I started in the industry when you were born, with IRIX, HPUX (horrible) and Solaris. I was on Linux by 97/98 and I haven't seen a *nix system in production use in a workplace that I've been in since about 2010.
Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
111–120 of 221 posts
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#112I used to work for Sherwin-Williams. The in-store computers run some custom *nix OS. The software that company runs on is a text based ui that hasn't changed since it was introduced in the 90s. They released a major update in 2020 that allowed you to move windows around the screen. It was groundbreaking. But let me tell you, this system was absolutely terrible. All the machines were full x86 desktops with no hard dri…
I worked for a vendor that SW was a customer, and we were asked about integrating with some SW systems...what you are describing resonates
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#113I used to work for Sherwin-Williams. The in-store computers run some custom *nix OS. The software that company runs on is a text based ui that hasn't changed since it was introduced in the 90s. They released a major update in 2020 that allowed you to move windows around the screen. It was groundbreaking. But let me tell you, this system was absolutely terrible. All the machines were full x86 desktops with no hard dri…
I know of a small shop that made a good living buying software packages like that, rewriting/modernizing the technology, and selling the new version back to all the existing customers. It was kind of a win for everyone -- the customers got updated, secure software, the owners of the old tech who were getting nothing out of it (this stuff is not SaaS) got some money, and some developers got work.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, the OS itself was passable. It had the absolute bare minimum required to work, so not much could go wrong. The ancient software also wasn't bad. After a few months learning the hotkeys and menu structure, the speed with which you can enter and process data was absolutely incredible. It had problems, but usually minor and patched in a reasonable time for corporate IT. The real problem was their database manageme…
Ugly. This makes me seriously wonder whether they just did not put an index in, and unfathomably many hours have been wasted on useless full table scans for something that would have been fixed with a handful of CREATE INDEX statements? Though that's a lot of conjecture, and the real answer is probably more complex. But your examples do make me wonder...
Likely wasn't a RDBMS at all, but flat files with maybe one key index (or perhaps none).
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#115Isn’t https://oxide.computer/ continuing development of SmartOS (which is based on OpenSolaris)
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty trivial. Some things are disabled by default, but still available on the latest versions of clients. For the OpenSSH client, it will tell you what specifically the client and server failed to agree on, and you can just add the option to enable on the client one of the ciphers, kex algos, or whatever that the server accepts. I've had no trouble with neither the latest version of the OpenSSH client nor Putt…
Using ancient ciphers and kex algos can end up being just as secure as telnet.
I mean, if they can compile the latest version of sshd to run on SCO OSr5, that's great! If they can't because it's no longer compatible or whatever, are you saying they may as well stay with telnet? Obviously, not using legacy software is best, but it's not like people can just snap their fingers. Software needs to be ported, people need to be trained, etc. Work and time is needed. In the meantime, using sshd seems like an easy upgrade.
On "ancient", the ciphers and kex algos used by the OSr5 sshd above were deprecated like 4 years ago. I'd like to think that among the select group of probably-not-technical people that have access, it's not exactly the same bar of technical ability to inspect the contents of a plaintext connection as that to inspect the contents of an encrypted connection that uses ciphers and kex algos deprecated a few years ago.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
ssh'd to a live alpha server at work last year. there were some files on there I wanted to look at. the machine has to be at least 20 years old at this point. but it feels fast. bash. find. xargs grep. command line stuff very responsive. it felt fast back then. i do remember that.
Alphas were incredible when they first came out. The one I have is a DS10, probably also 20 years old-ish. It still feels responsive.
It was a DS-20
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#118Yup. SCO OpenServer 5.0.something, for some partner's accounting department. Neither the OS nor the application software have been updated since the late 1990s, but if it works, it works, I guess... (to be honest: the application software is only used to run reports in response to requests from the legal department, but apparently still can't be shut down -- I ask once a year, next upcoming 'query date' in my agenda…
That's an interesting account of evolutionary biology.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#119macOS is the most widely used UNIX on the planet.
Well, Android is Linux, does that count as "Unix"? I think there's a lot more Android world-wide than iOS/macOS/iPadOS/watchOS/tvOS/etcOS combined?
It depends on the definition of UNIX, but typically Linux doesn’t count as UNIX.
You can draw a continuous—if very torturous—line between Bell Labs’ UNIX original codebase and modern macOS/iOS.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#120AIX
Luckily it had bash, so it felt like a Linux system for my scripts. There is a Command to enumerate all the hardware running on it, I remember running that command to see what was assigned to the LPAR the Aix instance was running on. It took 3 minutes to run and complete :)
So yeah, a mainframe. Twlco. IBM obviously. It was used as a massive Oracle database.