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Unix is both a technology and an idea

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Re: Unix is both a technology and an idea

#81

Post by teleforce »

pjmlp wrote: post #12

Those that keep trying to make a point of Android being UNIX, never really shipped anything on the Play Store. Yes, it uses the Linux kernel, and several components born on the Linux world and that is about it. Only Google and OEM partners get to see that layer, and those that root their devices. Nothing on the Android userspace, the Java and Kotlin frameworks, or the NDK official APIs have anything to do with Linux…

>Those that keep trying to make a point of Android being UNIX, never really shipped anything on the Play Store.

An old wise sayings said, never say never

>Yes, it uses the Linux kernel, and several components born on the Linux world and that is about it

It's the OS engine of the world's most popular mobile software framework so called Android not unlike the Unreal Engine is the game engine for the world's most popular 3D gaming software so called PUBG. Is it wrong to claim Android is Unix, as PUBG is Unreal?

>Only Google and OEM partners get to see that layer, and those that root their devices

I think the sibling comments already answered these allegations

>As for the technology, the UNIX haters book exists for a reason, had AT&T been allowed to sell UNIX from the get go, and most likely it wouldn't have picked up steam on the market.

Haters gonna hate but the most ardent Unix hater, the author of most successful desktop OSes VMS and Windows NT namely the lagendary David Cutler did copied many of the "flawed" Unix ideas into modern Windows

>recovered UNIX zealot

Personally never meet a Unix zealot, but never say never

Re: Unix is both a technology and an idea

#82

Post by jjav »

nologic01 wrote: post #42

The issue with "Unix", both as a technology and as an idea, is that has remained substantially incomplete. It never developed the next layer(s) that would help embrace all users , not just the technical ones. The fact that the project/ideology/mindset is old does not mean it is rounded, finished and fulfilled. "Unix" missed the popularization of compute not once but twice, first with the infamous "linux desktop", the…

> There does not seem to be a technical reason why this "completion" has not happened.

I'd say there is. Unix is a wonderful toolkit of tools that all work together in the most wonderful way. You can build your own perfectly custom anything by piecing tools together exactly how you want. I can't think of a more satisfying playground for a technical person.

Thing is, the nontechnical users don't want that. So building something on top of Unix that can "embrace all users, not just the technical ones" will by definition hide or remove nearly all the interesting lego-like interlocking tool functionality.

So at that level, the Unix desktop is an impossible contradiction. Sure you can built plenty of desktops on top of Unix and plenty have been written. But at that point it isn't quite Unix anymore, unless you ignore the desktop and open xterm.

Re: Unix is both a technology and an idea

#83

Post by BearhatBeer »

nologic01 wrote: post #42

The issue with "Unix", both as a technology and as an idea, is that has remained substantially incomplete. It never developed the next layer(s) that would help embrace all users , not just the technical ones. The fact that the project/ideology/mindset is old does not mean it is rounded, finished and fulfilled. "Unix" missed the popularization of compute not once but twice, first with the infamous "linux desktop", the…

Early on, Unix was in use across the phone company and normal people used it for their every day tasks. All Unix users read the manual. Otherwise you're not really a Unix user.

Re: Unix is both a technology and an idea

#84

Post by matheusmoreira »

pjmlp wrote: post #75
matheusmoreira wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It forks and execs new programs using the actual Linux system calls. It's a real Linux terminal emulator that opens and drives /dev/ptmx. Not sure what else it needs to be a real Linux. Termux is very well integrated. Termux:API allows access to phone sensors, location and cameras, sharing data with android apps, issuing notifications... All from the command line. Things like xdg-open work fine.

There is a reason why you cannot install Termux any longer via the Play Store, those APIs aren't allowed as public APIs.

I know and I think it's dumb. Termux is too useful not to allow the use of those APIs. They should turn them into permissions or something.

Re: Unix is both a technology and an idea

#85

Post by galaxyLogic »

coldtea wrote: post #25
galaxyLogic wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “purity” is holding us back and closing our mind to new solutions. Maybe. But consider shebang. It means that any program (/script) written in any language known by the system can call any other program written in any other language. That keeps open the option of which laguage should we use for our next module. Right?

That's an constrained example of the general concept of a file-association (having a file plus the info of what application executes that file). As such, it predates UNIX, exist in other OSes as well, and can be even more dynamic (as shebangs are hardcoded into the file, where file + executable associations could be external). Linux offers another way anyway: linux_binfmt If I'm not mistaken that's also how jar files…

It is nifty and mind-blowing. It basically means there is a way to "call" a program-file and let it decide who should interpret the program.

It is not too different from the way in which html-pages can declare what is the character-set that should be used to interpret the binary contents of the file. The deep thing to me is that programs can not only encode instructions for the computer, they can also encode how to do the decoding. Obviously you then need some common convention (like shebang) to say how you can interpret the part that tells how to interpret the content.

Re: Unix is both a technology and an idea

#86

Post by nologic01 »

jjav wrote: post #82
nologic01 wrote: post #42

The issue with "Unix", both as a technology and as an idea, is that has remained substantially incomplete. It never developed the next layer(s) that would help embrace all users , not just the technical ones. The fact that the project/ideology/mindset is old does not mean it is rounded, finished and fulfilled. "Unix" missed the popularization of compute not once but twice, first with the infamous "linux desktop", the…

> There does not seem to be a technical reason why this "completion" has not happened. I'd say there is. Unix is a wonderful toolkit of tools that all work together in the most wonderful way. You can build your own perfectly custom anything by piecing tools together exactly how you want. I can't think of a more satisfying playground for a technical person. Thing is, the nontechnical users don't want that. So building…

> will by definition hide or remove

I am not sure that follows. Maybe the "hiding" part in some sense, but without any negative impact. One approach is to pre-package a set of components for the tasks people use frequently and for which they expect to have a simple interface. Such an arrangement does not prevent power users from clicking on the proverbial "developer" option and unlocking the components, creating new mashups.

For sure such a natural and intuitive higher level interface is non-trivial to design. It would be as important an innovation as the underlying unix itself.

Re: Unix is both a technology and an idea

#87

Post by coldtea »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #85
coldtea wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an constrained example of the general concept of a file-association (having a file plus the info of what application executes that file). As such, it predates UNIX, exist in other OSes as well, and can be even more dynamic (as shebangs are hardcoded into the file, where file + executable associations could be external). Linux offers another way anyway: linux_binfmt If I'm not mistaken that's also how jar files…

It is nifty and mind-blowing. It basically means there is a way to "call" a program-file and let it decide who should interpret the program. It is not too different from the way in which html-pages can declare what is the character-set that should be used to interpret the binary contents of the file. The deep thing to me is that programs can not only encode instructions for the computer, they can also encode how to d…

There would be a step anyway between the user selecting even a regular binary executable (via pressing enter after writing its name on the shell, by double-clicking on it in a desktop file manager, by running a shell script which on some line invokes it, etc) and it starting to execute (the shell or GUI would have to interpret the action and tell the OS to execute the binary).

So adding an intermediary to do a choice of executor and/or handover in between (whereas at the shell/file-manager level, or at the OS call level), but still before execution, is quite easy.

Re: Unix is both a technology and an idea

#88

Post by DerekL »

pjmlp wrote: post #65
harry8 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so what? Regular users (whatever they are) don't know or care that a mac is unix under there somewhere. At moments like these i feel the loss of the nokia N900 that was glibc, gtk+ linux all the way down and up. Best phone I ever owned by a margin. Also arguably not a machine owned by apple/goog/samsung/etc whose purpose is surveillance of the schmuck (me) who just paid for it.

Its UNIX influence is a phyrric victory, without any real value as Google can completly replace it with Fuschia at any time they feel like it, and those regular users won't even notice.

* Pyrrhic

Re: Unix is both a technology and an idea

#89

Post by epcoa »

teleforce wrote: post #81
pjmlp wrote: post #12

Those that keep trying to make a point of Android being UNIX, never really shipped anything on the Play Store. Yes, it uses the Linux kernel, and several components born on the Linux world and that is about it. Only Google and OEM partners get to see that layer, and those that root their devices. Nothing on the Android userspace, the Java and Kotlin frameworks, or the NDK official APIs have anything to do with Linux…

>Those that keep trying to make a point of Android being UNIX, never really shipped anything on the Play Store. An old wise sayings said, never say never >Yes, it uses the Linux kernel, and several components born on the Linux world and that is about it It's the OS engine of the world's most popular mobile software framework so called Android not unlike the Unreal Engine is the game engine for the world's most popula…

> namely the lagendary David Cutler did copied many of the "flawed" Unix ideas into modern Windows

You have any examples?

Re: Unix is both a technology and an idea

#90

Post by teleforce »

epcoa wrote: post #89
teleforce wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Those that keep trying to make a point of Android being UNIX, never really shipped anything on the Play Store. An old wise sayings said, never say never >Yes, it uses the Linux kernel, and several components born on the Linux world and that is about it It's the OS engine of the world's most popular mobile software framework so called Android not unlike the Unreal Engine is the game engine for the world's most popula…

> namely the lagendary David Cutler did copied many of the "flawed" Unix ideas into modern Windows You have any examples?

The classic example is that the original VMS (of which Dave is one of the original authors) has several types of native files, but the modern Windows NT has forgone this many types approach (e.g record & index) for simpler flat file approach similar to Unix.
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