Foo - Politics, Religion, and Operating Systems (Not a P&R Discussion)

Most forums have a few zealots on both sides of the religion and politics fences. These are generally considered to be "hot-button" or even "taboo" topics. Not because they're both matters of pure opinion, but because the only people who actually participate in such discussions are zealots whose mind will never be changed to "the other side". Thus, those discussions, if left unmitigated, degrade quickly into elaborately-worded f-yous

Another forum I'm on has a different breed. The Operating System zealots. In this arena, you have the people who think Steve Jobs will save the world, then you have a few wild-eyed savages wearing Dellcrosoft undaroos, and finally, you have a few fanboys waving Linux flags.

By the way, I'm posting this from FireFox on an old PC (running on OpenBSD) with a Powerbook (running OSX) sitting on a stack of 3 Sun Microsystems machines (1 running Solaris, others: OpenBSD) on my right. Good luck figuring out my stance on OSs.

I haven't seen it here yet, but does that pretty much sum up the geek fooster atmosphere? Are OS Zealots just as stiffly opinionated as the P&R guys here?

Just get Ubuntu and be happy.

http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2006/apr/rockwell/rockwell500x500.jpg

^^ HA Ha LOL

I use both and guess what? I am more marketable because of it.

My personal computer runs Windows XP to do everything. My laptop ran Debian. My server ran FreeBSD about a year ago, and I've switched it to Debian.

Debian.

Never owned an MS "os" -- though I'm trapped in them where I work -- though I use cygwin to run the fun stuff off of the server that I finally convinced them to buy so that I could actually do some programming.... that's another story. That server runs RedHat, because they insisted that they purchase "support". I lobbied, unsuccessfully, against that. Oh well.

But my all time favorite was probably BeOS. Man I loved that thing.

I work in a Microsoft certified house so we're all running one form of windows or another, developing C# and VB, on one generation of Visual Studio or another.

I never did sit down and learn the Linux enviroment properly. I keep telling myself I'm going to do it. I had a SUSE box running for a while, but have since retired that machine. And I have 30gigs of unpartitioned space on my main PC at home that was intended for a dualboot setup. That never got finished after I finished installing XP Pro.

Oh, and I dispise Java for anything but simple jsp or servelet apps, or command line.

I'm on my Commodore 64 right now. It took me 2 hours and 12 minutes to post this reply.

Rules of life:

1) avoid politics if at all possible
2) Everything worth doing has politics invovled in it
3) get over it, now

I'm on my Commodore 64 right now. It took me 2 hours and 12 minutes to post this reply.


Pffft the TRS 80 could run circles around your 64 :D

It only took me 1 hour and 45 minutes to post.

Use DOS or die! Oops - did I type that?!

I have coded for so many different OSs that I have lost count. They all have their strengths and weaknesses - and I really have been doing it so long that it is hard to remember what OS or Language that I am in at the time.

When all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. For me, an OS is a tool. It is a good thing to pick up the right kind. The only all purpose tool I know is a hammer - which is very useful sometimes with computers - fear causes them to obey...

I'll bite. I don't really care for how the whole "Linux" thing is going.

Entities suing other entities because of it, no standardised package distribution system, too many distributions, the kernel developer clique has grown out of control, and a number of other reasons.

I do like debian's way of doing packages, but I like Gentoo's way better -- mostly because it's how BSD does it. I loathe RPM, despite my "second wind" inspiration for Linux came from Red Hat 4.2 in 1997 or so. I was a slackware guy before that, starting in 1993.

Anyhow, FreeBSD took me away from most of that in 1998, and I finally tried OpenBSD after buying a copy from Theo himself at DefCon 6 in Las Vegas. I shortly thereafter discovered NetBSD while looking to make my old Mac SE/30 useable for something, and I had it at DefCon 7. NetBSD on an old Mac. People thought I was lying and I'd somehow put a 386 in the case.

Anyhow, I still know Linux and Windows - I use them at work (because I have to). But my general stance is "don't use Windows or Linux unless nothing else will work".

Needless to say, most people in OS debate discussions write me off as a Mac zealot, but I'm not really. My license plate and my avatar say OpenBSD, so I'm probably an OpenBSD zealot with a Mac addiction problem.

But my all time favorite was probably BeOS. Man I loved that thing.

I love BeOS. You know it's back, right? http://www.zeta-os.com/cms/news.php

I can see it now, 15 wild-eyed Linux terrorists flying planes into buildings.

Linux: the fact that there seems to be a "flavor of the month" pisses me off to now end....how about all working on a unified distro, and perfecting it, instead of everyone doing one thing right, but ignoing everything else?

I think Linspire is a great idea for the home user, but I prefer RedHat....why? because it's been around for ages, and they have been improving steadily. Their only downfall is the same downfall all of linux has: a clunky-ass software install system. It's not even close to elegant or simple....the fact that the installer can't just go to sourceforge and DL/install packages that are needed is quite annoying....then you have packages that just won't compile, since it doesn't like another package you have installed......

personally I like z/OS 1.7 that I'm currently using, although
some of the new features of z/OS 1.8
(particularly some of the ISPF features, and the variable length move in ALC)
look really good.

marty

I can see it now, 15 wild-eyed Linux terrorists flying planes into buildings.
Nope, 15 terrified Windows users whose plane is hitting the building because they don't have SP2 installed!:D

I was thinking the windows airplane hit the building because the navigation system had a blue screen :p

I was thinking the windows airplane hit the building because the navigation system had a blue screen :p

Sounds like an airbus. :rolleyes:

I'm on my Commodore 64 right now. It took me 2 hours and 12 minutes to post this reply.
http://www.pacfit.com/roflmao.gif

Linux: the fact that there seems to be a "flavor of the month" pisses me off to now end....how about all working on a unified distro, and perfecting it, instead of everyone doing one thing right, but ignoing everything else?

I think Linspire is a great idea for the home user, but I prefer RedHat....why? because it's been around for ages, and they have been improving steadily. Their only downfall is the same downfall all of linux has: a clunky-ass software install system. It's not even close to elegant or simple....the fact that the installer can't just go to sourceforge and DL/install packages that are needed is quite annoying....then you have packages that just won't compile, since it doesn't like another package you have installed......

This is the reason for a good package management system. There is a huge number of packages for debian, and RPMs can be converted into debian packages as well. I like FreeBSD, but when I used it, the ports databased often had to be fixed to account for variations in dependencies such as a dependency being upgraded and a package looking for *.so.2 when the new package installed *.so.3 It's weird like that. That's why I like Debian's package management.

Now that my HP laptop poked its eye out and swallowed its brain, I guess I'll have to consider a MacBook Pro for my next home laptop.

Linux: the fact that there seems to be a "flavor of the month" pisses me off to now end....how about all working on a unified distro, and perfecting it, instead of everyone doing one thing right, but ignoing everything else?

I think Linspire is a great idea for the home user, but I prefer RedHat....why? because it's been around for ages, and they have been improving steadily. Their only downfall is the same downfall all of linux has: a clunky-ass software install system. It's not even close to elegant or simple....the fact that the installer can't just go to sourceforge and DL/install packages that are needed is quite annoying....then you have packages that just won't compile, since it doesn't like another package you have installed......
That's why I like OpenBSD. If you can't find a binary package, just use the ports tree, and it will go hunt down all the dependency source code, install those deps, then compile the program you want. Here's a log I captured installing Audacity on OpenBSD. Notice it had to find several dependencies. The "progress bar" showed up on multiple lines, sorry about that.

http://www.focushacks.com/temp/audacity.log


It's as simple as "make install" (or "sudo make install" if you're paranoid like me and never use root for anything)

The "ports" system is in all major BSD flavors, and "Portage" (emerge) for Gentoo Linux is similar.

$15.4 million bucks! His ex-wife must be spewing!

I think Jesus would use linux if he was alive today. He is after all, a communist.

I'm on my Commodore 64 right now. It took me 2 hours and 12 minutes to post this reply.

2 hrs to start that is fast next to my radio shack with tape drive

since we are on taboo items winndows is great along with rush limbaugh,

i have not figured what religions have brought heated discousions

religion sucks...politics suck....windows sucks! anything else?

By the way, I'm posting this from FireFox on an old PC (running on OpenBSD) with a Powerbook (running OSX) sitting on a stack of 3 Sun Microsystems machines (1 running Solaris, others: OpenBSD) on my right. Good luck figuring out my stance on OSs.
Let's see... you 've got four out of five machines running BSD and the fifth machine has quite a bit of BSD code in it... ;)

Here are some of the things turning electricity into heat at my house:
main desktop machine is a Sun Ultra2 running Solaris
2 x laptops running FreeBSD
an RS/6000-530H running AIX (because I like glorified spaceheaters)
a DECstation5000/200 running NetBSD (I would love to find some old OpenVMS to run on this just for nostalgia)
primary nameserver is an old SPARC2 running OpenBSD
6 x misc. servers (mix of SPARC5 and SPARC20) running Solaris and NetBSD
2 x x86 servers running FreeBSD
an x86 server running Linux (used for NMS; I love CactiEZ)
4 x Soekris net4801 SBCs running embedded FreeBSD for random expirimental and development purposes. I sometimes load these guys with other embedded OSes such as eCos, QNX and LynxOS.
a headless x86 box with WindowsXP Pro modified to work as a workgroup server (I just rdesktop into this)
an old (no longer mobile; battery dead) laptop running Windows2000 that acts as a management base for my mobile devices (phone, PDA, etc)
Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 PDA running embedded linux
mobile phone running Windows Mobile/SP 5
backup mobile phone running Windows Smartphone2003
three workgroup switches (mix of Cisco 3500 class 24 and 48 port) running CiscoIOS.
three routers (3600-class) running CiscoIOS
Wi-Fi controller for my three access points running embedded linux with specialized Wi-Fi management software
an old Mac Quadra running BeOSAs you can see, I'm quite eclectic when it comes to OSes. Almost all my wife's machines (2 x laptops and a desktop) are running WindowsXP. She does have a NeXTCUBE however.



I haven't seen it here yet, but does that pretty much sum up the geek fooster atmosphere? Are OS Zealots just as stiffly opinionated as the P&R guys here?
All hardcore zeolots are the same regardless of what they're pimping. They're both annoying and fundamentally destructive to their cause.

Ah, a fellow geek!

My current collection:


Servers:
Sun SparcStation 5 (OpenBSD 3.9) - on the DMZ - my "VPN box"
Sun SparcStation 20 (OpenBSD 4.0)
Sun Ultra 5 with a Red-to-blue CCT in the front !LOL! (Solaris 10)
Five (5) Cheapo 1U Rackmount 2.4GHz Prescott-powered space heaters with 140*F air coming out the back (OpenBSD 3.9 and 4.0)
IBM RS/6000 Model 250 (AIX 5.1)
IBM RS/6000 Model 43P (AIX 4.3.3)
Dell PowerEdge 650 1U Server (Windows Server 2K3 Enterprise - my wife's BBS/MajorMUD/TradeWars 2002 Server)

Desktops:
Homebrew Athlon 1.2GHz (My Win2k/BeOS R5 Pro dual boot)
Homebrew Athlon64 3.8GHz in a 4U Rackmount case that's been windowed with multi-colored CCTs inside - don't ask (Win2K - my wife's World of Warcraft box)
Dell PowerEdge 1400c (My wife's "I need to look up something while I'm playing WoW" box)
Dell GX1P (Drive-sled quick-os-changing Lab Box)
Dell 1.2 GHz Celeron (unknown model, black roundish clamshell era. Another lab box)
PowerMac 7100 with 400MHz G3 Upgrade - MkLinux / OS9 Dual boot - For importing video
Two (2) Mac SE/30's (NetBSD 1.something and OpenBSD 3.6)
Several un-used PowerMac/Performa 6000 series

Lappies:
Compaq Armada 6500 (OpenBSD)
Mac G3 Wallstreet (OS X)
NEC Versa 4050 (OpenBSD/Red Hat Linux)
Black MacBook (coming this month)

And a bunch of gadgets and PDAs that could be considered computers:
AXIS StorPoint CD/DVD/Burner Server in a 16-slot (2 stacks of 8 5.25 bays) R2D2-esque Procom case (With stroby colorful LEDs!)
Audiovox Thera PDA/Phone (Windows Mobile 2002) - Not currently used as a phone
HP Jornada 720 (HPC/2000)
HP Jornada 620 (Windows CE 3.0)
HP 320LX (Windows CE 2.11)
HP 300LX (Windows CE 1.0)

And I have enough parts to build several PC's, Macs and sun boxes. But no place to put the assembled systems. The "Lab box" drives have FreeBSD, CentOS, Fedora, SUSE, NetBSD, Win2K, Server 2K3, Plan 9, V2OS (I used to be a core developer), and Solaris x86. These are used for data recovery from clients' media/drives, and for lab-testing malware, viruses, and sharpening my vulnerability assessment skills. They're plugged in to their own 5-port hub, and not on my main network. They're powered off at all times unless I'm actually doing something on them.

2 hrs to start that is fast next to my radio shack with tape drive

since we are on taboo items winndows is great along with rush limbaugh,

i have not figured what religions have brought heated discousions

As soon as I finish building my Timex Sinclair, I will respond. Mine had the 64k module and used a cassette player, not even an actual tape drive. And you had to write your own programs in BASIC.

I also have a TS Sinclair 1000. But the ribbon cable to the stupid membrane keyboard broke. A few of the keys don't work any more. Other than that, it still works great. It was my first computer back in 1982. Too bad a bottle of sunscreen has more processing power than that thing.

And by the way, I wrote most of my programs in Z80 assembly. ;)

I have a Mac (iBook G4 I got in February) and a desktop with XP (SP2 installed).

I don't know anything about Linux or any of the other OSs y'all are talking about.

I do like my Mac more than my Windoze, though!

I think your average bike computer or digital watch has way more processing power today.

You guys can talk all the geek talk you want. On Wednesday, I tattooed the Free BSD Daemon onto my web guy's leg. That's a hardcore geek.

I also have a TS Sinclair 1000. But the ribbon cable to the stupid membrane keyboard broke. A few of the keys don't work any more. Other than that, it still works great. It was my first computer back in 1982. Too bad a bottle of sunscreen has more processing power than that thing.

And by the way, I wrote most of my programs in Z80 assembly. ;)

i had to rewire my keyboard with a different one, it took a while but it worked
those were fun

norse: link? howto? I'm lazy.

I will never, ever tattoo anything on my body, but this is close:
http://www.focushacks.com/photo/Ax0n2.jpg

As soon as I finish building my Timex Sinclair, I will respond. Mine had the 64k module and used a cassette player, not even an actual tape drive. And you had to write your own programs in BASIC.
I remember receiving a Sinclair ZX81 for my 9th birthday. It has a whopping 1K of RAM although you could expand it to 64K with add-on piggyback modules. It was heralded as the first computer for under $100 (it cost $99.95).

However, when I opened the box, I discovered that I had to put it together. And when I say put it together, I'm not talking about how one builds a system today by buying a bunch of parts and simply plugging them into the chassis. I'm talking an evening that starts out with a bare PCB, a bag full of resistors, capacitors, IC chips and burning your fingers on the soldering iron while getting high off the fumes.

After putting it together and hooking it up to my TV, I went to plug it in. I was rewarded by a blank screen. It wouldn't even turn on much less boot up. After an afternoon of checking everything on the board, I decided to box it all up and send it back to the factory to have it diagnosed.

Several weeks later, I got it back and after opening the box, saw a note that said, "please carefully read the last page of the assembly instructions." Turrning to the last page, I was greeted with details on how to put the little rubber feet on the inside of the metal-sprayed (for RF shielding) plastic case to keep the motherboard from shorting itself out.

Ahhh... good times. :D

yah my old man soldered ours together. I watched. I was just a nipper.

And by the way, I wrote most of my programs in Z80 assembly. ;)

I flip-flopped between Z80 asm and the built-in BASIC. I just couldn't resist being able to write programs with the embedded graphics characters. That was pretty cool.

yah my old man soldered ours together. I watched. I was just a nipper.

My parents learned a valuable lesson from my childhood...

Never give your 9-year old son a soldering iron if you cherish your carpets or wood tables. :D

My parents also learned a valuable lesson. Never try to fix yourself what your 10 year old son can fix with a soldering iron for you. :P

At the risk of actually starting a flamewar, I will have to admit that although the bickering can get annoying, I do find this website amusing (http://www.linuxisfor*****es.com/bsdvlinux.php). Of course as some of you are BSD fans, you've probably already seen this...

Why BSD is superior to Linux...

BSD
http://www.neebu.net/~khuon/albums/misc/daemonette.jpg

Linux
http://www.neebu.net/~khuon/albums/misc/linux_nylug_booth.sized.jpg


ObCycling: We all know which OS supports cycling. :p
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41848000/jpg/_41848824_cycling_416.jpg

I haven't seen it here yet, but does that pretty much sum up the geek fooster atmosphere? Are OS Zealots just as stiffly opinionated as the P&R guys here?

Most are. The ones who actually work in the industry, instead of hanging out on various geek sites, have the modext opinion. I have never met an actual industry worked who believe any one os will solve the problems of the world. Each segment of os's has its place. Personally I am a fan of

windows 2003 server - Lots of reasons. I prefer exchange too. Sendmail is sweet, don't get me wrong, but doesn't suit every environment (read cheap) Sendmail may be free...but ROI on a 10 year investment...costs jump.
xp - 80% of the end users aren't competent enough to even start *nix.
Freebsd for solid end users and for quick and dirty network tools. I use it on a dual boot for home as I do love it quite a bit.
openbsd - Firewall baby PF is most excellent, and open is most solid. Yehaw.
Netbsd is ok...but the other two fill the gaps for the hardware I own
AIX was acceptable and stable. I didn't get to play a lot with it, and sold the server when I was done with it.
I despise windows NT and all versions of windows pre 2000. Die...DIE!!!!
Vista looks decent and its mods on 2003 read to be impressive on the admin side, but if I can't disable the ugly freaking screen and get rid of IE 7 than I don't plan on upgrading. I hate pretty...
Qnix rules as a solid PBX. 7 years running over 3000 phones lines having never crashed on a primitive fibre connective network. Thats money in the bank.
SCO...well not a big fan. I don't like system V. It did its job, but I still have the server in my server room doing nothing. I can't be bothered to even move it let alone play with it.
Personally I don't like most releases of linux. If you read through this list and know *nix, you should be able to pick up on why...

So...not every computer geek is a zealot...and I laugh at most that are. They either work in VERY specific jobs (network security for example which would be understandable) or have never worked at all. And no, there is no mac in my list. They don't suit me. And yes, I prefer IE over other browsers. Call it habit but I just don't like 99% of other browsers, and maybe its the security geek in me, but my surfing habits NEVER get me bots. (knocking on wood as I speak) I just don't like how other browsers cache and display pics, then again I don't surf, I use newgroups for almost all of my needs.

I have played with Linux for years looking for a valid, free, replacement for Windows. I am running Ubuntu on several of my computers now and it comes very, very close. In fact, If I could get my printer to work Ubuntu I would probably switch all my machines over as I am taking the plunge and switching to console gaming next year.

I believe windows has its place, but I really don't like the direction M$ is taking, with XP nor Vista. Needing to hand over tons of personally identifiable information to the mothership just so you can get updates? That's crappy. But with Vista, you gotta do that or else your computer won't actually work! Forget that noise.

Linux just cheeses me off. It used to be if you knew Linux, you knew how to compile stuff (the kernel and other utility software tools), use shell commands, and you knew where the configuration files were and how to tweak them to get the desired results.

Now, hardly anyone who says they know Linux knows how to compile anything, many have not used the command line much, and as far as configuration files, there are too many different ways to do it, and the graphical configuration tools vary from flavor to flavor. Someone comfortable with Debian or Ubuntu would be seriously lost if they got a job working with Red Hat ES 4. I think it's really annoying that there's no unification on Linux. People are too busy trying to take what someone else built, and shoe-horn it into their own idea of the perfect desktop operating system. You've got Mandriva, Fedora, Linspire, and Ubuntu (and probably at least 12 more) all claiming to be the best desktop Linux implementation ever. If they'd quit being whiney emo kids about the whole ordeal, they would have joined forces, kicked out all the crazies (there are lots of them) from the core teams, and made something that might actually work.

http://www.neebu.net/~khuon/albums/misc/daemonette.jpg


am i the only one who thought that the chic in the devil's suit was 12 years old while it was opening up and you could only see her from the collar bones up? :o

Sheesh am I the only geek that doesn't like laptops. Something inherently wrong with a tiny screen, lack of an adult sized keyboard and mouse. And the only way to make them functional is to attach everything externally...basically turning them into a desktop. haha And the really small ones don't even come with dvd/cd etc. well except external.

To be honest with my current job I no longer play at home. I have a large wan I run from my office and a test network to play with the newest and greatest. By the time I get home, I wanna ride/ski/workout or hang out with my fiance. So my network at home is an xp box...nothing special in it. Its just there so my fiance can surf if she needs to.

And for my first pc. I had an apple 2c with all the fixings. Little green mono screen and a colour tv for the games. External modem that you plugged the receiver of the phone into. External diskdrive for extra storage, tape drive just cause. Good times in that little box.

I believe windows has its place, but I really don't like the direction M$ is taking, with XP nor Vista. Needing to hand over tons of personally identifiable information to the mothership just so you can get updates? That's crappy. But with Vista, you gotta do that or else your computer won't actually work! Forget that noise.
You mean you haven't heard about the new mandatory background check and 5-day waiting period on OS installs? :p

Actually, maybe they ought to seriously consider that for game consoles. :eek:



Linux just cheeses me off. It used to be if you knew Linux, you knew how to compile stuff (the kernel and other utility software tools), use shell commands, and you knew where the configuration files were and how to tweak them to get the desired results.
Well, that's the state of computing in general. I remember when I thought that make was the greatest thing since sliced bread. All I had to do was create one file to place my endpoints for my cross-platform compile hooks? Woo-hoo!

Then along came Gnu autoconfigure. Wow! Now I can actually test the target and have my build system do the right thing? Neat.

But the byproduct of all this is the dumbing-down of the userbase. Well, actually it's more like clue-dilution as it opens the door to more people who really do not know how to "zen" their way out of computing problems. If the solution isn't in a nice tightly wrapped and polished container with a sign that says "break glass in case of emergency" then they're lost.

This is the case with any OS really. Even FreeBSD Ports or NetBSD Packages or SysV Pkg or CPAN or a variety of other package-management systems don't avoid the trend. As a matter of fact, they're trying to embrace it.

The other problem is that people now really only think of linux as "the alternative OS" and once they develop and get their code tweaked enough to compile under linux, they stop. They also include all sorts of things that are fundamentally linux-specific. This makes it difficult to port their code over to other platforms. A prime example is the use of the linux-specific packet socket calls in lieu of the more generic and widely available BPF implementation (linux includes this as an abstracted layer called LSF).

The problem is not that these things are making it easier for people to manage their systems. That's a good thing. The real problem as you've hinted towards is that it is causing the bar to be set lower and lower for employability of people in the industry. The differentiation factour of someone who really does understand how computers and OSes work becomes less and less valuable. And in the end, the employer isn't getting a bargain either because when something seriously wrong does happen (as we know it always will), their support staff who know nothing but pointy-pointy clicky-clicky will be useless.



Now, hardly anyone who says they know Linux knows how to compile anything, many have not used the command line much, and as far as configuration files, there are too many different ways to do it, and the graphical configuration tools vary from flavor to flavor. Someone comfortable with Debian or Ubuntu would be seriously lost if they got a job working with Red Hat ES 4. I think it's really annoying that there's no unification on Linux. People are too busy trying to take what someone else built, and shoe-horn it into their own idea of the perfect desktop operating system. You've got Mandriva, Fedora, Linspire, and Ubuntu (and probably at least 12 more) all claiming to be the best desktop Linux implementation ever. If they'd quit being whiney emo kids about the whole ordeal, they would have joined forces, kicked out all the crazies (there are lots of them) from the core teams, and made something that might actually work.
To be honest, I've always viewed linux as a moving target... even from its early days in the mid-1990s. I had cut my teeth of the real-deal AT&T SysV. Well, actually SysIII running on a 3B5. I also had a "window of opportunity" to deal with IRIX, HP-UX, UNICOS and OSF1. My platform of choice back then was SunOS4 and most forms of straight up BSD because they were by far the most popular opensource supported systems at the time and you could grab code from just about anywhere with a 90% guarantee that it would compile cleanly on a Sun platform running SunOS.

Linux on the other hand had a great opportunity but its developers spent too much time viewing themselves as some sort of victim being put down by "the man" and doing things their own way just to be different that it was annoying to me on almost all levels. While the rest of the unix world was trying to come together on things like posix threads, linux went and created their own. While the rest of the unix world was busily incorporating network code from the lieneage of 4.2BSD, linux decided they would do their own stack. Even the basic utilities such as the route or ifconfig command was different not because they offered any inherent advantages but they just wanted to be different. Interestingly enough, things are starting to circle back around and many modern linux are incorporating some sort of standardisation with the rest of the unix world.

That all said, I run linux systems. It's not necessarily my favourite OS to use but I will run it given enough criteria. Many of those have to do with application compatibility. Also, I deal a bit with embedded linux. It's a hot area. There's lots more linux running around on things than most people realise. One interesting thing is that at the embedded level, the differences between OSes become less important and the ones that do exist really expose themselves as much bigger annoyances than in a full-fledged desktop or server implementation.

I suppose I'm getting grumpy because I have all but completely lost my passion for technology as of late.

I've been at this job (consultant on-site for a large financial and medical information systems company) for 5 months. They don't give system accounts to anyone who isn't an employee, so I don't have access to actually *DO* anything. So, I wrote a program to take data that's been gathered about our systems and pull it from a database, then generate a list of what steps need to be done in order to get all of our systems to comply to a standard (which I helped create).

All the fun work is done. I helped make a standard, the database was pre-existing when I showed up, and I wrote a program to list steps needed to "fix" the systems. For the last 3 and a half months, I have been copying and pasting those steps into a mainframe. That, my friends, is boring work. If I wasn't getting paid really well, I'd be out. Compare that with my last job, being an admin of a 100+ node cluster of OpenBSD systems that would re-purpose themselves for tasks based on compute load... And you'll understand my frustration.

I'm with Maelstrom. I'm pretty much tapped of my will to play with tech when I get home, but it's not because I get it out of my system at work. It's because the fire inside is dying.

But laptops still rock my world. For now, at least. I used to enjoy being ultra-connected. I still do, to some extent, but not as much as I did a while ago. I still carry this around in my handlebar bag for checking e-mail, AIM, web surfing at the unsuspecting coffee shop, etc:

http://www.focushacks.com/photo/hp-bf.jpg

I don't mind cramped keyboards or small screens. I can't wait to get my MacBook though.

I suppose I'm getting grumpy because I have all but completely lost my passion for technology as of late.

You sound like you might be a good candidate for taking up an interest in embedded computing. The embedded world is an interesting one as you have to go back to the basics. It forces you to think about actually setting resgisters, flipping bits, determining where your instruction code entry points exists, etc... You are limited in terms of space, CPU power, requirements for operating in an environment with small amounts of NV storage, etc... You get some gratification by building something specific and physical that marries your skill with hardware and software. It's fun to see what you can within a limited environment. Think of it as like the fixed-gear of computing. All your memories of your time with the TS1000 will come back to you. :D

A good platform to start out with is an SBC such as a Soekris (http://www.soekris.com/) board. I've used them to build small routers, firewalls, load balancers, wireless access points, test traffic genertors and network performance analysers. My next plan is to use one to make a navigation system for my Jeep. While the Soekris boards aren't true embedded boards, they are mini-SBCs. A true embedded systems development kit can be pretty expensive. $1,000 for a low end board, a few more thousand for the SDK and then you have to set up the cross-compiler and runtime environment. With Soekris, you can develop on any standard x86 running your OS of choice and all you need to invest in besides the SBC (~$150 to $200) is a CF card and reader/writer. It also enjoys a lot of support within the unix community. Since you're a bigtime OpenBSD user, check out Flashdist (http://www.nmedia.net/~chris/soekris/).

http://www.neebu.net/~khuon/albums/soekris/pict0002_005.sized.jpg

My last job I managed 2 Soekris net4511s for SMS interface to our product. The OpenBSD systems were appliance-esque in nature as well, all of them booted and operated on only a 64MB flash drive and 256MB of internal RAM (some of which was dedicated RAMDisk)

It was fun, but it was a start-up and extremely stressful with long hours, tight deadlines, and unreasonable demands.

Embedded computing is interesting, but I'd need to actually get on track to get some semblance of passion back.