Skip to main content

Linux has arrived

When I first saw Linux in a dorm at MIT in 1995, I knew it was important. I wanted desperately to have an extra computer to put it on and learn it. Like most students I used my University's Unix main-frame for email to which I connected remotely from various computer cluster or labs across campus. Unix was completely different from windows or Mac OS, command line driven and was where the internet was. Back in those PC days the internet ran almost exclusively on Unix, if you wanted email, you had to use it.

Linux was an Operating System that allowed you to run a Unix shell clone on your personal computer instead of a huge mainframe or through a terminal. It was both great because it was completely configurable and free, but also a nightmare. You had to know a lot to really use it, and essentially needed an extra computer for it.

Around that time the internet moved away from Unix and into the web, and browsers. Netscape and Internet Explorer became the prime ways of interacting with the internet, and the necessity of Linux waned.

In the early-oughts I discovered something very cool. That Linux was now able to dual boot, so you could have it side-by-side Windows. This was great. I'd used the NeXT OS (NeXTStep) which later became the basis of Mac OS X and knew that Linux was a way to learn about the underlying system of Mac OS too. The more I looked into Linux with now easy-to-configure and free distributions like Fedora (Red Hat's community version) or openSuse (Novell Suse's community version) the more I thought this was going to take off big. As a person who has never pirated an operating system I feel the expense of getting one as quite significant.  And I thought the model of open source would lead to great software.

And it sort of did. Linux came to dominate Servers. The computers that run the internet, displacing the previous Unix main-frames. But in the user space it remained marginal. Even with Ubuntu's massive success, it still remained in the fringes. But no more.

Linux and BSD (another open source Unix clone that lies at the heart of Mac OS) dominate the tablets.

Amazon's Kindle runs Linux, HP's WebOS is Linux, Google's Android is Linux, and Apple's iOS runs Mac OS (which is build on top of BSD, and very similar to Linux). So while none of this systems allow user direct access to the system OS, that I think will be a matter of time.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Medieval Economics can teach us about tariffs.

As a teen, I used to play Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) with my friends. This started an interest in the medieval period that led to me taking a medieval history class in college just to understand the period more. Over the years I've also read great books like " Dungeon, Fire and Sword " about the crusades (I recommend the book) and yet with all that knowledge it wasn't until recently that it occurred to me I had a completely wrong understanding of economics in the Medieval Period. "Viking helmets, sword and footwear" by eltpics is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 In my D&D games, players who are adventures battling monsters and creatures would need equipment and on the trips to town, they'd get resupplied with their adventuring necessities. I'd run these moments referencing my imagination of what it must have been and fantasy books I'd read. There be an inn with a raucous bar, a gruffly black-smith, if a city also a weapon and armor sm...
Post a Comment
Read more

Great iPhone Apps

As a companion to my blog on Windows utilities, here are two paid apps on the iPhone that I consider so fantastic that are must buys in my opinion. -Easy Calendar ( $1.99 ) The iPhone Calendar is one of its weakest features in my opinion. I miss the clear Black Berry calendar on my pearl whenever I had to use it. This app makes the calendar not only easy to use but way more useful, I see my week laid out for me with an easy ability to push things to other days (rather than having to re-enter the appointment). This app has completely re-made the way I organize things. I'm way more organized and rarely miss appointment now. This app is a steal at it's prize. No other app adds such simple functionality to the iPhone like this one does. It's like my secret organizer helper. -Sleep Cycle ( $.99 ) I tried out this app because it was recommended on Tim Ferriss's books . I had seen this app before when it came out and thought it was intriguing, but it was way expensive. N...
1 comment
Read more

Indie Games

I've played a few really great indie games recently and would like to share a bit about them. None of these games are brand-new and all are available in both Mac and PC versions. 1. Aquaria Aquaria is a gem of a game for those that loved the original metriod games. In Aquaria you play a young mermaid creature that decides to explore her world beyond her home waters. In doing that you guide her through many adventures that reveal a bit about her world. The game is visually beautiful and the game mechanics, though simple, are very nice. You can play the whole game with a mouse if you wish though gamepads are supported too. In the game you access special abilities by singing different songs. It is a neat concept.  The game was made by an indie outfit of mainly two people out of Canada. But it feels much more than that. It's very big like an underwater version of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, with multiple treasures to collect and many secrets to uncover. It is available for ...
Post a Comment
Read more