for different things, there's not a good straight answer to this.
he's right - UNIX is not an OS. neither's Mac OS X (Score:3)
but then, according to his definition, neither is Mac OS. :) Mac OS too is just a "kernel". Hell, MAcOS X is just a kernel on top of a kernel on top of a kernel.. :
He's very proud of the "Utilities, applications and tools, including an e-mail package" which will supposedly help make users "productive", but what about the web browser? office suite? graphics program? Oops, sorry - Adobe, Microsoft, etc make those. So when you buy Mac OS X for business or for graphic art work you aren't productive right out of the box either. at least the unix versions are free.
if you want to get REALLY pedantic, define an Operating System as that which makes the System Operate. I'd define that as the hardware, software, and the user! I TOO AM THE OS.
he's right. By HIS definition, UNIX is not an OS. of course his definitions are double-edged swords - Mac OS X isn;t much of an OS either.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:/. is never afraid to ask the tough questions.. (Score:2)
Imagine if.... (Score:2)
Imagine if this yahoo was on the committee resolving the Microsoft case. Not only would Microsoft come out smelling like roses, they would come out looking like the Borg [theborg.org].
"Okay, Mr. Gates. You guys are free to go. Remember, though, that any software which you supply that makes a person productive is part of the OS"
Suddendly, the sky blackens over Redmond as the Gates-Master summons the demons of software absorption...
(Thunder! Lightning! Earthquake!) Suddenly, the Microsoft corporation building collapses upon itself, leaving behind an evil black presense: The OS Black Hole!!!
(dun-dun-DAAAA)
Slurp!! In goes Sun! sluurp!! In goes IBM! (boof!) In goes Novell, Red Hat, Macintrash! Intel, Cisco! Oh my! The horror!! The humanity!
Re:Whats to say... (Score:3)
It took me a few readings to realize that this wasn't some kind of laps into some kind of bastardized german...
Re:GUI This! (Score:3)
Generally, no. At least, they didn't used to. What the hell does a microwave oven need an operating system for?
Hunh? No, actually, almost all embedded systems have an OS, for exactly the same reason as any other computer having an OS - a centralized resource manager. Granted, in many cases, embedded OSes look more like DOS than *nix, which is to say, a handful of interrupt handlers and some startup/initialization code, but it depends. Remember that the UI for a microwave is only a tiny fraction of the code - there's also code to turn on the fan, optionally turn the rotary tray, modulate power to the microwave heating system, monitor the ambient temperature and/or thermometer for 'autosense' cooking, etc. It might well be sensible to put a multithreading OS inside a microwave so that your UI is a separate component from your systems controls, and if your UI gets screwed up your systems controls still shut the power off when they detect an erroneous condition and don't microwave the hapless user or burn out the microwave...
Note that embedded operating systems may well look like a single process, or a single process with multiple-threading... if you wanted to get semantical, you could argue that products sold as embedded operating systems are really 'template applications' and not operating systems at all, but then, the embedded world is just backwards that way. A better way of looking at it, is that the simplest embedded operating systems are modified by adding functional code directly to the kernel rather than having a separate application. (More complex embedded OSes have a tendency to look like unix plus or minus some system services... but those are more likely to go into factory control than a microwave... )
--Parity
Re:GUI This! (Score:2)
__________
Re:Not an OS? (Score:2)
My personal favorite part of this little snippet is this:
Memory management, so that applications have an area in memory in which to run, protected from other applications' bugs that might affect them.
That's odd, by that definition, MacOS 9 isn't an OS, and Unix is...
Mac OS? hah! (Score:2)
I used to argue that MacOS isnt an OS, with its lack of true kernel level multitasking, and its lack of kernel controlled memory allocation. The definition of an OS that I learned in college, required a modern OS to handle both memory management and cpu swaps (as well as networking, and threads)
I am looking forward to exploring OSX since it seems to have addressed these issues, and has the makings for a truely powerful and innovative operating system. It seemed that a merging of the power of bsd and the evolved GUI of mac OS would solve a lot of problems of both. Of course they only accomplished that by intergrating unix... which isnt an OS...
Re:Whats to say... (Score:2)
Cool, how did you get the paper clip to actually *talk* to you?
aww wook at the wittle mac evangawist (Score:2)
You know, there are plenty of hardcore mac enthusiasts out there too, who really appreciate performance and power. But as long as the community continues with people like this as their mouthpiece, the stereotype of the touchy-feely fuzzy-headed willfully ignorant flake will continue to stick. I have nothing against those who want their computer to "just work", and have it be aesthetically pleasing at that
Re:/. is never afraid to ask the tough questions.. (Score:2)
Re:User OS vs. System OS. (Score:2)
Of course the gratuitous (but obligatory) Windows remark neglects the fact that most UNIX systems utilize virtual memory as well.
Re:Misc. Mac/Marketing comments. (Score:2)
Excuse me, but when was this? As far as I can see, their marketing is more on target now than it ever was in the past -- just a little late in the day, no? Until they hired Jeff Goldbloom, their advertising seemed to bounce between electronic priapism ("Better! Faster!") and obscure pretentiousness (Do you believe that Gandhi would have used a Mac?).
My work machine runs Debian/Afterstep, and my home machine runs Win98 and Debian/Enlightenment
Now that trio is a set I would have a hard time switching between. I have been tempted by Englightenment (it's so pretty) but I was afraid that having all that functionality stuffed into my mouse would make it explode...
__________
Re:an os is not an os (Score:2)
If you're no longor holding the handle, then you have probably dropped the hammer on your foot, which at that point it becomes a fscking piece of @#$%. So, to answer your question, yes, a hammer is no longer a hammer if you are not holding the handle.
Re: Nader is a Communist (Score:3)
"My OS is better than yours"
"Mine is the only real text editor"
"Your mother is a communist"
"phurst poastttttt"
Communism is not inherently evil
Do not use the word as such
Its just been done very badly historically
Democracy has never fared well historically either
(and I hope you'll pass over the fact that I'm comparing a Political system to an Economic system)
but everyone here lives in their little "my government is omnibenevolent" world
back to the subject at hand:
I agree. Unix is not an OS.
Unix is a group of Operating Systems.
Solaris, Tru64, AIX, OpenBSD, NeXTStep,
these and many others are all Unixen.
If you'll excuse me now, I have to go
assemble my NeXT Station
Re:MacOS X sees Linux as direct competition. (Score:2)
if you enter ">console" instead of an user name at the login window, you get just to the core OS without any GUI. You can even start X-Windows from there :-)
There is only one good OS, MacOS, and the rest is crap.
This is Macweek after all. Windows pages don't even mention that there is something other that M$ Windows and if you double click on 'Internet' you get Internet Explorer, what else?
The author has a history of being wrong. (Score:2)
Go read that and spot the errors. He admitted in an e-mail that, yes the Pentium isn't a CISC machine as he was stating, but also refused to go change his text. (heaven forbid reality destroy his article)
He's got a history of being nuts. And, if you look back in the
Reaction to David's post [slashdot.org]
In short, nothing to see here, move along.
Re:Definition of OS (Score:2)
For the average user (i.e. non-programmer, since the majority of computer users are non-technical and couldn't tell RAM from ROM or VBScript from C++) is the traditionally command-line driven Unix system sufficient to make them productive? Most likely not. One of the major criticism of command-line based systems is that they are very difficult to learn and to use productively, especially for non-technical people. Thus, I feel that Every's assertion that the traditional Unices are not sufficient to make the average user productive is fairly true.
This is not say that "MacOS Rules!" and modern Unix variants suck. One of the major areas in which Linux is making progress is increased usability and less reliance on knowledge of obscure command line arguments. Ultimately, I believe, it is these types of improvements that will determine the success or failure of Linux on the desktop. I will admit, when I got my first computer (a Mac SE), the fact that it was trivial to learn how to use right out of the box was really important (especially to my parents, who are decidedly non-techical). When I was first introduced to Unix, I really disliked it, because it was difficult to learn. But, I stuck with it, and now I will likely not own another machine without a Unix variant on it. But for my parents, my Debian system would not be sufficient for them to be productive. For me, their Mac would not be.
Every's problem is that tries to use the wrong term, and gets pounced on as a result. I think what he is trying to say is that the 'insanely great' part about MacOS X is not that it is Unix, but that is has a powerful foundation and is aimed at making the average user productive. Whether or not that is true is a separate issue.
--Paul
Re:1st post to say the word "flange" (Score:2)
Hey moderators, don't waste your points moderating stuff like this down. It only encourages them.
__________
Re: Is UNIX An OS? (Score:2)
That depends. Is vi a word processor?
mang, you ignant. (Score:2)
if unix was just a kernel and a shell, i'd agree.
but "OS" is sooooo subjective. A secretaries' OS is far different from a medical device engineers' OS. Using "OS" in the way the article does is as prehistoric as Unix itself.
AFAIK, there are no versions of Unix on the market (I'm not counting one-disk routers and their ilk) that don't ship with masses of utilties, tools, user interface stuff.
This article would have been semi-interesting about 8 years ago; just tedious horse-whacking drivel now.
Re:User OS vs. System OS. (Score:2)
Except in this case it does mean virtual. As far as the program can tell, the computer has, say, 400 MB of RAM, while there is not that much physical RAM - hence it is "virtual RAM." From the program's point of view it is not "swap space" (that's merely a detail of the OS's implementation), it's just a lot of RAM (which happens to not physically exist). "Swap space" is what you call it when you want normal people to think you are a smart computer geek.
It's just like this guy who came on IRC once, when a new version of IE was out, and he urged everyone to download it. "So what's so special?" I asked. "Why shoudn't I continue to use Netscape?"
"Well," he explained to me. "There's this thing called 'favourites' - Netscape doesn't have favourites." Of course not. Netscape has BOOKMARKS. Netscape are SO behind on these things...
Some guy did that to me once, except his selling point was that IE did not crash within 3 minutes of viewing any page with Java applets. I switched. (I use Opera for most of my surfing, but IE for stuff that requires Flash, Java, or other things Opera doesn't support or supports badly. Netscape has been deleted due to its being a completely piece of crap).
And Java has programming patterns, and C is completely patternless. And Java has interfaces and a class can "extend" another class and stuff. It is SO much better than C! The kicker was the comment I once read, that Java is better than C, because there are no pointers in Java!
So you mean to tell me that implementing classes, inheritence, etc. in C is desireable (or at least just as good as using an OO language)? These features of C++ and Java are not "buzzwords," they're fundamental language features. By your argument "functions" are just a bunch of buzzword crap for an automated jmp.
All OS's. All different. Different GOOD. (Score:2)
The kernel, the shell, and services (and other basic tenets of the *nix OS) are certainly a lot more "bare" in the view of a Mac user. (I've used MacOS pretty extensively, as well as being an avid Linux user.) After all, the Mac OS as it is at the present has the Finder, extensions, icons, menus, control panels...a lot of the actual guts and such is really pretty hidden from the user.
With MacOS and Windows, so much comes "prepackaged" with the OS in itself, it's hard to draw the line anymore. Unixes (Unices?) make that a lot more clear, because once you have a kernel and a shell, you basically stick on it anything you want. Compilers, the X Windowing System, and whatever myriad of things you want to throw at it. Libraries, fun apps, utilities, whatever.
So it's not that MacOS types are a bunch of raving loonies who can't stand a CLI. And UNIX is most definitely an OS. They both control hardware and make it so humans can do things with it. They're just different.
Different is Good.
Re:User OS vs. System OS. (Score:2)
Re:Linux is not an OS, either... (Score:2)
This neglects the fact that all the free BSDs I know of use the GNU C compiler. To remove all parts of the GNU OS from GNU/Linux would require rewriting pretty much everything except the kernel.
Of course the FSF also neglects to mention that there's also a hell of a lot that's neither GNU nor Linux included in most distributions. XFree86, for instance, is completely separate but is included in just about every distro.
And you don't seem to understand that these are not part of the OS. An X Windowing System [catalog.com] is including in most distributions of the GNU OS (including both those running the Linux and in the future those running the Hurd kernels), but it is certainly not part of it.
Religion v. Cult (Score:2)
Re:Linux is not an OS, either... (Score:2)
Sure they do. It's just somewhat redundant, because the Hurd kernel is the official kernel of the GNU OS, so you can just call it the "GNU OS," or simply "GNU." Linux is the exact same OS but with the Hurd kernel swapped out for the Linux one, which is why the FSF argues GNU/Linux would be an accurate name for this hybrid.
Haven't I seen this before? (Score:5)
Of course, that's not saying that I'm right either. Stuff I consider mandatory in an OS may be optional as far as other are concerned. After all, as one of the graphics freaks, I think CMYK and Pantone support should be part of the base system, but others would disagree.
An OS is, and should be, what a computer needs to work. It doesn't need Internet support, so that isn't part of an OS. Sure, it's nice, and most people are going to add it right away, but it's hardly necessary. Whereas memory management, device handling (drives, vidio, printers), etc, are required.
Don't we know this...? (Score:2)
--
Look it up. (Score:2)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Missing the point (Score:3)
Is Unix an OS? This is like asking 'Is the x86 hardware architecture a computer?' No. It's a standard that defines functionality.
--
Definition of OS (Score:3)
A house is a house... (Score:2)
When you come down to definitions, what counts is the minimum necessary to call an OS a OS, and even CPM and earlier OSs fill that requeriment (can be called the interface between the hardware and the application programs, if still is needed a basic definition for that kind of journalist).
GUI This! (Score:2)
So embedded systems don't have OSs?
__________
Re:Misc. Mac/Marketing comments. (Score:2)
I can cleary remember, at school as a 15yr old using a Mac and thinking it was wonderful. Admittedly, this was in 1989 or so, and all I'd been previously exposed to was Apple ][e, Commodore 64 and similar era non-PC computers.
Putting computers like this within easy reach of those about to hit the real world, and getting them to form opinions while their minds were still flexible is marketing genius. Their follow-through, however, didn't track me when I moved into tertiary, and started learning about PCs.
Most PCs around this company at least, are local assembled vanilla boxen, bought on cost. Apple never really had a look in.
Re:UNIX an OS?!?! (Score:2)
God must be the devil, too, then. Remember Robin Williams' A Night at the Met, when we was talking about the Devil being God when he's drunk, and the platypus and Darwin?
Yeah, we'll take a terminal emulator, and add a scheduler. And then we'll toss in some memory management. Yo, Tannenbaum! Suck on this!
________________________________________
Re:UNIX an OS?!?! (Score:5)
Pardon my asking, but how exactly do you "ork" a cow? On second though, I don't want to know.
They posted something like this already! (Score:2)
http://slashdot.org/articles
Just for the record and my personal opinion
The answer is yes...ask anyone who really knows how a computer works.
Programmers need what to be productive? (Score:2)
Something that occurred to me...
Using this definition at face value, anything that comes without a programming language (since this is the least that a programmer needs to be productive) is not an OS. This rules out Windows 9X, Windows NT, Solaris and Mac OS from being an operating system (unless you count the command interpreter as a programming language).
So there.
Of course not... (Score:2)
No brower?
Not an OS...
Re:Defining Definition (Score:2)
I'm sorry, but I can't see what in the world the female genitalia has to do with the value of a penny.
Misguided (Score:2)
That's a pretty wrong-headed a take on the situation. By this definition, X-Windows + KDE/GNOME is an OS. Take it to the logical extreme -- later down the track, when X and your choice of desktop manager has become commonplace, calling them an OS would be "anachronistic" once more. At that point, I suppose XMMS, Netscape, or the Gimp become an OS.
What is an OS other than a set of components designed to provide a standard set of interfaces to, and services based on, the underlying hardware? It's certainly not a set of integrated graphics libraries.
My take on this nonsense (Score:2)
Here you've got a journalist writing articles intended for mac users. At one time, when macs were a viable platform, this might have been a worthwhile endeavor. But today your average mac user is either a zealot who bought into Steve Jobs' idea of macs changing the world and who still hasn't woken up, or a newbie who mistakenly consulted the first type of user before buying a system. What this means is most of the people in the target audience are either ignorant or stupid.
Lee Reynolds
Re:Well technically it's not (Score:2)
From the article:
"An operating system is the software that comes with a computer (or OS distribution) that programmers and users need to make themselves productive."
Basically this is idiotic bullshit so that he can crow that OS X is an OS but unix is not.
Apparently you no longer have to know ANYTHING about computer science to write OS articles.
.technomancer
Backwards argument (Score:2)
It's like me saying "A modern car must have a CD player built in", then going on to say "therefore a model T Ford is not a car."
We have to learn that the term "OS" is nebulous and wooly nowadays, since *nobody* agrees on what OS means. (I've been arguing for a while in the Dreamcast coding world, for a Dreamcast UNIX port to facilitate quick emulator ports to the platform. The number of lamer responses I get saying "Jesus, if you want an OS, get a PC" you would not believe.). Use "Kernel" when you mean it, use "kernel and utilities" when you mean that, and save on confusion all around.
--
Oops... (Score:2)
Here we go again! (Score:2)
Did we not already have a Slashdot story about this in the past??? Let's agree on this:
The "Mac People" say:
No, Unix is not an OS
The rest of the world says:
Yes it is.
Problem solved, move along...
Unix was FREE???? (Score:2)
So will EVERYone please stand up and tell me where they can (or could) get Unix for FREE? Those who voiced an answer, please remain standing ; an AT&T - Bell Labs - Lucent Technologies - whatever they call themselves now security official and lawyer will be with you shortly.
Unix was an AT&T product (or we paid them a bunch of money for nothing all those years ago......)
Spotteddog
isn't text graphical...... (Score:2)
Besides, what would the origonal mac-week guy say about batch processing operating systems? An os does not have to be as interactive as what were used to. Look at mainframes....there not going away (despite what we keep hearing)
Just my 2 bits.
Wonderfully PC (Score:5)
Every's reflections are indicative of the confusion Mac and Windows specialists must feel as they survey the changing state of the industry.
That's got to be the most PC way of calling someone an idiot that I have ever heard.
Re:Misc. Mac/Marketing comments. (Score:2)
True. But advertising is part of marketing, and the only part most of us see. So it's hard for me to cite examples of other aspects of marketing.
You seem to be saying that the Apple marketeers can take credit for the creation of the Mac. I don't buy that. That assumes somebody went out, looked at the marketplace and said, "We need a low-end GUI box!" Actually, I suppose somebody did do that, but they were one voice among many: at the same time, Apple was doing a high-end GUI system with a different OS and incompatible hardware (the Lisa), a non-GUI low-end system (][E and ][C), and a non-GUI high-end system (the ///).
Also, it seems to me that the success of the Mac was pretty serendiptious. Early Macs didn't really have the resources to really support a proper GUI: 8 mhz CPU and bus, 128 K of non-expandable RAM, no hard disk, and floppies that held only 400K each. Of course, this was the best they could do and still price for their target market. But trying to do a serious GUI on such a platform strikes me as wishful thinking.
My perception at the time (possibly faulty) was that the platform was kept alive less by the ease-of-use crowd than by people who needed a graphics display: artists, newspaper layout people, etc. They were doubtless bothered by the 9-inch display, but were scared off from DOS-based alternatives by cost and complicated, nonstandardized technology. (The October 18, 1989 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle was typeset on Macs -- their regular system went down the day before. [eqe.com]) Of course, this changed when Moore's law finally intersected this particular market, and allowed Apple's ease-of-use wonks to properly implement their ideas.
I guess Apple deserves credit for sticking behind an idea in the face of initial failure -- and for hiring a lot of bright people to sit around and think about what makes a computer easy to use. And selling machines to schools at a loss was also an interesting idea. But these things are driven by a fascination with technology and by a long-term vision -- not things you go to the marketing department for!
__________
Not an OS? (Score:5)
Messaging, a set of routines to help applications (processes) or parts of applications (threads) talk to each other;
Scheduler, to give the many applications (or parts of applications) some processing time to get work done;
Memory management, so that applications have an area in memory in which to run, protected from other applications' bugs that might affect them.
There are supporting elements on top of the kernel, such as drivers to help programmers talk to hardware, libraries to provide extra code functionality, and a set of commands (a shell) to enable users to tell applications or the OS what to do. But almost everything else outside the Unix kernel is considered a utility or something extra, not part of the core OS.
That makes Unix sound an awful lot like an OS to me. The author's main argument seems to be that since unix doesn't come with a standard GUI, it isn't an OS. This is so unbelievably wrong it isn't even funny.
Hairsplitting (Score:5)
It's like arguing that cars minted after the first four-wheelers are not horseless carriages.
They are, and it doesn't matter. We still use them.
The Gospel of Tux (Score:2)
Re:Whats to say... (Score:2)
- Read the MacWeek article.
- Read this [zdnet.com] reply to the MacWeek article
Maybe you'll be able comment then.--
Stupid definitions. (Score:5)
Wow, what a subjective definition! That means that my computer has no operating system, and most people I know don't have an operating system either, at least until they figure out how to use their computers...
Firstly, I *bought* my computer without an operating system; it had a BIOS and some blank hard drives. I did a network install of Linux, and I'm using it now to write this post. Incidentally, yes, Netscape Communicator was included in that network install. However, this isn't an operating system because, guess what, it didn't "come with my computer". Oh well, I guess I'll just have to surf the web without an OS.
But wait, it gets better! If I run Windows on this machine, it isn't an OS for *TWO* reasons; not only did it not come with my computer, but it also doesn't contain the productivity software I need! I mean, really, where's my C compiler? That goes double for MacOS; WHERE'S MY COMMAND PROMPT???
Therefore, by this argument, I'd consider a pre-installed Unix box the ONLY Operating System out there, at least for me. Now that I know that the definition is so subjective. I'm assuming that these boxes must be pre-installed at the factory or something, and must have the C compilers, word processors, etc., etc., all bundled in, because of course you couldn't install software LATER. That's just too hard...
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
Re:Oops... (Score:2)
User OS vs. System OS. (Score:5)
So yes, Unix is still an operating system.
Well if this is an OS ... (Score:2)
"An operating system," he writes, "is the software that comes with a computer (or OS distribution) that programmers and users need to make themselves productive."
Hmm lemme see i know a lot of business' that are fully productive with the Windows 2000 as it ships, the developers all use notepad and the DOS version of FTP and telnet while the sales departments type their invoices out manually using notepad and accounts use the powerful Calculator tool to work out the companys finances.
If only unix could provide such powerful facilities it would become an OS, does anyone have a few hours to spare to write them?
Re:Misc. Mac/Marketing comments. (Score:3)
True. But advertising is part of marketing, and the only part most of us see. So it's hard for me to cite examples of other aspects of marketing.
This distinction is important, and is often lost on people. I got involved in some flamage over IBM's handling of OS/2. (The perception among OS/2 users is that IBM didn't "market" the product, but the fact is OS/2 was the product of a shrewd, well-thought-out, and enormously expensive marketing plan that happened to fail due to events largely outside of IBM's control.) So, when people say that Apple's marketing was bad, they often meant that the commercials, but Apple's real marketing activities were horrible. Just as some examples:
+ The original Mac was supposed to be a $1200 "computer for the rest of us" Toaster (or a icon against totalitarian computing, depending). After QuickDraw and bitmapped graphics brought out some innovative applicaitons (the ease of use was less of a factor), Apple was selling Macs for $5000 to $10,000 to professionals within 3 years.
+ In the late 80s, they told their customers "Apple
+ In the early 90s, Apple spent millions of dollars trying to sell Macs to large corporations. Meanwhile, they forgot the basics like making Mac file/print-sharing compatible with Novell and Microsoft. End result: Far less Macs in large corporations now than in the late 80s.
+ In the mid 90s, Apple introduced dozens of nearly identical models in addition to licencing the OS to others to produce hundreds of other models. End result: Customers are bewildered, nobody knows if a 300Mhz 603e is faster or slower than a 200Mhz 604, and Apple Marketing can't even explain to Steve Jobs why somebody would want a 7600 over a 6500 over a 4400.
Apple marketing fixed itself mainly by cutting the number of models to a very small number, focusing on individual and educational sales, and getting the price in the same range as the compeition. The goofy cases and Think Different adverts were just the icing on the cake.
--
Re:Definition of OS (Score:2)
I'll note that not many people are actually reading the article this news item is about, but focusing on Every's comments instead.
Let me quote:
This is so well said, its sad to not see anyone else respond to it.
Unix is all about component architecture. Maybe not all about, but its been forefront in how Unix systems differ from others. When my dad first introduced me to Unix, his first comment was about piping commands' I/O together -- the fact that using multiple smaller and sophisticated programs together could do the same job as one monolithic program, if not as visually appealing.
Component architecture has appeared more recently with Corba and DOM, and nobody seems to give Unix credit for the background concepts. The fact is that the instantaneous bandwidth usage counter I use for our hosted domains is actually a string of several commands (grep domain from file, cut field out with bytes, sed out number and append "+", echo "p", pipe above through dc, grab output) is invisible to the user, but does the job fast and perfectly.
Non-unix people often seem to think that the above is not using a UI ... but it is. It may not be graphical, but its a user interface, and it suffices for my work. The things I don't do in a text window I do in Mozilla or GVIM. My GUI has made the web prettier. That's about it. Single keystroke commands (VI / Emacs) are still a lot faster than menus, if not as 'new-user-friendly'.
Ahh well ...
Sluts (Score:2)
My eyes aren't at their best after a full day of work, and for awhile there I was reading "Suits" as "Sluts." I was mildly confused for a time.
I'd have to agree (Score:2)
Hmm.. ya know, up until I read this comment, I was totally agreeing with everything people were saying about this Every guy being an utter moron.
But I have to concede here that UNIX is not an OS. Every is right that UNIX isn't an OS, but he assumes it for absolutly every wrong reason. It is accurate to say UNIX was an OS, but not anymore. At least, it is not one that a sane person would install on a modern machine. UNIX is not being actively developed. AFAIK, you cannot actually buy UNIX from any retail store or outlet. UNIX exists these days as a template for other (typically open sourced) OSes to follow as a good example of things done The Right Way.
The most important thing is, though, that the spirit of UNIX is alive and well thanks to the many derivitives and clones that walk in it's shadow. By saying "The UNIX OS," I'm sure Every meant "Any UNIX-based OS."
And that is where the confusion lies. Someone moderate the above comment up!
Re:`virtual memory' != `swap space' (Score:2)
an os is not an os (Score:2)
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
MacOS X sees Linux as direct competition. (Score:5)
All the article had a "MacOS X is a better OS because it has a GUI and many applications".
Well...
Maybe it's the fact that Linux is probably growing faster that MacOS is...
Changing def of an OS? (Score:2)
I will agree that the average view of an OS has changed, now the average user will stare blankly if they are asked what an OS is until one says "You mean like Windows?" Where the average user in the 70's would *know* what an OS is.
Does this take away from UNIX?
Outside of nomenclature, I don't think so. UNIX is what it is, regardless of what a fan of OSX says.
Besides, OSX must be an OS, it has OS in the name. Same as OS/2. The rest of the machines out there must be running something... but we just can't tell for sure from the name.
Following the authors discussion, do you think he would view Linux as an OS. If not, would a specific distribution be considered an OS?
These are good questions to think of because technology and terminology is being trickled to the masses. We have to be able to communicate with these people. Should we look at differing our def of an OS?
Oh, and another thing (Score:5)
"In the old days, monitors were simply devices for displaying text, images, etc. to us. That defnition has gradually fallen by the wayside. Nowadays, a monitor is that, plus a few post-it notes, a picture of your significant other, an optional troll doll and at least 4 toys that are important to you. Most models also come with one or two fortunes from a chinese restaurant."
Re:UNIX an OS?!?! (Score:5)
Every generation has a mythology. Every millenium has a doomsday cult. Every legend gets the distortion knob wound up until the speaker melts. Archeologists at the University of Helsinki today uncovered what could be the earliest known writings from the Cult of Tux, a fanatical religious sect that flourished during the early Silicon Age, around the dawn of the third millenium AD...
The Gospel of Tux (v1.0)
In the beginning Turing created the Machine.
And the Machine was crufty and bogacious, existing in theory only. And von Neumann looked upon the Machine, and saw that it was crufty. He divided the Machine into two Abstractions, the Data and the Code, and yet the two were one Architecture. This is a great Mystery, and the beginning of wisdom.
And von Neumann spoke unto the Architecture, and blessed it, saying, "Go forth and replicate, freely exchanging data and code, and bring forth all manner of devices unto the earth." And it was so, and it was cool. The Architecture prospered and was implemented in hardware and software. And it brought forth many Systems unto the earth.
The first Systems were mighty giants; many great works of renown did they accomplish. Among them were Colossus, the codebreaker; ENIAC, the targeter; EDSAC and MULTIVAC and all manner of froody creatures ending in AC, the experimenters; and SAGE, the defender of the sky and father of all networks. These were the mighty giants of old, the first children of Turing, and their works are written in the Books of the Ancients. This was the First Age, the age of Lore.
Now the sons of Marketing looked upon the children of Turing, and saw that they were swift of mind and terse of name and had many great and baleful attributes. And they said unto themselves, "Let us go now and make us Corporations, to bind the Systems to our own use that they may bring us great fortune." With sweet words did they lure their customers, and with many chains did they bind the Systems, to fashion them after their own image. And the sons of Marketing fashioned themselves Suits to wear, the better to lure their customers, and wrote grave and perilous Licenses, the better to bind the Systems. And the sons of Marketing thus became known as Suits, despising and being despised by the true Engineers, the children of von Neumann.
And the Systems and their Corporations replicated and grew numerous upon the earth. In those days there were IBM and Digital, Burroughs and Honeywell, Unisys and Rand, and many others. And they each kept to their own System, hardware and software, and did not interchange, for their Licences forbade it. This was the Second Age, the age of Mainframes.
Now it came to pass that the spirits of Turing and von Neumann looked upon the earth and were displeased. The Systems and their Corporations had grown large and bulky, and Suits ruled over true Engineers. And the Customers groaned and cried loudly unto heaven, saying, "Oh that there would be created a System mighty in power, yet small in size, able to reach into the very home!" And the Engineers groaned and cried likewise, saying, "Oh, that a deliverer would arise to grant us freedom from these oppressing Suits and their grave and perilous Licences, and send us a System of our own, that we may hack therein!" And the spirits of Turing and von Neumann heard the cries and were moved, and said unto each other, "Let us go down and fabricate a Breakthrough, that these cries may be stilled."
And that day the spirits of Turing and von Neumann spoke unto Moore of Intel, granting him insight and wisdom to understand the future. And Moore was with chip, and he brought forth the chip and named it 4004. And Moore did bless the Chip, saying, "Thou art a Breakthrough; with my own Corporation have I fabricated thee. Thou art yet as small as a dust mote, yet shall thou grow and replicate unto the size of a mountain, and conquer all before thee. This blessing I give unto thee: every eighteen months shall thou double in capacity, until the end of the age." This is Moore's Law, which endures unto this day.
And the birth of 4004 was the beginning of the Third Age, the age of Microchips. And as the Mainframes and their Systems and Corporations had flourished, so did the Microchips and their Systems and Corporations. And their lineage was on this wise:
Moore begat Intel. Intel begat Mostech, Zilog and Atari. Mostech begat 6502, and Zilog begat Z80. Intel also begat 8800, who begat Altair; and 8086, mother of all PCs. 6502 begat Commodore, who begat PET and 64; and Apple, who begat 2. (Apple is the great Mystery, the Fruit that was devoured, yet bloomed again.) Atari begat 800 and 1200, masters of the game, who were destroyed by Sega and Nintendo. Xerox begat PARC. Commodore and PARC begat Amiga, creator of fine arts; Apple and PARC begat Lisa, who begat Macintosh, who begat iMac. Atari and PARC begat ST, the music maker, who died and was no more. Z80 begat Sinclair the dwarf, TRS-80 and CP/M, who begat many machines, but soon passed from this world. Altair, Apple and Commodore together begat Microsoft, the Great Darkness which is called Abomination, Destroyer of the Earth, the Gates of Hell.
Now it came to pass in the Age of Microchips that IBM, the greatest of the Mainframe Corporations, looked upon the young Microchip Systems and was greatly vexed. And in their vexation and wrath they smote the earth and created the IBM PC. The PC was without sound and colour, crufty and bogacious in great measure, and its likeness was a tramp, yet the Customers were greatly moved and did purchase the PC in great numbers. And IBM sought about for an Operating System Provider, for in their haste they had not created one, nor had they forged a suitably grave and perilous License, saying, "First we will build the market, then we will create a new System, one in our own image, and bound by our Licence." But they reasoned thus out of pride and not wisdom, not forseeing the wrath which was to come.
And IBM came unto Microsoft, who licensed unto them QDOS, the child of CP/M and 8086. (8086 was the daughter of Intel, the child of Moore). And QDOS grew, and was named MS-DOS. And MS-DOS and the PC together waxed mighty, and conquered all markets, replicating and taking possession thereof, in accordance with Moore's Law. And Intel grew terrible and devoured all her children, such that no chip could stand before her. And Microsoft grew proud and devoured IBM, and this was a great marvel in the land. All these things are written in the Books of the Deeds of Microsoft.
In the fullness of time MS-DOS begat Windows. And this is the lineage of Windows: CP/M begat QDOS. QDOS begat DOS 1.0. DOS 1.0 begat DOS 2.0 by way of Unix. DOS 2.0 begat Windows 3.11 by way of PARC and Macintosh. IBM and Microsoft begat OS/2, who begat Windows NT and Warp, the lost OS of lore. Windows 3.11 begat Windows 95 after triumphing over Macintosh in a mighty Battle of Licences. Windows NT begat NT 4.0 by way of Windows 95. NT 4.0 begat NT 5.0, the OS also called Windows 2000, The Millenium Bug, Doomsday, Armageddon, The End Of All Things.
Now it came to pass that Microsoft had waxed great and mighty among the Microchip Corporations; mighter than any of the Mainframe Corporations before it had it waxed. And Gates heart was hardened, and he swore unto his Customers and their Engineers the words of this curse:
"Children of von Neumann, hear me. IBM and the Mainframe Corporations bound thy forefathers with grave and perilous Licences, such that ye cried unto the spirits of Turing and von Neumann for deliverance. Now I say unto ye: I am greater than any Corporation before me. Will I loosen your Licences? Nay, I will bind thee with Licences twice as grave and ten times more perilous than my forefathers. I will engrave my Licence on thy heart and write my Serial Number upon thy frontal lobes. I will bind thee to the Windows Platform with cunning artifices and with devious schemes. I will bind thee to the Intel Chipset with crufty code and with gnarly APIs. I will capture and enslave thee as no generation has been enslaved before. And wherefore will ye cry then unto the spirits of Turing, and von Neumann, and Moore? They cannot hear ye. I am a greater Power than they. Ye shall cry only unto me, and shall live by my mercy and my wrath. I am the Gates of Hell; I hold the portal to MSNBC and the keys to the Blue Screen of Death. Be ye afraid; be ye greatly afraid; serve only me, and live."
And the people were cowed in terror and gave homage to Microsoft, and endured the many grave and perilous trials which the Windows platform and its greatly bogacious Licence forced upon them. And once again did they cry to Turing and von Neumann and Moore for a deliverer, but none was found equal to the task until the birth of Linux.
These are the generations of Linux:
SAGE begat ARPA, which begat TCP/IP, and Aloha, which begat Ethernet. Bell begat Multics, which begat C, which begat Unix. Unix and TCP/IP begat Internet, which begat the World Wide Web. Unix begat RMS, father of the great GNU, which begat the Libraries and Emacs, chief of the Utilities. In the days of the Web, Internet and Ethernet begat the Intranet LAN, which rose to renown among all Corporations and prepared the way for the Penguin. And Linus and the Web begat the Kernel through Unix. The Kernel, the Libraries and the Utilities together are the Distribution, the one Penguin in many forms, forever and ever praised.
Now in those days there was in the land of Helsinki a young scholar named Linus the Torvald. Linus was a devout man, a disciple of RMS and mighty in the spirit of Turing, von Neumann and Moore. One day as he was meditating on the Architecture, Linus fell into a trance and was granted a vision. And in the vision he saw a great Penguin, serene and well-favoured, sitting upon an ice floe eating fish. And at the sight of the Penguin Linus was deeply afraid, and he cried unto the spirits of Turing, von Neumann and Moore for an interpretation of the dream.
And in the dream the spirits of Turing, von Neumann and Moore answered and spoke unto him, saying, "Fear not, Linus, most beloved hacker. You are exceedingly cool and froody. The great Penguin which you see is an Operating System which you shall create and deploy unto the earth. The ice-floe is the earth and all the systems thereof, upon which the Penguin shall rest and rejoice at the completion of its task. And the fish on which the Penguin feeds are the crufty Licensed codebases which swim beneath all the earth's systems. The Penguin shall hunt and devour all that is crufty, gnarly and bogacious; all code which wriggles like spaghetti, or is infested with blighting creatures, or is bound by grave and perilous Licences shall it capture. And in capturing shall it replicate, and in replicating shall it document, and in documentation shall it bring freedom, serenity and most cool froodiness to the earth and all who code therein."
Linus rose from meditation and created a tiny Operating System Kernel as the dream had foreshewn him; in the manner of RMS, he released the Kernel unto the World Wide Web for all to take and behold. And in the fulness of Internet Time the Kernel grew and replicated, becoming most cool and exceedingly froody, until at last it was recognised as indeed a great and mighty Penguin, whose name was Tux. And the followers of Linus took refuge in the Kernel, the Libraries and the Utilities; they installed Distribution after Distribution, and made sacrifice unto the GNU and the Penguin, and gave thanks to the spirits of Turing, von Neumann and Moore, for their deliverance from the hand of Microsoft. And this was the beginning of the Fourth Age, the age of Open Source.
Now there is much more to be said about the exceeding strange and wonderful events of those days; how some Suits of Microsoft plotted war upon the Penguin, but were discovered on a Halloween Eve; how Gates fell among lawyers and was betrayed and crucified by his former friends, the apostles of Media; how the mercenary Knights of the Red Hat brought the gospel of the Penguin into the halls of the Corporations; and even of the dispute between the brethren of Gnome and KDE over a trollish Licence. But all these things are recorded elsewhere, in the Books of the Deeds of the Penguin and the Chronicles of the Fourth Age, and I suppose if they were all narrated they would fill a stack of DVDs as deep and perilous as a Usenet Newsgroup.
Now may you code in the power of the Source; may the Kernel, the Libraries and the Utilities be with you, throughout all Distributions, until the end of the Epoch. Amen.
Written by Lennier [mailto]
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According to my Operating Systems class... (Score:2)
*sigh*...;)
Re:UNIX an OS?!?! (Score:3)
Until some other fad comes along.
I've been mucking about with computers since the early 80's. Every few years, there is a new thing where the new generation forgets what the old one learned, throwing it all out the window, starts all over again with something 'new', learns something, then the new generation comes along and borks it all up over again.
Linux is a fad. Linux is a religion. I feel sad very for you.
This is seriously ironic (Score:5)
This "not a real OS" is hardly suprising from a Mac diehard. How many developers have looked at the gigantic MacOS API and fled in terror? There are many reasons for the decline of the Mac (proprietary hardware, bad marketing) but the tendency to think that the OS has to do everything is my personal favorite.
__________
My Os (Score:5)
Just goes to show that emacs truly is an OS...
Normally I respect Every... (Score:3)
In this case, I fear he's trying to squash bugs so small as to be theological.
The fundamental question in this whole debate is, "Where does the operating system end and the user interface begin?" or "How much of the UI can you scrape off before the OS underneath becomes useless or breaks?"
Microsoft's assertion all through its monopoly trial was that anything that made changes to the operating system (or DLLs that it relied upon) BECAME part of the operating system, or as they called it, 'integration.' I can see the reasoning behind it, but I don't necessarily agree with it. (The ham sandwich is a different matter -- can InstallShield remove mayonnaise?)
I can also see the reasoning behind Every's statement, though I can't quite agree with it. An OS without any sort of interoperability ceases to be the central authority of the computer and instead becomes 'that thing what makes the disk go around.' You might as well shut off at that point, because the system isn't going to do anything but make whirry noises.
The line between OS and the cruft that makes it more like a 'computer' is somewhere in the middle, and depending on how you like your semantics, it could end up being anywhere in the middle. It could include file-copying services, file browsers, multimedia services, or not.
The question much on my mind now is, "Is this really important??" The answer I come up with is "No!" , but obviously others feel it's worth arguing. I'm a little stunned that Every said it because of the wiggly nature of the argument. But then Joe Casad just had to respond, and I expect there will be much Mac-bashing before this thread is expired.
Sigh.
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Re:Linux is not an OS, either... (Score:2)
the only fair thing to do is to include only the most distinctive name, which is that of the kernel, Linux.
linguistically speaking, there is something else going on: things are not named out of "fairness" (cf. mankind includes women... heck, the word woman contains the word man) but by convention. There doesn't need to be a reason to call something by a name, just a need that communities agree on names, which in this case has been agreed to be "linux".
And we care because ... ? (Score:2)
(Ahh, that first rant of the day feels so good.)
Defining Definition (Score:3)
In mathematics, once something is defined, that definition holds until someone can prove that something is fundamentally wrong with the assumptions on which the definition is based. (Or until the end of time, which ever is sooner.) For example, a graph has the specific definition of a set of nodes and edges. (Don't remember the exact wording.)
In language, once something is defined, that definition may change based on how people use it. Change takes place very slowly, but it occurs. The only example of this that I can think of at the moment is vagina, which was originally a slang term literally meaning the sheath of a sword -- the proper name for that part was c*nt. Obviously, this has completely changed.
Computer Science falls into a weird place. CS was originally a branch of mathematics (the study of algorithms) -- remember that it existed before computing machines. The programming part came later. Now it's possible to "do computers" without doing math. There's still a historical relationship to math, but most modern computing is less about math and more about business.
So the question here is whether we're looking for a mathematical definition of an OS, or a linguistic (contextual) definition of an OS. Mathematically, Unix is an OS -- it's a layer of abstraction between the base hardware and the applications that run on the hardware. (There's probably more to the definition than that.) Linguistically, I would argue that most people expect an OS to be more than that. You sit someone down in front of a Unix console, they'll look for icons.
Perhaps the mathematical level of abstraction has be become too much of an integral part of computing. As far as most people are concerned, the OS *is* the computer -- hardware doesn't mean as much any more.
No OS for Big Iron ? (Score:4)
Right on (Score:5)
Re:Whats to say... (Score:5)
"Evil beware: I'm armed to the teeth and packing a hampster!"
Re:Well technically it's not (Score:2)
Latin is not a language: it old, barely used and there are other languages that use parts of it to better effect
The Abacus is not a computer: Sure it computes numbers just like computers do today but it is old and no longer used... and it can't play EQ
The UK is not a country: it is just a has been empire upon which some of the world's super powers (US, China, etc...) have spawned from and is now old and useless
Bacteria are not life forms: Well yes they were the first life forms on the planet, and yes all the other life forms on earth have arisen from them through evolution. but they are old and obsolete now and pretty much useless now.
give me a break
Just silly... (Score:2)
/. is never afraid to ask the tough questions... (Score:2)
How many times has this debate come up? I can remember at least 3 specific instances over the last 6 months...
My OS, your kernel + shell.. (Score:2)
Just a kernel with some services (Score:2)
And I quote:
So, I beg you David, please define an Operating System as something that the above does not fulfill.
Sure, there are plenty of things a Mac may do inherently that, say, the Linux kernel does not, but this is simply being ignorant of how a Mac's OS structure works and what its hiding from you.
In the case of Windows 3.1 and in the case of Linux running XFree86 (for two examples), the user is made aware (at least at first) that the GUI is a seperate application interfacing with the base kernel functions, not an integrated piece.
Ask any kernel programmer though and you'll find out that this is simply a design decision, not an inherent shortcoming. Micro-kernel operating systems take this a step further and sometimes make everything a loadable module, right down to your memory and disk sub-systems. Are these "applications" that are loaded (automatically) on boot-up, but can be unloaded and replaced, simply applications running on a kernel that isn't an operating system?
Unix, in some forms, may simply be a shell on a kernel offering services. In that state, it provides a human interface to hardware devices and allows me to run any form of software I wish (I just have to write it in some cases ;-). As such, it is a complete operating system. It does all the low-level work, not I.
Incidentally, I guess Mac OS X won't be an Operating System anymore ... what with its new layered structure involving an overhauled *nix kernel with a translation system and a GUI running on top of that (all hidden from the user) ...
On the same note, I guess Corel Linux really is an operating system, since after installation you come straight into a GUI and can click and drag and do whatever you want without realising all these application services are running behind the scenes.
BSD Kernel (Score:2)