OpenBSD Journal

July 5, 2007 NYC*BUG Meeting by Issac `.ike' Levy on the Real Unix Tradition

Contributed by ray on from the unix-like-operating-system dept.

July 05, 2007
Isaac `Ike` Levy on the Real Unix Tradition
Please note that we moved the meeting from Wednesday, July 4 to Thursday, July 5

6:30pm, Suspenders Restaurant "The Real Unix Tradition"

UNIX hackers, all standing on the shoulders of giants.

"...the number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected..." - Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, June 1972

"Well, it was all Open Source, before anybody really called it that". - Brian Redman, 2003

UNIX is the oldest active and growing computing culture alive today. From it`s humble roots in the back room at Bell Laboratories, to today`s global internet infrastructure- UNIX has consistently been at the core of major advances in computing. Today, the BSD legacy is the most direct continuation of the most successful principles in UNIX, and continues to lead major advances in computing.

Why? What`s so great about UNIX?

This lecture aims to prove that UNIX history is surprisingly useful (and fun)- for developers, sysadmins, and anyone working with BSD systems.

About the Speaker

Isaac Levy, (ike) is a freelance BSD hacker based in NYC. He runs Diversaform Inc. as an engine to make his hacking feed itself, (and ike). Diversaform specializes in *BSD based solutions, providing `IT special weapons and tatics` for various sized business clients, as well as running a small high-availability datacenter operation from lower Manhattan. With regard to FreeBSD jail(8), ike was a partner in the first jail (8)-based web hosting ISP in America, iMeme, and has been developing internet applications in and out of jails since 1999. Isaac is a proud member of NYC*BUG (the New York City *BSD Users Group), and a long time member of LESMUUG, (the Lower East Side Mac Unix Users Group).

!!Please wear your your best shirt, a group photo-op will follow this month`s lecture!!

(Comments are closed)


Comments
  1. By Mike Swanson (71.197.194.170) on

    I'm about 3000 miles away (Seattle), will there be a transcript and/or MP3/Vorbis?

    Comments
    1. By George (96.224.201.179) georgeATnycbugDOTorg on http://www.nycbug.org

      > I'm about 3000 miles away (Seattle), will there be a transcript and/or MP3/Vorbis?

      If you notice on our www site at http://www.nycbug.org, we have lots of digital audio recordings from our meetings as provided by one of our members. . . http://www.fetissov.org/public/nycbug/

      There's a link in the lower left hand corner of our www site, and you'll probably find a recording there within days of the meeting.

      And the Library section of our site has a number of the presentations up also, soon to include Ike's.

      Comments
      1. By George (69.31.93.93) georgeATnycbugDOTorg on http://www.nycbug.org

        > I'm about 3000 miles away (Seattle), will there be a transcript and/or MP3/Vorbis? > > If you notice on our www site at http://www.nycbug.org, we have lots of digital audio recordings from our meetings as provided by one of our members. . . http://www.fetissov.org/public/nycbug/ > > There's a link in the lower left hand corner of our www site, and you'll probably find a recording there within days of the meeting. > > And the Library section of our site has a number of the presentations up also, soon to include Ike's.

        The audio is up at http://www.fetissov.org/public/nycbug/

        Don't mind the random attendee who gave an earful to a heckler :)

        George

        Comments
        1. By Anonymous Coward (71.197.194.170) on

          > The audio is up at http://www.fetissov.org/public/nycbug/

          Thanks, I've listened to it now and I really enjoyed all of it (except maybe the random attendee) :)

        2. By Anonymous Coward (216.93.163.234) on

          > Don't mind the random attendee who gave an earful to a heckler :)
          >
          > George

          so "Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120)" was there to heckle?

          Comments
          1. By George (69.31.93.93) georgeATnycbugDOTorg on http://www.nycbug.org

            > > Don't mind the random attendee who gave an earful to a heckler :)
            > >
            > > George
            >
            > so "Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120)" was there to heckle?

            LMFAO. . .

            As no one was wearing their IP, I can neither confirm nor deny. However, as I believe rogers.com is a Canadian entity (which is where traceroute leads me), I'd assume not.

            I think it can get a bit more openly hostile face-to-face in the backroom of a restaurant/bar than online with a little liquor involved. . . than even on Undeadly.

  2. By Brandon Gooch (69.152.160.218) on

    Post-event, download-able media would be awesome. I'm in Oklahoma, and I'm always looking for transcripts and audio from presentations and conferences, especially *BSD related. There aren't a lot of local (in the state) events related to *BSD (or open source/free software in general), so I get what I can from the internet...

  3. By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on

    If "the BSD legacy is the most direct continuation of the most successful principles in UNIX" then why is it so very different from unix, why does it throw out the most core principles of unix, and why did the creators of unix feel the need to create another OS to actually continue the principles of unix (plan 9)?

    The BSDs are great, but they are far from the simple elegance unix originally offered.

    Comments
    1. By Mike Swanson (71.197.194.170) on

      Plan 9 was not meant to be a continuation of Unix (though it might be called a "sequel" if you will), it was a new operating system designed as lessons learned from the design flaws of Unix. It just never managed to replace Unix as intended; as ESR said "There is a lesson here for ambitious system architects: the most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an existing codebase that is just good enough."[1], which largely holds true.

      Some Plan 9 features have been implemented in Unix(-like) operating systems (including OpenBSD), but not all of them. Some of the problems of Unix that Plan 9 hoped to repair no longer exist, but many of them still do. I remember a quote somewhere that was to the extent of "Unix *is* terrible, it's just that the alternatives are worse."

      In my view, OpenBSD is probably the most Unix-like modern operating system. The others have too drastic changes to gain that status. Solaris completely abandons the idea of simplicity, GNU/Linux gladly accepts incompetent code, etc etc.

      [1] http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/plan9.html

      Comments
      1. By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on

        > Plan 9 was not meant to be a continuation of Unix (though it might be called a "sequel" if you will), it was a new operating system designed as lessons learned from the design flaws of Unix.

        Read it again, the direct continuation of the core unix PRINCIPLES. Unix was supposed to be simple and clean. The smallest utilities possible each doing just their single job and nothing else. Everything is a file. That's what unix was until UCB and the unix vendors got ahold of it. That's what plan 9 still is.

        Its not intedned to learn lessons from the design flaws of unix, its intended to be an OS for modern needs. Unix was written in the days of single computers with many serial terminals connected to it. Networking was tacked on afterwards in an ugly and non-unix way (BSD sockets). Plan 9 is written from the ground up specifically as a networked OS.

        > Some Plan 9 features have been implemented in Unix(-like) operating systems (including OpenBSD), but not all of them. Some of the problems of Unix that Plan 9 hoped to repair no longer exist, but many of them still do. I remember a quote somewhere that was to the extent of "Unix *is* terrible, it's just that the alternatives are worse."

        You can't "repair" the problems in unix by adding even more bloat and feature creep. That is the problem with unix.

        > In my view, OpenBSD is probably the most Unix-like modern operating system. The others have too drastic changes to gain that status.

        Yeah, I would certainly give the opinion of some random openbsd fanboy far more credibility in this area than the people who wrote unix. What the hell would guys like Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Rob Pike know about unix right? Its not like they defined and created unix or anything.

        Comments
        1. By Anonymous Coward (71.138.88.170) on

          Thankfully we have you, another random person, to teach us the one true way, huh?

          Comments
          1. By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on

            > Thankfully we have you, another random person, to teach us the one true way, huh?

            Yep, its just me that thinks plan 9 is the only modern OS that sticks to the core principles of unix. Oh, and the creators of unix, as I mentioned. But just try to sweep that under the carpet and pretend its just crazy old me and my insane ramblings.

    2. By Anonymous Coward (66.92.146.186) on

      > If "the BSD legacy is the most direct continuation of the most successful principles in UNIX" then why is it so very different from unix, why does it throw out the most core principles of unix, and why did the creators of unix feel the need to create another OS to actually continue the principles of unix (plan 9)?
      >
      > The BSDs are great, but they are far from the simple elegance unix originally offered.

      umm.. nice flamebait..

      could you at least describe how you think it:

      - is "different from unix"
      - throws out core principles of unix
      - actually define what you think the 'core principles' are before
      defining that plan 9 continues said principles and / or invalidates
      the parent post claims

      before stating as fact?


      Comments
      1. By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on

        > - is "different from unix"
        > - throws out core principles of unix
        > - actually define what you think the 'core principles' are before
        > defining that plan 9 continues said principles and / or invalidates
        > the parent post claims

        The core principle of unix was simplicity. You're not old enough to remember "everything is a file" are you? That used to be the single most visible and commonly cited example of the simple elegance of unix. Of course, that got thrown out a long time ago. That's actually still true in plan 9. Look at how hugely bloated current unixes are. OpenBSD certainly seems trim and tidy compared to solaris or a typical linux distro, but try comparing it to unix and its full of bloat. Look at how many command line options cat has. Unix could be learned quickly and was very powerful. Learning all of openbsd is impossible its so bloated.

        Long before the current BSD projects existed the BSD releases had already gotten hugely bloated, and implimented lots of ugly APIs instead of representing everything like files. To quote Rob Pike:
        "It seems that UNIX has become the victim of cancerous growth at the hands of organizations such as UCB.". Its too bad you guys can't quit being such rabid fanboys and take an objective look at reality.

        Comments
        1. By Anonymous Coward (64.179.89.214) on


          > > - actually define what you think the 'core principles' are before
          > > defining that plan 9 continues said principles and / or invalidates
          > > the parent post claims
          >
          > The core principle of unix was simplicity. You're not old enough to remember "everything is a file" are you? That used to be the single most visible and commonly cited example of the simple elegance of unix.

          It was also very compact. Unix Release 6 was 10,000 lines of code.

          For comparison:

          # uname -r
          4.1
          # cd /usr/src/sys/
          # find . -type f | xargs cat | wc -l
          2748706
          # cd kern
          # find . -type f | xargs cat | wc -l
          61357
          #

          m

        2. By Anonymous Coward (70.173.172.228) on

          from http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/FAQ/index.html

          " * What is its relation to other operating systems?

          Plan 9 is itself an operating system; it doesn't run as an application under another system. It was written from the ground up and doesn't include other people's code. Although the OS's interface to applications is strongly influenced by the approach of Unix, it's not a replacement for Unix, it is a new design. "

          and while we're quoting Rob Pike:

          "Not only is UNIX dead, it's starting to smell really bad." - circa 1991

          Yeah, definitely dead.

        3. By Mike Swanson (71.197.194.170) on

          Seriously I've tried re-reading your posts over and over, but I can't get anything out of them besides simply being a troll.

          If you feel so upset about the state of modern "Unix", why not write a book or essay about it? In a nice, coherent format referencing many examples. It could almost be the modern day UNIX-HATERS Handbook, sans the mailing list. Really, I hope nobody here is seriously offended with the discussion of operating system design theory and how Unix (and OpenBSD) might be considered broken designs, it just should be done in an intelligent manner, and probably not on Undeadly topics.

          Comments
          1. By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on

            > Seriously I've tried re-reading your posts over and over, but I can't get anything out of them besides simply being a troll.
            >
            > If you feel so upset about the state of modern "Unix", why not write a book or essay about it? In a nice, coherent format referencing many examples. It could almost be the modern day UNIX-HATERS Handbook, sans the mailing list. Really, I hope nobody here is seriously offended with the discussion of operating system design theory and how Unix (and OpenBSD) might be considered broken designs, it just should be done in an intelligent manner, and probably not on Undeadly topics.

            I'm not upset about the state of modern unix. Perhaps instead of making up strawmen you should stick to what I actually said? OpenBSD is not the continuation of the core unix principles. I didn't say openbsd was bad, or that modern unix is bad. I said its nothing like unix. The fact that you consider a simple statement of fact to be "trolling" or so hurtful to you personally that you lash out like this says alot about your emotional state.

            Comments
            1. By Anonymous Coward (70.173.172.228) on

              > I'm not upset about the state of modern unix. Perhaps instead of making up strawmen you should stick to what I actually said? OpenBSD is not the continuation of the core unix principles. I didn't say openbsd was bad, or that modern unix is bad. I said its nothing like unix. The fact that you consider a simple statement of fact to be "trolling" or so hurtful to you personally that you lash out like this says alot about your emotional state.

              so what does:

              Long before the current BSD projects existed the BSD releases had already gotten hugely bloated, and implimented lots of ugly APIs instead of representing everything like files. To quote Rob Pike:
              "It seems that UNIX has become the victim of cancerous growth at the hands of organizations such as UCB.". Its too bad you guys can't quit being such rabid fanboys and take an objective look at reality.

              mean?

              Comments
              1. By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on

                > so what does:
                >
                > Long before the current BSD projects existed the BSD releases had already gotten hugely bloated, and implimented lots of ugly APIs instead of representing everything like files. To quote Rob Pike:
                > "It seems that UNIX has become the victim of cancerous growth at the hands of organizations such as UCB.". Its too bad you guys can't quit being such rabid fanboys and take an objective look at reality.
                >
                > mean?

                It means exactly what it says. UCB added tons of bloat and very non-unix features to BSD. None of the modern unixes continue the core principles of unix. What part of this is confusing you? And why do you think its somehow an insult to you or to openbsd?

                Comments
                1. By Anonymous Coward (70.173.172.228) on

                  > > so what does:
                  > >
                  > > Long before the current BSD projects existed the BSD releases had already gotten hugely bloated, and implimented lots of ugly APIs instead of representing everything like files. To quote Rob Pike:
                  > > "It seems that UNIX has become the victim of cancerous growth at the hands of organizations such as UCB.". Its too bad you guys can't quit being such rabid fanboys and take an objective look at reality.
                  > >
                  > > mean?
                  >
                  > It means exactly what it says. UCB added tons of bloat and very non-unix features to BSD. None of the modern unixes continue the core principles of unix. What part of this is confusing you? And why do you think its somehow an insult to you or to openbsd?

                  No, but it shows you are upset about the current state of unix. In fact your whole 'contribution' to this thread has shown that.

                  Comments
                  1. By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on

                    > No, but it shows you are upset about the current state of unix. In fact your whole 'contribution' to this thread has shown that.

                    No, it means I corrected a very obviously ignorant statement (that openbsd continues the principles of unix). Anything else you read into it is your own paranoid delusions. You really think I'd be posting here from my openbsd laptop if I hated it so much?

        4. By veins (88.160.251.210) veins@evilkittens.org on http://blog.evilkittens.org/~veins/


          > Long before the current BSD projects existed the BSD releases had already gotten hugely bloated, and implimented lots of ugly APIs instead of representing everything like files. To quote Rob Pike:
          > "It seems that UNIX has become the victim of cancerous growth at the hands of organizations such as UCB.". Its too bad you guys can't quit being such rabid fanboys and take an objective look at reality.

          Instead of you keep saying that people can't see the reality because they are fanboys, you should take a look at yourself ... plan9 fanboy. If plan9 was so great and simple to use, it would have far more users than it has because many people in the unix-like community are actually people that try several different systems, all of the people that I know and tried plan9 (including myself) did not keep it after a few days (when it was not hours) because it is a pita to use. Where is the simplicity ?

          Also, your comment is kind of irrelevant concerning the options of cat. If the system had not evolved in the tens of years that followed its creation, there would be reasons to worry. Simplicity does not mean lack of features and keeping a system as useless as can be for the sake of having commands with only 1 or 2 parameters when some of the features would better be implemented in them.

          BSD is not the *perfect* system but it is a really good systems and it has a way more elegant design than you try to picture.

    3. By Anonymous Coward (71.126.115.85) on

      > If "the BSD legacy is the most direct continuation of the most successful principles in UNIX"

      The four-layer internetworking model is far and away the most successful principle of Unix, which originated with (guess what?) the Berkeley science distribution.

      You could go on and on about the practices of modularity and componentization, but those are hardly successful design principlee. In the interim, most OSs (including the Unix-likes) have largely abandoned them in favor of integrated, low-granularity applications and "do everything and do it well" functionality (see: perl).

      On the other hand, *everybody* uses the four-layer model. Thanks, Bill, you're a pioneer.

      Comments
      1. By Anonymous Coward (74.115.21.120) on

        > The four-layer internetworking model is far and away the most successful principle of Unix, which originated with (guess what?) the Berkeley science distribution.

        Its not a principle of unix at all, I wouldn't even call it a principle, but whatever it is its not from unix, its from BSD.

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