Minix is actually not a real *nix derivate. It’s a bare microkernel and just provides a POSIX-compliant interface (as does Windows NT) so you can recompile and run your standard *nix tools on it.
Nice piece of History jeff and special thanks for paragraph from Michael Feathers.
*nix better than Windows… well, I would say, it depends!
*nix is largely a programmer’s OS: you’ll love it of you love tinkering around, want to combine a hundred command-line tools other made into some new cool utility of yours. Like me, hate using mouse anytime you want to do anything.
Windows is answer to layman’s computer needs. If not impossible, it is still difficult to combine windows graphic utilities easily to build something more useful.
In a nutshell, both will exist for eons to come. Unix is/was primarily designed keeping a computer-savvy person in mind, and Windows mainly for users how should know no more than clicking, and both have come a long way and solved interesting problems along. How many $$$s each one makes is not entirely a measure of one’s true success. I still see *nix used as a primary platform in most schools (in US) for students to learn the basics of programming. There is a VERY strong reason why Unix is still around while Windows’ market share still hovers around 90%.
But, that much I can say, by design, *nix seems much much much more simple (and probably clean) than Windows. But that is just me (and probably my long history with Linux).
I say, it is not in best interest to argue endlessly (though a short healthy debate helps) about which OS is superior, use the one that works best for you and your needs. I would personally keep using Linux for a long long time, but still give Windows to my parents.
R. Bemrose
the original Bourne shell and the C Shell would like to argue with that on Non-Linux Unix like systems … Bash is only the default on Linux Distros not on all Unix-like systems …
But there is also KDE/XFCE etc … most of whom are not GNU and together are more popular than Gnome …(KDE is almost as popular as Gnome and many programs are KDE only …)
Try running Gnome without X.Org (or Xfree86) which is not GNU and see how far you get …
Lame article.
Excellent article!
Wow – it seems people respond to this subject almost as much as a hot button as religion!
UNIX is an art form in our computer age – and in art there is passion. Are the old masters’ classic art better than modern art? Is UNIX better than Windows – no, they are just different.
So I say enough with the silly bickering between the OS’s – with the rise & fall of OS’s we always gain ground on the knowledge front.
I agree with this comment…
“For every problem there is a solution. The solution may not always be using the tools you know. However the ability to be aware of these possibilities, irrelevant of your own skill set, far outweighs the value of being able to do it in the technology you are comfortable with.”
Nobody had made anything better than UNIX in 40 years. Everybody use it every day, Microsoft don’t create anything, Windows is a bad iteration of UNIX. I hope someday someone makes something greater than UNIX… and I hope been still alive to see it! 
as a old time system progger… hated early *nix (“whats this”?) then got mutated… delve into most OS’es and you get blocked by binary files, delve into *nix and you get ascii readable & editable files - very powerful.
as a programmer there are 3 camps?
- OS (and utilities):
only open source (or employment) allows you to play - application:
do you care? learn the api’s - systems (integration)
whee!!! *nix scripting tools allow you to fly… plus (basic) “print” tools allow easier debuging
oops… just revealed my bias…
I really like Unix because of natual separation of the kernel system and user interface. There is a core system which accept some commands from the user through a shell and there is X Server which really doesn’t have to be started. For me as a developer this is a natural thing like the MVC design pattern. Another think are the Windows Managers which give us the next layer of the separation. We can use Gnome, Kde, Window Maker and many others… This is a good architecture for me and im sure that if something goes wrong (some window crashes) that the kernel still works and i can stop the X Server with CTRL + Backspace and go back the shell. In Windows we have an integrated Explorer.
Anohter think is thats for me as a developer it is not so important which operating system i use. At the begining of my study/work it was. But now im using Windows at work and Unix at home. I learned thats more important is to write good and “clean code thats works”.
Kind regards
Sebastian
“And I really think Jeff needs to start distinguishing OSS and Free Software Movement. They are two seperate camps with radically different goals.”
“Are you the Judean People’s Front?
Fk off! We’re the People’s Front of Judea!
The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fking Judean People’s Front.
Yeah…
Splitters.
And the Judean Popular People’s Front.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters.”
Unix synonymous with Linux? Hmmm… sure, if you consider ‘cheese’ to by synonymous to ‘cheddar’.
What’s with that Spolsky quote? Only 5% of the software I use on Linux is ‘useful to other programmers’. And, I think people in the Linux world consider kmail, firefox, ssh, gftp and so on to be ‘valuable’.
“a willingness to live with a little less to avoid the bigger mess and a willingness to see elegance in the real rather than the vision.”
The rule of unintended concequences = bigger mess.
Balance is key. - Necessary evils.
The Tao of Unix…
Good lessons we should all understand.
*nix and you get ascii readable & editable files - very powerful
That is one of the MOST useful things I find. The world of plain text is so freaking awesome!
You can actually peek at the settings and understand what they mean and how to tinker with them to suit your needs!
I think of the difference between UNIX and Windows as being one of insight, like the difference between UTF-8 and the Windows version of UTF-16.
It’s been very hard to understand the genius of Unix for a long time now, because every other OS from the original Unix era has now been buried for years. Unix was, for good reason, like the Romans not just destroying Carthage but salting the fields to make sure it stayed dead.
Unix appeared when other operating software was not just bad, not just worse, but was simply hideous. We take for granted that files are streams of bytes. But before Unix they weren’t. We take it for granted that file systems are hierarchies. But not before Unix. Most programming environments lacked pointers, structures, and even block structured if-then-else. Sometimes you didn’t even get “else” at all. (Yeah yeah, pointers bad. Imagine developing without references, objects, OR pointers!)
I could go on but I’m starting to feel sick.
Unix did things that were so right we can’t imagine any other way any more.
There is also IRIX, Tru64, sysv (original sunos), and plain sunos (solaris), BSD. And probably some others.
Many above have said it before, *nix is just the base for greater things - you have to learn to crawl before you can walk.
Windows is like giving a 2 year old kid a ferrari - they’ll crash it and possibly kill 20 people in the process.
We are developing a new OS, AuroraUX. It is the OpenSolaris kernel with an Ada userland.
Long Live Unix!
Nobody had made anything better than unix in 40 years. Everybody use it every day, Microsoft don’t create anything, Windows is a bad iteration of unix. I hope someday someone makes something greater than unix and I hope been still alive to see it
No mention of Multics.
I am not a fan of Unix or Windows but I enjoy programming for both of them whether it’s in C, C++ or whatever suits the job at hand.
I think it’s worth studying what software engineers are getting right and wrong, because as a software engineer, I’ll use whatever the heck works as specified, that is, in a cost-effective manner.