I once had a mentor and asked him what os he preferred. He answered "they're all trash". And i think that's what you're really angry about. Linux isn't magic. It just allows you to go fix it yourself.
This has pretty much always been my response. All operating systems are flawed, its just a case of picking the one with the least flaws for your use case.
it's always funny when out of touch and insulated computer programmers wax on peotic about how superior their thinking is meanwhile literally not empathetic at all to any other user........ I hear this logic all the time in app development, usually from some of the worst software ever produced
I haven't had to write or download drivers and recompile a kernel since around 2006. Linux may be bloated by default now (as distributed), but it's pretty darned convenient. Of course my systems aren't as tiny as shown here.
The list of gains is getting pretty slim now. The most taxing thing I do on Linux is video editing. Then I remember Jurassic Park and Terminator 2 were done on Unix machines back in the 90's. Hardware is the only thing that really improved. A Silicon Graphics workstation cost more than a house.
I mean the software has certainly improved too in those kinds of vertical niches, even Blender is light-years ahead of anything available on those 90s SGI workstations for 3DCG. Ditto FCPX and Resolve for video editing. But at some point you have to decide what's creatively important for you and in that sense I think a lot of these older, "antiquated", battle tested, elegant systems (forgotten or not) really shine IMHO.
To be honest I did not get anything out of this video and was surprised when you said congratulations to making it to the end. Well, I did learn there are stats that allow the creator to know only 30% make it to the end. I'll add a little more. I use Linux Mint in much the same way as I used Unix back in the 80s. Except I have a browser that can play videos in the background while I edit away.
You don't need Python to blink an LED or nor do you need to run Linux on a Raspberry Pi. And the main reason people run Linux on modern hardware is that it has drivers and applications. If any of the BSDs had better hardware drivers, BSD wouldn't be a retro-niche hobby.
Hardware drivers are the #1 problem for all niche OSes, especially when it comes to open source GPU support which ended somewhere around the 3dfx Voodoo era almost 25 years ago. Having no access to these resources even though the cheapest notebook today could run OpenGL 4 in hardware basically kills every effort to create an alternative to Linux.
My main beef with running linux on everything and the kitchen sink is that certain things *should not need to boot an OS*. Like, I got a pump as part of my heatpump system, all it does it pump liquid through a pipe. It has a screen and a jog-wheel and a sticker on it that says: "Boot time < 1 minute". Yes, it needs to boot, and it uses some bloated UI framework for what is essentially just configuration of whether you want to control the pump via a digital input or an analog voltage. That's insane. That's not a linux problem though, it's a problem with the engineers who designed this.
BSD is the basis of Darwin underlying MacOS, as well as the basis for PlayStation, etc. This is really more just a problem of proprietary vs open source.
To me the funny-haha thing about 'linux bloat' is that, waaay back in the day Unix SVR2 at the time was considered 'bloated' compared to V7 or the soon-to-be linux 0.x, even though SVR2 fit happily on a 'massive' 120Mb Maxtor Xt1140 (for an Intel 286/310, a zippy 8MHz 80286) or a VAX 750. At least with V7 or even SVR2 (particularly with the Maurice Bach book) you could conceivably understand the whole OS at once. Good luck with that with any semi-recent linux, or audit it for security flaws, a process I've endured professionally. I wrote device drivers on that '286 to read 4 track reel-to-reel tapes containing digitized data recorded, quite literally, on the bottom of the ocean. Good times.
@@charlesdorval394 I think so. 'Blame' my dad for that, taking his bored and wet-behind-the-ears teenaged kid to work to slum with graduate students and snarky engineers ;) We hand-built instruments on wire-wrap boards, sealed them in spun aluminum spheres filled with dehydrated nitrogen, whopping 12-bit IM6100 (PDP-8 clone), recorded 3 axes of seismograph channels and one hydrophone channel with spiffy 12-bit ADCs. Throw them in the ocean to sink on steel weights, then release up to a month later with explosive bolts commanded by acoustic pings. Wrote a 'streaming bit editor' (in Fortran-II(!) and later C) as the data came off the tape without start/stop framing (bits were expensive in the '80s) and tape was lossy, so you had to have a way to resynchronize the blocks. Though at some point it's all "uphill both ways with snow above my head", but it sure was uh.. formative ;)
I enjoy all your videos, but I enjoyed the last 2 or 3 in particular because you clearly articulated some differences b/wn Linux and Plan9 which really helped to understand some of the philosophical differences b/wn the two- thank you.
I don't get the RPI LED part.. you install ONE python library: sudo apt-get install python3-rpi.gpio and then you can use it in python GPIO.output(18, GPIO.HIGH) for C: sudo apt-get install wiringpi then digitalWrite(18, HIGH); You could also directly address the memory if you want to. You could also flash a costum C-FW onto the RPi ..
The context is, I picked up a Raspberry Pi at Fry's, went to the website to read some tutorials, and the intro stuff is pretty high up the stack. It is telling that the latest Pis are aiming more towards a desktop replacement. I did find the closer to the metal stuff, but usually you start at the bottom and work up, not the other way around.
@@adventuresin9 You don't even need a python library for that. You can go with the gpio driver in linux, that exports things to /sys/class/gpio/ (at least that works on other linux-based arm/mips boards). But you'll need to tell the gpio subsystem on linux to export needed IOs into sysfs. This is generic interface, you can get any GPIOs that have driver in the system. You can also get direct access via memory, that would be _much_ faster, but that would require addresses/etc and permissions. All in all - I do not understand the complaint about the Pi. PS. I scripted that stuff on openwrt to read some sensors
Shout out to all the people in this thread who are crying about how vanilla GNU/Linux is no longer an operating system that can fit on one or more 1 MB 5.5 inch floppies.....because this is totally still 1993...right ?
Not it is not. But I used, I think Freesco distribution, back in early 2000s (up to ~mid 2000s)? And it ran my dialin server just fine. Fit on a floppy and had a menu setup program too.
I think that you are harsh with some of the points. Linux is a great kernel for most apllications it is used for. Plan9 is also no longer actively maintained? Isn't that a bigger issue than most of the Linux mentioned issues?
Plan 9 from Bell Labs is no longer worked on, the same as Unix. 9front is the predominant continuation, most importantly with support for more current hardware.
Great to hear others pointing out the flaws with the current linux situation. My channel focuses on the performance differences (which you did a great job of explaining). Just added your channel to the Featured Channels list on the WizardsAnonymous home page. Happy Holidays. :)
I've never been super into the Unix philosphy of doing one thing and one thing well, mostly because one thing means different things to different people. While sharing data using file descriptors is fine, and I assume necessary on the kind of hardware Unix was developed on, it also makes stuff you run often take significantly longer than writing all the functionality into a single binary that just passes pointers around. But in some sense, the Unic philosophy still lives on, because sharing your code as libraries is more common now than it used to be from my understanding. Installing new packages on modern languages (sorry C and C++) is easier than ever, and by using the libraries you can get the philosophy (the library does one thing well) and the speed benefits (passing pointers in one process), which to me seems like a win overall. Not saying your perspective is wrong, but I don't think modern desktop Linux is in a bad state at all.
There are advantages to running everything in a big binary. But once you stop making syscalls, you have to ask, what do you need to OS for? I forget the name of the project, but a university to a thing where they wrote a network service to run basically bare metal on right the the networking hardware, pretty much as it's own OS, and it was much faster. With all the cores and virtualization in modern hardware, that might be the future of big binary type apps.
@@adventuresin9 Yeah for some specialized applications it makes sense to run directly on the metal, but for a general purpose OS it makes sense to support both the small and big programs. I like having a browser open when I program for reference and questions, amongst other tools (pdfs, music players) which would not be possible without an OS afaik (or bundle everything into one binary but jesus christ that's too much in one binary). I'm not saying I don't appreciate the smaller binaries doing one thing well approach. For example I use Neovim to code and then launch Fish inside a neovim window to run commands (or use the vim command line directly), which would not be possible (or probably worse) if both Neovim and Fish were huge, resource-intensive binaries. I just think that insisting that the "do one thing and do it right" part is the best way to do software is, at best, not what people want to use or code nowadays. That does not make one way better or worse, it just makes them different. Obviously not what you want though, and that means it's great that stuff like Plan9 exists. From what I've seen on your channel I would not want to use it but I still find it interesting.
When people started that meme, the bar was set at using it to check you email and do typical chores. And that is exactly what everyone now uses Android for.
Hello friend! I agree with the sentiment that some parts of what you call linux are bloated. what I'm specifically curious about that wasn't mentioned in the video is what kinds of improvements you'd like to see and how you suggest to go about doing them. Looking forward to such suggestions in the future!
I use Plan 9 because the people who came up with Unix fixed a bunch of the issues using Plan 9. And that was in the 1990's. There are some old spots in Plan 9 that could be addressed. I think the narrow "monitor, mouse, keyboard" system for graphics and input is behind the times. Touch screen and multi-touch pads are very common now.
On android you actually use multiuser capability because each application (unless author use shared id) run under separate user account. It like your app vendors are unix users, hardware vendor is root and you allowed to consume multiple concurent services sharing physical device in your hands and not over POTS.
I just google for screen shots of early Gnome and KDE. 1:33 is Gnome desktop, but I'm not sure on the WM. It looks familiar, and I'm sure I used it at some point, but the name escapes me.
Caldera only ever shipped KDE, so it's definitely not Caldera. This particular GNOME looks like it's from 2001, so it's probably any of Slackware, Debian, or early Redhat 7.x
Yeah, I managed to hit the half-way point before my twaddle buffer overflowed. For crying out loud you don't need Python to use the Pi's GPIO pins. And if you don't like the batteries included approach of the stock Pi OS why not download the Pi release of Tiny Core Linux weighing in at 54 MB? Is that really too bloated and complicated for you? Also, while praising OpenWRT you also remark that Linux wasn't chosen by a router company because it was the best tool for the job. Which begs the question, what software would you have recommended they use instead? Etc, etc. The type of hacking you enjoy is up to you but I must say your Linux arguments per se are remarkably unconvincing. (I use tomsrtbt, BTW.)
I love this idea and I agree with every point you're making, but what if I need some programs that just aren't available and that I couldn't possibly remake myself? I would really like being able to make music with my computer for example (though there's many other things)
I don't fault anyone who just wants a computer to do some task. Not everyone needs to learn how to code. The upside of coding though is you get to make programs closer to your ideal. And for 9Front, there are some audio workstation projects people are working on.
If you want to use instruments through any Native Instruments plugin, you have to run Windows or MacOS. That said, NI has actually been really good about NOT letting developers withdraw or discontinue their products in such a way that they stop working for the people that already have them.
I've tried all of the operating systems you mention in this video except plan9 so I was hoping you were going to explain why I should check it out but you didn't. I can't imagine it being any use for me and I'm a fan of niche computing. Can I get any modern browsers? mpv? vim? I can't imagine there is any plan9 specific software that can compete with the big boys of Linux software.
My personal pet peeve is that maintainers for whatever reason demand everyone have same version of libraries that they have, completely ignoring everyone else. You need run python app? it's always written for the version that you don't have, and then it pulls 50+ packages I don't have any means to verify. You want updated LibreOfice? Sorry, you glibc is too old for that, you need reinstall your OS. You want latest Chromium? Same issue, you need reinstall OS. It's just easier to install Windows and use same apps there, on some reason they work on 20 years old Windows but refuse support 5 years old Linux. BTW, still using few SunRay 270 with OL6, it just works and those 18 years old displays are way better anything I've ever seen. But there's practically no apps left that support OL6.
on relatively new Linux you probably can use appimage/flatpack but yeah ... as maintainer of cinelerra-gg (NLE with convolved history) I feel each library update - sometimes something just started to use new c++ standart, or some new build tool, or assembler (nasm), or boost/python/gcc changed in some way working yesterday setup breaks today ...
except no 32bit support for win11 now. Also isnt it your fault for using a notoriously outdated distro like debian or ubuntu? There are many many examples on windows where they refuse to support older systems like windows 7 you are cherry picking answers
@@brice.rhodes Define outdated please, what makes distro outdated? My favorite OL6 is insecure because I have to run 5 years old insecure Chromium on it, not other way around.
This is among others the reason for which I am using Gentoo. It is not perfect, but many of those version mismatches are mitigated by portage emerging highly volatile packages into different slots.
@@piranhaofserengheti4878 If nobody bothers to support your system because newer versions exist, you're outdated. You can't really blame 5 year old chromium for making your decade old system insecure. OL6 is on extended life support that will end in a week. If you can't move on, then I'm really sorry for you.
long live slackware 3.4.. back when dial-up was king and disk sets were the way to do things. Thanks for these videos, they are quite fascinating and if you are looking for some haiku videos.. action retro is a HUGE haiku person.. with other things too.
I honestly don't get one of your criticisms. You ridicule Linux for being used by tech companies, but then recommend BSD, which has been appropriated by Apple to power their various proprietary and locked down operating systems... Honestly, that's just what companies do. They extract profits from everything they can get their hands on. If another FOSS OS starts to overtake Linux in terms of usefulness, the same thing will happen to it too. The only thing you can do to fight back is to use GPL licenses and force them to share their changes.
I think companies have found the dividing line that allows them to use some FOSS core, and then layer their private stuff over that for the user interaction. I think people imagined the line would be up at just closed source applications and free everything else. But Android and Apple have shown the trend to be closed all the way down to a minimum of "some of Linux" and Darwin.
@@adventuresin9This isn't a technical problem though, it's a social one. If you want to make that not happen, that's what the legal system/political advocacy is for.... at least in theory. But the reason companies do this isn't technical, it's because they stand to benefit from doing so.
I think the reason people wouldn't consider android and ChromeOS Linux, and part of the Linux desktop described in the "year of the Linux desktop" meme. Is because of those things you mentioned. Linux might not be the exact same as it was back in the beginning, though it can be you will need to do Linux from scratch if you really want to avoid getting stuck in how a distro does things. For people that don't have a more niche use case. Linux does still do things in a Unix way. You still are chaining together commands to run a desktop especially if you are setting things up in an xinitrc. Really even if you are using a display manager, just most people aren't actually adjusting which programs get started in the script with that. And the kernel is still starting an init system which then runs commands chained together to get the system to the point where you are in a tty. For a person that, wants what Unix/Linux provides, I personally find Gentoo is a good middle ground for me. Realistically it gives you more choice in how to do things than 99% of users will ever want to take advantage of. But still can make things easy enough for anyone to run if they are willing to read.
What differences you see between any .*BSD and any Linux distro? Do you work with them in any different way? I work regularly on both, and from a terminal standpoint, cannot tell the difference really. I only see the diference when trying to install 3rd party software. One has it, the other not.
I know someone that prefers bsd because it's easier to code for. Linux has a multitude of distributions that do things slightly different. So to deal with all differences takes a lot more work.
The BSD's have better documentation, but that mostly stems from not being so fragmented. They do a better job maintaining code style standards in the kernel, making it easier to read. Linux takes code from a ton of companies now, and the differing styles can make it hard to follow stuff. In an ideal world, code written for either system should just compile on the other, both being Unix clones.
@@drooplug Don't understand, there are almost 20 different BSD distributions and each one have slight diferences too (Some very big ones). Is like saying I prefeer bikes over cars because cars have brands. Bikes have brands too. Just pick one you like.
Eventually Moore's law will become expensive and hardware constraints will matter again. Until then, it's too easy to write shitty code that does something useful that nobody has done before (or it was proprietary, or forgotten)
No-one will admit this, but for the kind of small projects one does on a raspberry pi, the best OS is something small that's easy to ignore when you don't want it in the way: the old school PC BIOS, or rather some ARM port of it. A super thin abstraction layer for interrupt handling and device drivers, some basic memory management, a cheap file system and a simple program loader (the last two are technically DOS, though). But the current thing is Linux so that's what everyone tries to cram into their projects, even if it's total overkill and your gadget is mostly running Linux instead of doing whatever your project needs.
Yah, I'm not a fan of all the choices they made. I'm hoping they just stick to the few they have picked up and help polish them, rather then just pick up every flavor of the week.
I relate so much to how you feel. I've been bouncing between macOS, Linux, Windows, and BSD for years and nothing feels like it was designed to be understood. I hear of the "unix days" when you could just chain a few programs to do stuff, then I look at my "modern" kde 6 arch install with systemd and 2000 other packages and I can't even begin to fathom how someone could just *know* about all of this stuff... I do web dev in C# and node with a side of python fo Christ's sake! I should know about looking up docs, dealing with bloat, and handling insane package managers! How did they manage to make it feel even more convoluted! I grew up with Linux, and I feel completely clueless today. Even stuff like the main file system structure has changed since then *and none of this stuff is explained anywhere*. You just have to *know*! Clearly the worst timeline.
I'd love to see an in-depth series on Inferno. Since you mentioned the Sunray clients, that's the very use case for Inferno, if I remember correctly. And it's a descendant of Plan 9. EDIT: Ah, to hell with it-I'm off to play with MenuetOS
I used Linux since the 90s, but I did try Plan 9 and Inferno in the early 2000s. Inferno actually was only dynamic linking on a VM (a bit like Java), and I didn't like it at all. I liked Plan 9 when it had the 8 1/2 window manager, but when they made Rio, they may have added some performace, but they lost the abstraction of the screen mouse and keyboard being properly abstracted. It's clear that Docker is basically the next iteration of what Plan 9 started, but graphics and sound really need some love in all of these iterations.
This is definitely "old man shouts at cloud" territory..! 😆 I started with Unix on AIX too, then shifted to Linux in the halcyon days of the 90s.. So what's the alternative? Linux is what you make of it, - if you just need a basic DE to run your scripts and tools, have at it, - the tools are there for you to source and compile. Yes it takes more, because it's 30 years of growth and change and evolution. You said it yourself, "back in the day" - time have changed my man.. we're old.. only going to get older..!
While OS/2 wasn't the savior... it was headed in the right direction: A secure, resilient, single user, platform for running your programs. Personal Computing. I'd like to see OSFree get some traction, but that's a pipe dream. Linux is trying to be everything to everyone, and that's not all bad. Gentoo IMO is the right direction as far a Linux goes, but it's definitely not accessible to most users. In the meantime, I'm not going to fault Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora for being more accessible to users who are leaving Windows and even more importantly Mac which has had a sinister and disappointing resurgence in the last 10 years. Microsoft is an obvious evil, but Apple is the real wolf in sheep's clothing.
why is Apple "the real wolf in sheep's clothing"? Would love some insight into this take as i completely disagree with it but would like to educated on it if there is information i am lacking. form my POV Microsoft has always been and remains the true evil player in this game. *buying all the platforms and services and FOSS to bend it at its will, investing in openAI and training models on people's work, introducing spying tech into their OS that constantly monitors your activity.....etc etc etc* the list goes on and on and this is just from the more recent microsoft trends. not to mention all the history as well
@@256k_ It's a fair question, but it basically boils down to their ecosystem's ideology; a tight integration of hardware and software. But the sinister part is that Apple postures themselves as a luxury brand as well... so you get this weird intersection of technology, which should be about efficiency and empowerment, being elevated to a luxury/status symbol that is explicitly exclusionary. From a strictly hardware perspective I'll admit that they do a good job at having quality displays especially on laptops, when the PC space is price driven as a race to the bottom. But I don't find MacOS particularly compelling as an operating system. I don't like the Apple tax, I don't like the walled garden, and I especially don't like the reality distortion field.
Ranting is fun! I agree with all of the above, especially the free stuff, as in beer and HAIKU comments. I feel that I, and probably many (?) others, learn and tinker on 'their' machine, meaning the desktop computer used to browse the web. When you think about operating systems that allow you to watch technology rants on RUclips, your options are limited. I'm really excited to see Firefox ported to HAIKU (sorry, porting apps again) because it will allow many of these desktop nerds to switch and work on something new. HAIKU also focuses support on RISC-V, an entirely new dimension for nerd excitement.
Your point is valid, and I wish more developers went after graceful simplicity than whole stacks of libraries and platforms to run basic things. However, it's not going to change. People have needs, and the simplicity offered to "amateur" developers to get things going and working are too attractive to pass up. The world is getting more complex both because of the complexity of the stacks being run on the software side, but also due to demands by non-tech people that use tech. It's a catch-22, and it won't be solved. It's nice that people with your mindset are around, because we still do need this sort of thing, but, in the grand scheme of tech, you're a dinosaur and things aren't going to regress into simplicity in the foreseeable future.
I think that my first Linux experience was on a 486SX. Later, my oldest and I put together a 386DX 40. CLI only, and even then, it was slow. I custom compiled kernels for transparent firewalls for several years, before netfilter became a default in distributions. I understand the frustration, trying to fit things into small systems, having written some custom software in x86 ASM, way back when. If I were working on the kinds of projects you are, I would probably go the same direction. However, I work with servers these days, so I will stick with Linux Mint, as I can test code on my desktop or laptop, that can just be dropped on the Ubuntu servers. I also want a system that I don't have to customize to be able to get my work done. Install a few needed applications, and away I go. I think that installing updates took longer than installing the software I needed for the lastest desktop build.
Wow, I was still on DOS/win3.1 on my 486sx. I ended up landing on Linux Mint myself. It does the job good enough and works well with my Window muscle memory.
Hard to disagree. I'm of a similar vintage and the only thing that has made me happy since around 2000 is Nix, although that isn't useful at all for embedded stuff.
Exactly! Why the hell should we have to install an entire language and libraries just to blink some damn lights or set GPIO pins on and off? In the 80s I programmed a Z8 microcontroller and just used assembly to drive a whole bunch of pins and read the RS232. Took me a couple of weeks to learn the whole thing, learn to program the eproms. The excess complexity is complete madness.
@@fhunter1test Fair enough! I haven't had a Pi for a long time now. I bought one when they were a pretty new thing and I wasn't yet familiar with GNU/Linux or Unix or systems programming. I was just learning C and I got this thing expecting I'd somehow be able to directly access the pins like when I was a kid programming 8-bit controllers. And everyone and everything seemed to be aimed at getting me to be a) afraid of memory leaks and b) to use Python or Javascript, or Processing if I wanted to be artsy. And I was so pissed off. I guess my old resentment made me write before I gave it a think. Still, the whole tutorial scene - it's like they assume nobody wants to know anything about the hardware they're hobbying with. You'd think memory leaks were physical leaks of some kind of corrosive fluid that might burn your skin, the way they warn newcomers away from low level stuff. Sheesh!
You might want to give RedoxOS a try. It's a different animal to Linux entirely. It's not quite the same idea as with plan 9, but it's made by people who are very well aware of what drives developers and engineers up the wall. Plus ever since the infamous Ted Tso outburst, I think it's increasingly clear who lives in cult... ;)
I have been keeping on eye a RedoxOS. Very cool ideas. And the best argument against people who say you can't write a new OS anymore. Especially doing it from the ground up in Rust.
Google would like a word with you: FYI Android is just a linux fork, and I don't need to explain how powerful and effective ADB programming is..........
The lack of orthogonality and consistency in the provided abstractions. These are either poorly thought out, or more commonly, accreted without system-level design at all. Solving the specific problem the user is facing rather than the lack of facilities to allow the user to solve the problem themself.
I agree.. I'm not sure if I could describe it so well.. but I am of that minimalist and do it correctly philosophy. Linux has lost its way. I try and stave off this "progress" by using Arch and avoiding big desktops... but even things like systemd have become "standard" and everyone loves all their special layers and containers like flatpak or docker or whatever flavour of the week happens to crawl up their behinds. I could build my own from scratch, but those dependencies are killer. No one really seems to care, it's all about making a dollar, not about doing what makes sense. It's sad.. I don't even want to get paid for work because the only ones paying are doing it so wrongly, I can't stand it.
@@groff8657 I actually did try it when I was originally going from Gentoo to Arch a few years ago. I didn't like its own customizations I think is what it came down to -- it seemed like an extra layer on top of Arch I would have to deal with. At the time... I didn't know much about Arch OR systemd. So I ended up choosing something in line with my general philosophy -- go to the root, close to the source, the origins. If Artix depends on Arch... well I can just use Arch. Problem is... now I do understand how big a mess and integrated and multi-tentacled systemd seems to be.... but everyone thinks it's great and converts all their stuff to use it. Like a cancer that invades. Sure, I can pick my poison... but it's still kinda poison. Or I can prepare everything myself from scratch and it's healthier... but that's all i'm going to be spending my time on now.. I guess. No time for anything else.
@@bigman3274 Windows got popular because people liked it more. What a vapid statement to make. You might as well say "They made more profit so it is declared GOOD" It doesn't mean anything. I don't care why it became popular and people are using it. I KNOW. I understand. The whole world is upside down and backwards. It doesn't have to do with individuals and choice and how things become "popular" in a system free of manipulation and other external influences. This 'popularity' you're trying to talk about doesn't really exist. It isn't a naturally evolved one, come through legitimate means. It wasn't because it was actually better or anything. You're living in delusional fantasyland if you believe that.
I think I'd rather have modern cut-down Linux rather than ye olde Unix. KISS Linux, Oasis, Alpine, etc. Many good things were done to the system since the ancient era (mostly stealing Plan9 stuff) and minimalism is practiced more consciously today instead of being an accidental side effect of uncharted landscape and hardware limitations.
So I get the choice to watch at sub-SD resolution that I can't read any text, or at 720@60fps which uses excessive bandwidth and buffers constantly... Not worth it. Skipping.
Actually, I did not really understand what your problem with Linux was. People run an entire Linux for a problem that would not need an entire Operating System? Yes, true, but in the end you need something to run your Kubernetes Cluster on which runs the one microservice that controls the temperature settings of your oven ;-). It is not Linux' fault that people use it for stupid purposes. And yes, Linux is bloat, which is an unfortunate side effect of a "one size fits all" solution. On the other hand it means that I can use the same operating system on different plattforms and for different purposes. I would not buy a Raspberry PI if I had to learn a new OS to use it, even if it would be more efficient.
The raspi python reason has no basis just because you decided to use python does not mean anything. Nobody was stopping you from making your own kernel driver and that you had to go read kernel source why not just go make a driver in the first place then
@@adventuresin9 I do agree though that people will try "embedded" and blink an led with python on a pi with 8gb of ram that is not embedded at all you could have done the same thing with a usb on your laptop. Embedded linux does have its purpose though Its just so hard to make everything from scratch. I my job drivers for sensors in linux and RTOS environments. Yocto is a nice way to make a very stripped version of linux for a specific controller though so it has the bare minimum. Im talking about images maybe a few gb in size and take 1gb of RAM which is still alot compared to that 128MB you were talking about
@@adventuresin9 then again the main sensors I work with are cameras where an image is anywhere from a few to 10MB which is also alot from 128MB standard
@@brice.rhodes I've had my eye on the Teacup Tinker board project. They found a webcam that turned out to be running Linux on an Ingenic processor. Even though I complain sometimes, I am still impressed at people who can work with these sort of systems.
wow great points, especially writting software for a router from the ground up. So why arent we writing an OS from the ground up? Would it look any different on todays modern hardware if they started from 0 then the stuff they've been dragging along since.. when was the last new OS made? Just get an AI to black-box it, do we really need to manage these bits in abstract and inefficient ways? I bet theres huge processing shortcuts. I say just AI black box the next great OS, its the only way unless Bill Gates comes out of retirement and makes Windows great again.
I'm disgusted by linux. I'm an expert, I work on embedded system for 20+ years and even 10 years ago you could build a linux kernel that was maybe 2.5MB or so. Now an arm64 'defconfig' is nearly FIFTY megabytes of bloatware. The reasons are simple really, Linux has been taken over by people who don't use it. MOST of the code comes from 'gatekeepers' paid by companies, and their interest is getting the same binary running on a dozen dev boards they will never actually use for anything anyway, so instead of having good old #ifdef you get a device tree, and the *code* has every single code path possible, despite it not being even applicable for your board. It also has infected the bootloaders, since now u-boot is DT based, and the 'new' EFI for arm is a giant pile of bloatware. But it is all OK as the manufacturers can ship their sh*t SDKs. The really bizarre thing is that they insist that the binary blob needs to be *separate* from the kernel (and u-boot) despite the fact that that blob wouldn't work with any other kernel version, so it is entirely *pointless* and they could just glue it, but no, somewhere, someone in the linux priesthood has decided that nope. won't do that. Because. And no, I'm not kidding about priesthood; having been paid a few years ago to attempt to upstream stuff, I know very well linux upstreaming is a lot more 'incantation' than code. I had to rewrite some code 4 times to make the priests happy, despite the fact the rewrite was provingly nowhere near as good as the original; not as clean, not as maintainable, and definitely not as efficient. But nope, the code had to conform to the fanciness of the day. As for linux on the desktop, well, it almost works. Audio almost work all the time, USB almost work all the time, And updating your system is nearly very guaranteed not to brick your PC. Here my workstation is ginormous and I use Cinnamon, and it's ugly as a bug, but somehow LXDE which I used for years got broken well over a year ago on debian, and never fixed; so cinnamon it is...
I once had a mentor and asked him what os he preferred. He answered "they're all trash".
And i think that's what you're really angry about. Linux isn't magic. It just allows you to go fix it yourself.
This has pretty much always been my response. All operating systems are flawed, its just a case of picking the one with the least flaws for your use case.
it's always funny when out of touch and insulated computer programmers wax on peotic about how superior their thinking is meanwhile literally not empathetic at all to any other user........
I hear this logic all the time in app development, usually from some of the worst software ever produced
I haven't had to write or download drivers and recompile a kernel since around 2006. Linux may be bloated by default now (as distributed), but it's pretty darned convenient. Of course my systems aren't as tiny as shown here.
I wish more zoomers would try using 90s Linux for a bit just to educate themselves both on what we gained and what we lost over the years.
The list of gains is getting pretty slim now. The most taxing thing I do on Linux is video editing. Then I remember Jurassic Park and Terminator 2 were done on Unix machines back in the 90's. Hardware is the only thing that really improved. A Silicon Graphics workstation cost more than a house.
I mean the software has certainly improved too in those kinds of vertical niches, even Blender is light-years ahead of anything available on those 90s SGI workstations for 3DCG. Ditto FCPX and Resolve for video editing. But at some point you have to decide what's creatively important for you and in that sense I think a lot of these older, "antiquated", battle tested, elegant systems (forgotten or not) really shine IMHO.
Good point. Tools were a lot clunkier back in the day.
@@adventuresin9pretty slim? Wdym
Yeah it's a billion times better
To be honest I did not get anything out of this video and was surprised when you said congratulations to making it to the end. Well, I did learn there are stats that allow the creator to know only 30% make it to the end. I'll add a little more. I use Linux Mint in much the same way as I used Unix back in the 80s. Except I have a browser that can play videos in the background while I edit away.
You don't need Python to blink an LED or nor do you need to run Linux on a Raspberry Pi.
And the main reason people run Linux on modern hardware is that it has drivers and applications.
If any of the BSDs had better hardware drivers, BSD wouldn't be a retro-niche hobby.
@@chrisnelson414 BSD is far from a hobbyist OS.
Hardware drivers are the #1 problem for all niche OSes, especially when it comes to open source GPU support which ended somewhere around the 3dfx Voodoo era almost 25 years ago. Having no access to these resources even though the cheapest notebook today could run OpenGL 4 in hardware basically kills every effort to create an alternative to Linux.
My main beef with running linux on everything and the kitchen sink is that certain things *should not need to boot an OS*. Like, I got a pump as part of my heatpump system, all it does it pump liquid through a pipe. It has a screen and a jog-wheel and a sticker on it that says: "Boot time < 1 minute". Yes, it needs to boot, and it uses some bloated UI framework for what is essentially just configuration of whether you want to control the pump via a digital input or an analog voltage. That's insane. That's not a linux problem though, it's a problem with the engineers who designed this.
BSD is the basis of Darwin underlying MacOS, as well as the basis for PlayStation, etc.
This is really more just a problem of proprietary vs open source.
@@ToumalRakesh
I hate things like this too! You just think, 'why??'
To me the funny-haha thing about 'linux bloat' is that, waaay back in the day Unix SVR2 at the time was considered 'bloated' compared to V7 or the soon-to-be linux 0.x, even though SVR2 fit happily on a 'massive' 120Mb Maxtor Xt1140 (for an Intel 286/310, a zippy 8MHz 80286) or a VAX 750. At least with V7 or even SVR2 (particularly with the Maurice Bach book) you could conceivably understand the whole OS at once. Good luck with that with any semi-recent linux, or audit it for security flaws, a process I've endured professionally.
I wrote device drivers on that '286 to read 4 track reel-to-reel tapes containing digitized data recorded, quite literally, on the bottom of the ocean. Good times.
Wow that must have been awesome! :)
@@charlesdorval394 I think so. 'Blame' my dad for that, taking his bored and wet-behind-the-ears teenaged kid to work to slum with graduate students and snarky engineers ;)
We hand-built instruments on wire-wrap boards, sealed them in spun aluminum spheres filled with dehydrated nitrogen, whopping 12-bit IM6100 (PDP-8 clone), recorded 3 axes of seismograph channels and one hydrophone channel with spiffy 12-bit ADCs. Throw them in the ocean to sink on steel weights, then release up to a month later with explosive bolts commanded by acoustic pings. Wrote a 'streaming bit editor' (in Fortran-II(!) and later C) as the data came off the tape without start/stop framing (bits were expensive in the '80s) and tape was lossy, so you had to have a way to resynchronize the blocks.
Though at some point it's all "uphill both ways with snow above my head", but it sure was uh.. formative ;)
I enjoy all your videos, but I enjoyed the last 2 or 3 in particular because you clearly articulated some differences b/wn Linux and Plan9 which really helped to understand some of the philosophical differences b/wn the two- thank you.
yeah sometimes it's nice to hear the philosophical reasons rather than the technical know how
I don't get the RPI LED part..
you install ONE python library: sudo apt-get install python3-rpi.gpio and then you can use it in python GPIO.output(18, GPIO.HIGH)
for C: sudo apt-get install wiringpi then digitalWrite(18, HIGH);
You could also directly address the memory if you want to. You could also flash a costum C-FW onto the RPi ..
I have a feeling he expected the RPI to be more like arduino or other simple PLCs
@@liamburke4406 I feel like someone needs to teach the guy when to simply use an MCU
The context is, I picked up a Raspberry Pi at Fry's, went to the website to read some tutorials, and the intro stuff is pretty high up the stack. It is telling that the latest Pis are aiming more towards a desktop replacement. I did find the closer to the metal stuff, but usually you start at the bottom and work up, not the other way around.
Compare that to what you'd do on Plan 9.
@@adventuresin9 You don't even need a python library for that. You can go with the gpio driver in linux, that exports things to /sys/class/gpio/ (at least that works on other linux-based arm/mips boards). But you'll need to tell the gpio subsystem on linux to export needed IOs into sysfs. This is generic interface, you can get any GPIOs that have driver in the system.
You can also get direct access via memory, that would be _much_ faster, but that would require addresses/etc and permissions. All in all - I do not understand the complaint about the Pi.
PS. I scripted that stuff on openwrt to read some sensors
Shout out to all the people in this thread who are crying about how vanilla GNU/Linux is no longer an operating system that can fit on one or more 1 MB 5.5 inch floppies.....because this is totally still 1993...right ?
Not it is not. But I used, I think Freesco distribution, back in early 2000s (up to ~mid 2000s)? And it ran my dialin server just fine. Fit on a floppy and had a menu setup program too.
I think that you are harsh with some of the points. Linux is a great kernel for most apllications it is used for. Plan9 is also no longer actively maintained? Isn't that a bigger issue than most of the Linux mentioned issues?
Plan 9 from Bell Labs is no longer worked on, the same as Unix. 9front is the predominant continuation, most importantly with support for more current hardware.
Getting up and seeing a new Video is always great. You are right. Linux back then (myself started 1996) was simpler.
Kind of a pain that bare metal programming on raspberry pi is the rage nowadays. They replace that SOC every year & nothing over a year old works.
Raspberry has a strange relationship with Broadcom, and they seem to be rushing towards being a full desktop computer.
Great to hear others pointing out the flaws with the current linux situation. My channel focuses on the performance differences (which you did a great job of explaining). Just added your channel to the Featured Channels list on the WizardsAnonymous home page. Happy Holidays. :)
If you have pointers on good practice to implement a 9P server, I would absolutely love a video on your perspective and code patterns to follow!
I've never been super into the Unix philosphy of doing one thing and one thing well, mostly because one thing means different things to different people. While sharing data using file descriptors is fine, and I assume necessary on the kind of hardware Unix was developed on, it also makes stuff you run often take significantly longer than writing all the functionality into a single binary that just passes pointers around. But in some sense, the Unic philosophy still lives on, because sharing your code as libraries is more common now than it used to be from my understanding. Installing new packages on modern languages (sorry C and C++) is easier than ever, and by using the libraries you can get the philosophy (the library does one thing well) and the speed benefits (passing pointers in one process), which to me seems like a win overall.
Not saying your perspective is wrong, but I don't think modern desktop Linux is in a bad state at all.
There are advantages to running everything in a big binary. But once you stop making syscalls, you have to ask, what do you need to OS for? I forget the name of the project, but a university to a thing where they wrote a network service to run basically bare metal on right the the networking hardware, pretty much as it's own OS, and it was much faster. With all the cores and virtualization in modern hardware, that might be the future of big binary type apps.
@@adventuresin9 Yeah for some specialized applications it makes sense to run directly on the metal, but for a general purpose OS it makes sense to support both the small and big programs. I like having a browser open when I program for reference and questions, amongst other tools (pdfs, music players) which would not be possible without an OS afaik (or bundle everything into one binary but jesus christ that's too much in one binary).
I'm not saying I don't appreciate the smaller binaries doing one thing well approach. For example I use Neovim to code and then launch Fish inside a neovim window to run commands (or use the vim command line directly), which would not be possible (or probably worse) if both Neovim and Fish were huge, resource-intensive binaries.
I just think that insisting that the "do one thing and do it right" part is the best way to do software is, at best, not what people want to use or code nowadays. That does not make one way better or worse, it just makes them different. Obviously not what you want though, and that means it's great that stuff like Plan9 exists. From what I've seen on your channel I would not want to use it but I still find it interesting.
wow what a banger video. I loved your mention of android being "the year of the linux desktop".
When people started that meme, the bar was set at using it to check you email and do typical chores. And that is exactly what everyone now uses Android for.
Hello friend! I agree with the sentiment that some parts of what you call linux are bloated. what I'm specifically curious about that wasn't mentioned in the video is what kinds of improvements you'd like to see and how you suggest to go about doing them. Looking forward to such suggestions in the future!
I use Plan 9 because the people who came up with Unix fixed a bunch of the issues using Plan 9. And that was in the 1990's. There are some old spots in Plan 9 that could be addressed. I think the narrow "monitor, mouse, keyboard" system for graphics and input is behind the times. Touch screen and multi-touch pads are very common now.
@@adventuresin9 "Touch screen and multi-touch pads are very common now." have you tried using them? Like really using them for something serious?
im curious mem usage of that xed u mentioned on bsd....
On android you actually use multiuser capability because each application (unless author use shared id) run under separate user account. It like your app vendors are unix users, hardware vendor is root and you allowed to consume multiple concurent services sharing physical device in your hands and not over POTS.
That is an interesting use of the user accounts concept.
whats the name of the distribution on screen at 1:33 ? Bring back a lot of nostalgia, is it Caldera?
I just google for screen shots of early Gnome and KDE. 1:33 is Gnome desktop, but I'm not sure on the WM. It looks familiar, and I'm sure I used it at some point, but the name escapes me.
Caldera only ever shipped KDE, so it's definitely not Caldera. This particular GNOME looks like it's from 2001, so it's probably any of Slackware, Debian, or early Redhat 7.x
Yeah, I managed to hit the half-way point before my twaddle buffer overflowed. For crying out loud you don't need Python to use the Pi's GPIO pins. And if you don't like the batteries included approach of the stock Pi OS why not download the Pi release of Tiny Core Linux weighing in at 54 MB? Is that really too bloated and complicated for you? Also, while praising OpenWRT you also remark that Linux wasn't chosen by a router company because it was the best tool for the job. Which begs the question, what software would you have recommended they use instead? Etc, etc. The type of hacking you enjoy is up to you but I must say your Linux arguments per se are remarkably unconvincing. (I use tomsrtbt, BTW.)
I love this idea and I agree with every point you're making, but what if I need some programs that just aren't available and that I couldn't possibly remake myself? I would really like being able to make music with my computer for example (though there's many other things)
I don't fault anyone who just wants a computer to do some task. Not everyone needs to learn how to code. The upside of coding though is you get to make programs closer to your ideal. And for 9Front, there are some audio workstation projects people are working on.
If you want to use instruments through any Native Instruments plugin, you have to run Windows or MacOS. That said, NI has actually been really good about NOT letting developers withdraw or discontinue their products in such a way that they stop working for the people that already have them.
I've tried all of the operating systems you mention in this video except plan9 so I was hoping you were going to explain why I should check it out but you didn't. I can't imagine it being any use for me and I'm a fan of niche computing. Can I get any modern browsers? mpv? vim? I can't imagine there is any plan9 specific software that can compete with the big boys of Linux software.
My personal pet peeve is that maintainers for whatever reason demand everyone have same version of libraries that they have, completely ignoring everyone else. You need run python app? it's always written for the version that you don't have, and then it pulls 50+ packages I don't have any means to verify. You want updated LibreOfice? Sorry, you glibc is too old for that, you need reinstall your OS. You want latest Chromium? Same issue, you need reinstall OS. It's just easier to install Windows and use same apps there, on some reason they work on 20 years old Windows but refuse support 5 years old Linux.
BTW, still using few SunRay 270 with OL6, it just works and those 18 years old displays are way better anything I've ever seen. But there's practically no apps left that support OL6.
on relatively new Linux you probably can use appimage/flatpack but yeah ... as maintainer of cinelerra-gg (NLE with convolved history) I feel each library update - sometimes something just started to use new c++ standart, or some new build tool, or assembler (nasm), or boost/python/gcc changed in some way working yesterday setup breaks today ...
except no 32bit support for win11 now. Also isnt it your fault for using a notoriously outdated distro like debian or ubuntu? There are many many examples on windows where they refuse to support older systems like windows 7 you are cherry picking answers
@@brice.rhodes Define outdated please, what makes distro outdated? My favorite OL6 is insecure because I have to run 5 years old insecure Chromium on it, not other way around.
This is among others the reason for which I am using Gentoo. It is not perfect, but many of those version mismatches are mitigated by portage emerging highly volatile packages into different slots.
@@piranhaofserengheti4878 If nobody bothers to support your system because newer versions exist, you're outdated. You can't really blame 5 year old chromium for making your decade old system insecure. OL6 is on extended life support that will end in a week. If you can't move on, then I'm really sorry for you.
long live slackware 3.4.. back when dial-up was king and disk sets were the way to do things. Thanks for these videos, they are quite fascinating and if you are looking for some haiku videos.. action retro is a HUGE haiku person.. with other things too.
I honestly don't get one of your criticisms. You ridicule Linux for being used by tech companies, but then recommend BSD, which has been appropriated by Apple to power their various proprietary and locked down operating systems... Honestly, that's just what companies do. They extract profits from everything they can get their hands on. If another FOSS OS starts to overtake Linux in terms of usefulness, the same thing will happen to it too. The only thing you can do to fight back is to use GPL licenses and force them to share their changes.
I think companies have found the dividing line that allows them to use some FOSS core, and then layer their private stuff over that for the user interaction. I think people imagined the line would be up at just closed source applications and free everything else. But Android and Apple have shown the trend to be closed all the way down to a minimum of "some of Linux" and Darwin.
@@adventuresin9This isn't a technical problem though, it's a social one.
If you want to make that not happen, that's what the legal system/political advocacy is for.... at least in theory.
But the reason companies do this isn't technical, it's because they stand to benefit from doing so.
I think the reason people wouldn't consider android and ChromeOS Linux, and part of the Linux desktop described in the "year of the Linux desktop" meme. Is because of those things you mentioned.
Linux might not be the exact same as it was back in the beginning, though it can be you will need to do Linux from scratch if you really want to avoid getting stuck in how a distro does things.
For people that don't have a more niche use case. Linux does still do things in a Unix way. You still are chaining together commands to run a desktop especially if you are setting things up in an xinitrc. Really even if you are using a display manager, just most people aren't actually adjusting which programs get started in the script with that. And the kernel is still starting an init system which then runs commands chained together to get the system to the point where you are in a tty.
For a person that, wants what Unix/Linux provides, I personally find Gentoo is a good middle ground for me. Realistically it gives you more choice in how to do things than 99% of users will ever want to take advantage of. But still can make things easy enough for anyone to run if they are willing to read.
Man has multiple trackball mice on the desk. Earns some credibility. All hail the superior mouse.
It is the best mouse for a cluttered desk.
What differences you see between any .*BSD and any Linux distro? Do you work with them in any different way? I work regularly on both, and from a terminal standpoint, cannot tell the difference really. I only see the diference when trying to install 3rd party software. One has it, the other not.
I know someone that prefers bsd because it's easier to code for. Linux has a multitude of distributions that do things slightly different. So to deal with all differences takes a lot more work.
The BSD's have better documentation, but that mostly stems from not being so fragmented. They do a better job maintaining code style standards in the kernel, making it easier to read. Linux takes code from a ton of companies now, and the differing styles can make it hard to follow stuff. In an ideal world, code written for either system should just compile on the other, both being Unix clones.
@@drooplug Don't understand, there are almost 20 different BSD distributions and each one have slight diferences too (Some very big ones).
Is like saying I prefeer bikes over cars because cars have brands. Bikes have brands too. Just pick one you like.
@@framegrace1 I should clarify: FreeBSD.
This touch my hearth im in data for bussiness. We hunt and crush dependencies 12 years doing that im getting tired i lost the battle.
Eventually Moore's law will become expensive and hardware constraints will matter again. Until then, it's too easy to write shitty code that does something useful that nobody has done before (or it was proprietary, or forgotten)
No-one will admit this, but for the kind of small projects one does on a raspberry pi, the best OS is something small that's easy to ignore when you don't want it in the way: the old school PC BIOS, or rather some ARM port of it. A super thin abstraction layer for interrupt handling and device drivers, some basic memory management, a cheap file system and a simple program loader (the last two are technically DOS, though). But the current thing is Linux so that's what everyone tries to cram into their projects, even if it's total overkill and your gadget is mostly running Linux instead of doing whatever your project needs.
Haiku went the route of compatibility layer + ported code and oh boy does it show.
You mean you can use more software on haiku now?
Yah, I'm not a fan of all the choices they made. I'm hoping they just stick to the few they have picked up and help polish them, rather then just pick up every flavor of the week.
@@adventuresin9it did need a proper web browser (Firefox).
Well I like your rant Andy and you're not wrong.
I relate so much to how you feel. I've been bouncing between macOS, Linux, Windows, and BSD for years and nothing feels like it was designed to be understood. I hear of the "unix days" when you could just chain a few programs to do stuff, then I look at my "modern" kde 6 arch install with systemd and 2000 other packages and I can't even begin to fathom how someone could just *know* about all of this stuff... I do web dev in C# and node with a side of python fo Christ's sake! I should know about looking up docs, dealing with bloat, and handling insane package managers! How did they manage to make it feel even more convoluted!
I grew up with Linux, and I feel completely clueless today. Even stuff like the main file system structure has changed since then *and none of this stuff is explained anywhere*. You just have to *know*! Clearly the worst timeline.
I'd love to see an in-depth series on Inferno. Since you mentioned the Sunray clients, that's the very use case for Inferno, if I remember correctly. And it's a descendant of Plan 9.
EDIT: Ah, to hell with it-I'm off to play with MenuetOS
I used Linux since the 90s, but I did try Plan 9 and Inferno in the early 2000s. Inferno actually was only dynamic linking on a VM (a bit like Java), and I didn't like it at all. I liked Plan 9 when it had the 8 1/2 window manager, but when they made Rio, they may have added some performace, but they lost the abstraction of the screen mouse and keyboard being properly abstracted. It's clear that Docker is basically the next iteration of what Plan 9 started, but graphics and sound really need some love in all of these iterations.
interesting wallpaper choice
This is definitely "old man shouts at cloud" territory..! 😆 I started with Unix on AIX too, then shifted to Linux in the halcyon days of the 90s.. So what's the alternative? Linux is what you make of it, - if you just need a basic DE to run your scripts and tools, have at it, - the tools are there for you to source and compile. Yes it takes more, because it's 30 years of growth and change and evolution. You said it yourself, "back in the day" - time have changed my man.. we're old.. only going to get older..!
While OS/2 wasn't the savior... it was headed in the right direction: A secure, resilient, single user, platform for running your programs. Personal Computing.
I'd like to see OSFree get some traction, but that's a pipe dream.
Linux is trying to be everything to everyone, and that's not all bad. Gentoo IMO is the right direction as far a Linux goes, but it's definitely not accessible to most users.
In the meantime, I'm not going to fault Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora for being more accessible to users who are leaving Windows and even more importantly Mac which has had a sinister and disappointing resurgence in the last 10 years. Microsoft is an obvious evil, but Apple is the real wolf in sheep's clothing.
why is Apple "the real wolf in sheep's clothing"?
Would love some insight into this take as i completely disagree with it but would like to educated on it if there is information i am lacking. form my POV Microsoft has always been and remains the true evil player in this game. *buying all the platforms and services and FOSS to bend it at its will, investing in openAI and training models on people's work, introducing spying tech into their OS that constantly monitors your activity.....etc etc etc* the list goes on and on and this is just from the more recent microsoft trends. not to mention all the history as well
@@256k_ It's a fair question, but it basically boils down to their ecosystem's ideology; a tight integration of hardware and software. But the sinister part is that Apple postures themselves as a luxury brand as well... so you get this weird intersection of technology, which should be about efficiency and empowerment, being elevated to a luxury/status symbol that is explicitly exclusionary. From a strictly hardware perspective I'll admit that they do a good job at having quality displays especially on laptops, when the PC space is price driven as a race to the bottom. But I don't find MacOS particularly compelling as an operating system.
I don't like the Apple tax, I don't like the walled garden, and I especially don't like the reality distortion field.
@@BandanazXnever considered the luxury branding as the root of their evil but tbh. I see it
What's a Pla Neighn?
Ranting is fun! I agree with all of the above, especially the free stuff, as in beer and HAIKU comments. I feel that I, and probably many (?) others, learn and tinker on 'their' machine, meaning the desktop computer used to browse the web.
When you think about operating systems that allow you to watch technology rants on RUclips, your options are limited. I'm really excited to see Firefox ported to HAIKU (sorry, porting apps again) because it will allow many of these desktop nerds to switch and work on something new. HAIKU also focuses support on RISC-V, an entirely new dimension for nerd excitement.
Your point is valid, and I wish more developers went after graceful simplicity than whole stacks of libraries and platforms to run basic things. However, it's not going to change. People have needs, and the simplicity offered to "amateur" developers to get things going and working are too attractive to pass up. The world is getting more complex both because of the complexity of the stacks being run on the software side, but also due to demands by non-tech people that use tech. It's a catch-22, and it won't be solved. It's nice that people with your mindset are around, because we still do need this sort of thing, but, in the grand scheme of tech, you're a dinosaur and things aren't going to regress into simplicity in the foreseeable future.
Did you consider to use Buildroot for your projects?
No. I just switched to 9Front. Cross compiling is really easy on it, and I get 9P for free, so fetching data over a network is really simple.
I think that my first Linux experience was on a 486SX. Later, my oldest and I put together a 386DX 40. CLI only, and even then, it was slow. I custom compiled kernels for transparent firewalls for several years, before netfilter became a default in distributions. I understand the frustration, trying to fit things into small systems, having written some custom software in x86 ASM, way back when. If I were working on the kinds of projects you are, I would probably go the same direction. However, I work with servers these days, so I will stick with Linux Mint, as I can test code on my desktop or laptop, that can just be dropped on the Ubuntu servers. I also want a system that I don't have to customize to be able to get my work done. Install a few needed applications, and away I go. I think that installing updates took longer than installing the software I needed for the lastest desktop build.
Wow, I was still on DOS/win3.1 on my 486sx. I ended up landing on Linux Mint myself. It does the job good enough and works well with my Window muscle memory.
You don't need all the python cruft to use rpi gpio. You can use the Linux interface. That's all the python does under the hood.
Hard to disagree. I'm of a similar vintage and the only thing that has made me happy since around 2000 is Nix, although that isn't useful at all for embedded stuff.
Exactly! Why the hell should we have to install an entire language and libraries just to blink some damn lights or set GPIO pins on and off? In the 80s I programmed a Z8 microcontroller and just used assembly to drive a whole bunch of pins and read the RS232. Took me a couple of weeks to learn the whole thing, learn to program the eproms. The excess complexity is complete madness.
Because you do not. /sys/class/gpio/ you know.... Why tutorial suggests python - is whole another question.
@@fhunter1test Fair enough! I haven't had a Pi for a long time now. I bought one when they were a pretty new thing and I wasn't yet familiar with GNU/Linux or Unix or systems programming. I was just learning C and I got this thing expecting I'd somehow be able to directly access the pins like when I was a kid programming 8-bit controllers. And everyone and everything seemed to be aimed at getting me to be a) afraid of memory leaks and b) to use Python or Javascript, or Processing if I wanted to be artsy. And I was so pissed off. I guess my old resentment made me write before I gave it a think.
Still, the whole tutorial scene - it's like they assume nobody wants to know anything about the hardware they're hobbying with. You'd think memory leaks were physical leaks of some kind of corrosive fluid that might burn your skin, the way they warn newcomers away from low level stuff. Sheesh!
You might want to give RedoxOS a try. It's a different animal to Linux entirely. It's not quite the same idea as with plan 9, but it's made by people who are very well aware of what drives developers and engineers up the wall. Plus ever since the infamous Ted Tso outburst, I think it's increasingly clear who lives in cult... ;)
I have been keeping on eye a RedoxOS. Very cool ideas. And the best argument against people who say you can't write a new OS anymore. Especially doing it from the ground up in Rust.
Google would like a word with you:
FYI Android is just a linux fork, and I don't need to explain how powerful and effective ADB programming is..........
Oh my God, you sound just like my dad!!! But, he loves microkernel... for EVERYTHING. Including servers like databases and web
In my heart it just feels too bloated these days, with change for the sake of it
Linux became bloated but this maybe balanced by millions of use(r)s which battle test it on they own skin 😅
Having so many eyes on the code does help. But the amount of code has grown dramatically.
I think you missed the whole point with Android. And why people would like try claim back their rights and freedom.
old man yells at penguins
The lack of orthogonality and consistency in the provided abstractions. These are either poorly thought out, or more commonly, accreted without system-level design at all. Solving the specific problem the user is facing rather than the lack of facilities to allow the user to solve the problem themself.
I agree.. I'm not sure if I could describe it so well.. but I am of that minimalist and do it correctly philosophy.
Linux has lost its way. I try and stave off this "progress" by using Arch and avoiding big desktops... but even things like systemd have become "standard" and everyone loves all their special layers and containers like flatpak or docker or whatever flavour of the week happens to crawl up their behinds.
I could build my own from scratch, but those dependencies are killer.
No one really seems to care, it's all about making a dollar, not about doing what makes sense. It's sad..
I don't even want to get paid for work because the only ones paying are doing it so wrongly, I can't stand it.
What about Artix? I've gotten used to Arch but I use Artix to avoid systemd.
@@groff8657 I actually did try it when I was originally going from Gentoo to Arch a few years ago. I didn't like its own customizations I think is what it came down to -- it seemed like an extra layer on top of Arch I would have to deal with. At the time... I didn't know much about Arch OR systemd.
So I ended up choosing something in line with my general philosophy -- go to the root, close to the source, the origins. If Artix depends on Arch... well I can just use Arch.
Problem is... now I do understand how big a mess and integrated and multi-tentacled systemd seems to be.... but everyone thinks it's great and converts all their stuff to use it.
Like a cancer that invades.
Sure, I can pick my poison... but it's still kinda poison.
Or I can prepare everything myself from scratch and it's healthier... but that's all i'm going to be spending my time on now.. I guess. No time for anything else.
systemd got popular because developers liked it more. rip to those left behind.
@@bigman3274 Windows got popular because people liked it more.
What a vapid statement to make. You might as well say "They made more profit so it is declared GOOD"
It doesn't mean anything. I don't care why it became popular and people are using it. I KNOW. I understand. The whole world is upside down and backwards. It doesn't have to do with individuals and choice and how things become "popular" in a system free of manipulation and other external influences.
This 'popularity' you're trying to talk about doesn't really exist.
It isn't a naturally evolved one, come through legitimate means. It wasn't because it was actually better or anything. You're living in delusional fantasyland if you believe that.
I think I'd rather have modern cut-down Linux rather than ye olde Unix.
KISS Linux, Oasis, Alpine, etc.
Many good things were done to the system since the ancient era (mostly stealing Plan9 stuff) and minimalism is practiced more consciously today instead of being an accidental side effect of uncharted landscape and hardware limitations.
Trackball for the win!
The problem with plan 9, haiku, netBSD, and others is that they do not have GPL or a copyleft license.
I use to think the GPL was a major advantage. But now companies just snag the GPL code and layer their own stuff on top. See Android.
@adventuresin9 good point.
The moment you see very old text editor, you know the video is going to be good
Just gotta port it
So I get the choice to watch at sub-SD resolution that I can't read any text, or at 720@60fps which uses excessive bandwidth and buffers constantly...
Not worth it. Skipping.
h264ify (browser extension) to make 50/60fps videos 30.
Ok
BSD, the linux of a linux user
BSD, where everyone runs older ThinkPads because there are no hardware drivers for modern hardware
Actually, I did not really understand what your problem with Linux was. People run an entire Linux for a problem that would not need an entire Operating System? Yes, true, but in the end you need something to run your Kubernetes Cluster on which runs the one microservice that controls the temperature settings of your oven ;-). It is not Linux' fault that people use it for stupid purposes.
And yes, Linux is bloat, which is an unfortunate side effect of a "one size fits all" solution. On the other hand it means that I can use the same operating system on different plattforms and for different purposes. I would not buy a Raspberry PI if I had to learn a new OS to use it, even if it would be more efficient.
6:20 Bazinga 😀
....but there's TempleOS!
Excellent
The raspi python reason has no basis just because you decided to use python does not mean anything. Nobody was stopping you from making your own kernel driver and that you had to go read kernel source why not just go make a driver in the first place then
That is sort of the path I ended up taking. I now write kernels and drivers.
@@adventuresin9 I do agree though that people will try "embedded" and blink an led with python on a pi with 8gb of ram that is not embedded at all you could have done the same thing with a usb on your laptop. Embedded linux does have its purpose though Its just so hard to make everything from scratch. I my job drivers for sensors in linux and RTOS environments. Yocto is a nice way to make a very stripped version of linux for a specific controller though so it has the bare minimum. Im talking about images maybe a few gb in size and take 1gb of RAM which is still alot compared to that 128MB you were talking about
@@adventuresin9 then again the main sensors I work with are cameras where an image is anywhere from a few to 10MB which is also alot from 128MB standard
@@brice.rhodes I've had my eye on the Teacup Tinker board project. They found a webcam that turned out to be running Linux on an Ingenic processor. Even though I complain sometimes, I am still impressed at people who can work with these sort of systems.
Man complains that OS requires software to be useful.
A fundamental misunderstanding of the tech your using isn't the fault of the tech brother.
wow great points, especially writting software for a router from the ground up. So why arent we writing an OS from the ground up? Would it look any different on todays modern hardware if they started from 0 then the stuff they've been dragging along since.. when was the last new OS made? Just get an AI to black-box it, do we really need to manage these bits in abstract and inefficient ways? I bet theres huge processing shortcuts. I say just AI black box the next great OS, its the only way unless Bill Gates comes out of retirement and makes Windows great again.
Terry Davis did it. Sadly nobody now is crazy enough to spend the time and money on such a thing. But I agree. I'd like to see some real alternatives.
I'm disgusted by linux. I'm an expert, I work on embedded system for 20+ years and even 10 years ago you could build a linux kernel that was maybe 2.5MB or so. Now an arm64 'defconfig' is nearly FIFTY megabytes of bloatware. The reasons are simple really, Linux has been taken over by people who don't use it. MOST of the code comes from 'gatekeepers' paid by companies, and their interest is getting the same binary running on a dozen dev boards they will never actually use for anything anyway, so instead of having good old #ifdef you get a device tree, and the *code* has every single code path possible, despite it not being even applicable for your board.
It also has infected the bootloaders, since now u-boot is DT based, and the 'new' EFI for arm is a giant pile of bloatware. But it is all OK as the manufacturers can ship their sh*t SDKs.
The really bizarre thing is that they insist that the binary blob needs to be *separate* from the kernel (and u-boot) despite the fact that that blob wouldn't work with any other kernel version, so it is entirely *pointless* and they could just glue it, but no, somewhere, someone in the linux priesthood has decided that nope. won't do that. Because.
And no, I'm not kidding about priesthood; having been paid a few years ago to attempt to upstream stuff, I know very well linux upstreaming is a lot more 'incantation' than code. I had to rewrite some code 4 times to make the priests happy, despite the fact the rewrite was provingly nowhere near as good as the original; not as clean, not as maintainable, and definitely not as efficient. But nope, the code had to conform to the fanciness of the day.
As for linux on the desktop, well, it almost works. Audio almost work all the time, USB almost work all the time, And updating your system is nearly very guaranteed not to brick your PC. Here my workstation is ginormous and I use Cinnamon, and it's ugly as a bug, but somehow LXDE which I used for years got broken well over a year ago on debian, and never fixed; so cinnamon it is...
BSDs are Unix, not Linux 😉
The original Berkeley Software Distribution was UNIX. FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD are UNIX derivatives like Linux, MacOS X and others.
Curious, what web browser did you use to upload this video?
Firefox on Linux mint, I think... pretty sure i saw it in one of his videos...
The issue is that Linux had big db of devices support, this is the main issue when dealing with any IBM compatible computer.