Discussion Platform / UNIX

Sounds like revisionist history to me. Some blogs made a huge stink about the Amazon Shopping Lens but in reality Ubuntu's popularity never wavered. It was the most popular desktop distro by a huge margin back then and that's still true today. Linux enthusiasts' opinions don't influence Ubuntu's popularity one bit. I wonder why the writer thinks otherwise...

Oh. I guess that explains the delusional views on distro popularity present on the page.

I'm probably going to make quite a few changes to this aspect of the page and perhaps even update the recent history parts of it. Steam OS, for example, wasn't a bombshell at all and quickly faded back into the obscurity from whence it came.

Edited by CunningStuntbag

Why is this article so long? Especially considering the fact that UNIX has almost no relation to any work of fiction on this wiki, and that there is no Windows article despite the fact that nearly all PC games of the past decade at least have been for Windows.

Not complaining, just confused.

Also, important to note that there's an equally exhaustive article on Mac OS.

Edited by Fopenplop

"UNIX systems are likely to spread further into the consumer desktop environment as Microsoft prepares to bring the Windows product line to an end" seems a bit far-fetched, doesn't it?

Recommended reading for anyone interested in UNIX history:

• Life with UNIX by Don Libes and Sandy Ressler. It's old (1989) and thus a bit quaint to read, given what's happened in the ensuing 21 years, but it's also a fun read and provides a lot of insight into the first two decades of UNIX's growth and development.

• The UNIX-HATERS Handbook. A good look at the dark side of UNIX, from about the same era (it was released in 1992 and compiled from late-1980s posts to the UNIX-HATERS mailing list). Again, a bit quaint to read — many of the foibles mentioned have long since been fixed or made irrelevant — but still a good Devil's Advocate to the more cheery Life with UNIX.

• The Jargon File, particularly the versions after Eric Raymond took over maintenance in the 1990s. The File is a witty, pithy, often hilarious glossary of "hacker jargon" as used in various Internet-connected computer R&D circles (starting with the AI labs at Stanford and MIT, then progressing from there to UNIX fandom and the Open Source movement). It's gotten a tiny bit preachy recently (especially after 9/11, when ESR's politics became distinctly pro-Bush), but the historical material is still worth the read. (Don't forget to read the "chaff" file, a list of terms that aren't in current use; it's even more worth it.)

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