[TUHS] Macs and future unix derivatives

[Will Senn]

All,

I was introduced to Unix in the mid 1990's through my wife's VMS account 
at UT Arlington, where they had a portal to the WWW. I was able to 
download Slackware with the 0.9 kernel on 11 floppies including X11. I 
installed this on my system at the time - either a DEC Rainbow 100B? or 
a handme down generic PC. A few years later at Western Illinois 
University - they had some Sun Workstations there and I loved working 
with them. It would be several years later, though, that I would 
actually use unix in a work setting - 1998. I don't even remember what 
brand of unix, but I think it was again, sun, though no gui, so not as 
much love. Still, I was able to use rcs and and when my Windows bound 
buddies lost a week's work because of some snafu with their backups, I 
didn't lose anything - jackflash was the name of the server - good 
memories :). However, after this it was all DOS and Windows until, 2005.

I'd been eyeing Macs for some time. I like the visual aesthetics and 
obvious design considerations. But, in 2005, I finally had a bonus big 
enough to actually buy one. I bought a G5 24" iMac and fell in love with 
Mac. Next, it was a 15" G4 Powerbook. I loved those Macs until Intel 
came around and then it was game over, no more PC's in my life (not 
really, but emotionally, this was how I felt). With Mac going intel, I 
could dual boot into Windows, Triple boot into Linux, and Quadruple boot 
into FreeBSD, and I could ditch Fink and finally manage my unix tools 
properly (arguable, I know) with Homebrew or MacPorts (lately, I've gone 
back to MacPorts due to Homebrew's lack of support for older OS 
versions, and for MacPorts seeming rationality).

Anyhow, I have thoroughly enjoyed the Mac ride, but with Catalina, the 
ride got really bumpy (too much phone home, no more 32 bit programs and 
since Adobe Acrobat X, which I own, outright, isn't 64 bit, among other 
apps, this just in not an option for me), and with Big Sur, it's gotten 
worse, potholes, sinkholes, and suchlike, and the interface is downright 
patronizing (remember Microsoft Bob?). So, here I am, Mr. 
Run-Any-Cutting-Edge-OS anytime guy, hanging on tooth and nail to Mac OS 
Mojave where I still have a modicum of control over my environment.

My thought for the day and question for the group is... It seems that 
the options for a free operating system (free as in freedom) are 
becoming ever more limited - Microsoft, this week, announced that their 
Edge update will remove Edge Legacy and IE while doing the update - 
nuts; Mac's desktop is turning into IOS - ew, ick; and Linux is wild 
west meets dictatorship and major corporations are moving in to set 
their direction (Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, etc.). FreeBSD we've beat to 
death over the last couple of weeks, so I'll leave it out of the mix for 
now. What in our unix past speaks to the current circumstance and what 
do those of you who lived those events see as possibilities for the next 
revolution - and, will unix be part of it?

And a bonus question, why, oh why, can't we have a contained kernel that 
provides minimal functionality (dare I say microkernel), that is 
securable, and layers above it that other stuff (everything else) can 
run on with auditing and suchlike for traceability?





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