Heaps! My main clients use AIX on Power for most database workloads (DB2). I had a client that used HPUX for everything (SAP). One could Telnet into their core accounting system from the corporate network.
Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
41–50 of 221 posts
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#42In my previous job (mid-2010s) I encountered a ton of AIX and Solaris, mostly at very large banks.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#43I'd argue Mac OS X is proprietary UNIX, but I'll admit to that being a bit pedantic.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#44I 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…
That does sound like an absolute clusterfuck of software. But just in case it wasn't clear, I don't think that "custom *nix OS" is to blame at all. And as for text based UIs, they're still fantastic for things like data entry and lookup.
It just seems that the actual software running on the OS, with the text UI, seems to be profoundly terrible in your case.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#45It's rather hard to get rid of some old CAD systems in the automobile industry. I was part of a bigger migration almost 20 years ago, when a rather big org moved from CATIA V4, basically running on all the Unices, to the new V5 version, which also ran quite well on Windows. I know that some SGI systems still had a slight advantage when there was a lot of stuff loaded (unified memory?), but they were on their last days.
Or so they thought. Now it looks like most of the engineers moved on to the slate green pastures of Wintel, but occasionally an old format or workflow tends to pop up. I know of some software still being updated for those old V4 machines 5 years ago, but I've been out of the loop since.
Same software is used in aerospace, too. Where you're not switching to totally new models as fast, so I wonder how legacy-laden their software infrastructure is. "Who here knows both French and early 00 SGI admin?"
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you actually recompile your kernel on Mac? And its functional? I'll bet this isn't even the source code Apple uses, but rather they have a private fork with extra patches (similar to how Microsoft publishes OSS VS Code, but then uses their own proprietary version for releases).
You can, or at least could 5 years ago or so (and I bet you still could now). However, it involved finding some random blog post on how to do it, and then even once I got it up and running there were some issues like the fans being pegged at 100%. Still, it was mostly functional.
I can speak to that via scuttlebutt from ex-apple friends. Apparently the intel power management code running in macos includes proprietary code from intel that they weren't comfortable opensourcing, for weird reasons.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#47The last "proprietary Unix" I worked with was AIX, way back in 2006. And that was only because their primary customer was an AIX shop. The code itself would actually run on Linux. Previous to that (late 90's, early 2000's) it was mainly Solaris. One place was fairly heterogeneous, and had Solaris, HP-UX, Digital Unix (aka OSF/1, Tru64), and a couple others.
I think that last bit might have been somewhat common at the time. I had a small job as one of the unix-y guys at a software company dealing with a very similar collection of OSs. In their case, it was simply because the software they made ran on a lot of popular (and some not so popular) OSes, so the boxes running them (and, in most cases, building the software) had to be there.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#48How about proprietary "non unix's"?
Anyone running VMS? RSTS/E ? Or on rare hardware, OS-32 on a PE 8/32, or MPX on any SEL 32 family? MPE on Harris ?
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#49Yup. 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…
> Access is the biggest issue, as the OS only supports telnet, and serial access. OpenSSH works on it. This page has links to precompiled packages: https://scosales.com/knowledge-base/how-to-install-ssh-for-s... links: ftp://ftp2.sco.com/pub/skunkware/osr5/vols/openssh-3.4p1-VOLS.tar ftp://ftp2.sco.com/pub/skunkware/osr5/vols/prngd-0.9.23-VOLS.tar ftp://ftp2.sco.com/pub/skunkware/osr5/vols/zlib-1.1.4-VOLS.tar Probabl…
Maintaining access to a 20 year old ssh server will not be trivial. A modern client would usually fail to agree on encryption protocols in my experience.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#50Last I used a Xerox digital printing press I was greeted with a "SunOS" version string when opening a shell - being some version of a Solaris. It wasn't much impressed by my linux cli-fu. Looking at current brochures those still ship with it. Product is called "Freeflow Print Server" that GUI for the job queue looked java based as it also has Windows incarnations. It will do the raster imaging before printing. Good times