My last job (I left in October) still uses Solaris on the SPARC-64 architecture. It was selected because the customer, The Oligarchic Cell Phone Company, required NEBS (Network Equipment Building System) compliance (it wouldn't surprise me if it's Federally mandated) and SPARC had said support. The hardware reminds me of a freight train---slow to start, slow to stop, but once going, it keeps going and can handle a frightening amount of load. But all of the development is done on Linux and Mac OS---we just stick to POSIX and it all works out.
Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
91–100 of 221 posts
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#92Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#93Towards 2014 or 2015 my previous work (some hosting company) had some AIX, Solaris and SCO, as well as some IBM i (aka OS 400) which isn't a Unix. AFAIK they were used because of choices of slow-moving/risk-averse big corps, mostly to run some java software or oracle/postgres/sybase databases that could just as well run on Linux. My take on each of the OSes was: AIX and the associated IBM stuff is kind of a mess. I e…
The thing I loved about AIX is SMIT (System Managment Interface Tool). Available both from the command line and GUI, you could completely manage the AIX system from it, but at any point, you could also have it print out what commands it was going to run (yes, it built a shell script as you navigated through the system). I've never seen a system like it anywhere else.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#94If it ain't broke, don't fix it. You are kind of combining two things though: legacy systems, and proprietary systems. There are modern proprietary systems as well. RHEL is a good example. I'd argue it's not a "small number of entities" though. You'd be shocked by what legacy systems are running in the most important places on the planet...maybe scared. Unfortunately/Fortunately, nuclear facilities aren't running Lin…
> There are modern proprietary systems as well. RHEL is a good example. RHEL is free software, isn't it? (it's just that if you decide to fully use the rights given by the licenses, bye bye support and updates from Red Hat IIRC)
RHEL is not free, but the word "free" is loosely defined in open source world. RHEL is open source, yet it is also proprietary. Yes, if you wanted to build from source you can, for free, but you get no access to the repos or service and you have to strip out all references to Red Hat (trademark / copyright infringement) if you want to use it commercially. So, ya if you want to use it at home or to learn, it's free.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
90s to early 2000s, it was "fun" to accidentally use "killall" on the wrong machine. System V derived UNIXes really mean "kill all", not what Linux meant with it ("kill all with a certain name"), and what today is better represented by "pkill" anyway.
Also reboot, which is safe on Linux, but does an instant power cycle with no proper shutdown on others.
Good one. That as well, and the reason why I'm still first trying "shutdown -r now", and if that doesn't work cautiously type in "reboot --help" (hoping that it parses the argument and does nothing at first), even on busybox.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#96Yup. 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…
This takes me back! This was roughly 25 years ago so I’ll do my best to remember. My first job in high school was at a company with the entire business running on SCO Unix. I want to say OpenServer 3, maybe? It was essentially a terminal server with dozens of Wyse 60 terminals attached. Anyway, as a Linux enthusiast I promptly setup a RedHat 7 install on some old hardware they had lying around. IIRC correctly it was…
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Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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...
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#98This is running Solaris. https://www.usa.philips.com/healthcare/solutions/radiation-o... Last I heard they were desperately trying to get it on Linux. Why it isn't is because its a huge legacy application with some very horrible hacks specific to the OS.
The last time I got an MRI, the control room had one of those iconic purple SGI O2 workstations on the desk. I guess they were pretty popular with medical imaging products.
Lots of MRIs and Cats still run Unix as well, even new ones. If it ain't broke etc etc, plus as a medical device it's a whole separate set of rules, testing, validation.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#99How 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 ?
I have an AlphaServer in my collection, running OpenVMS. It's been a while since I've booted it up. It's very loud.
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.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone using proprietary Unix at work?
#100A lot of the gas industry (wholesale fuel distributors) are still using AIX and OpenVMS. A lot of proprietary integrations, I presume, as well as ties to very very low powered chips and devices (have you seen how slow a gas pump computer is sometimes?)