In the Beginning Was The Command Line

(Comic panel from xkcd)

During the break in last week's class, some of us were able to talk to Professor Quimbo about browsers and operating systems. Windows, of course, is a cesspool when it comes to security and reliability. Those who have used it long enough have sort of internalized the need to install and update antivirii, or reboot once or twice every day, thinking perhaps that this is just the way things are with computers.

Of course, Mac users don't have to install antivirus programs or reboot. That's not the way things always were though. I used to have classic macs running apple's proprietary OS, and crashes and reboots were a way of life. Mac OS X's vaunted reliability is largely based on it being a prettified version of BSD Unix.

Unix (now available widely and cheaply through it's opensource flavor, Linux) is the granddaddy of operating systems, the workhorse of Internet servers everywhere. And when you're an OS designed primarily for network servers, reliability is a must. I've been using Linux for years now. It seems rather insane to say that I've never crashed or restarted - not even when I install new programs or upgrade the OS.

An operating system is not just a bucket of code. It's also a metaphor for the particular ordering of resources and people that produced it. Neal Stephenson, my favorite "cypherpunk-SF" writer, talks about operating systems-as-metaphors in his essay "In the Beginning was the Command Line", available as a free download. Linux may not have (at the moment) the sheer number of apps available to Windows. It may not have (at the moment) the sexy pizazz of OS X, but it is, among operating systems, the best metaphor, and the best underlying system of production. Stephenson compares OS's to cars. Microsoft is running a standard dealership selling bigger and bigger SUV's. Apple is selling stylish and fuel-efficientt European cars. This is what he has to say about Linux, and I think the symbolism is right-on:

"Linux...is not a business at all. It's a bunch of RVs, yurts, tepees, and geodesic domes set up in a field and organized by consensus. The people who live there are making tanks. These are not old-fashioned, cast-iron Soviet tanks; these are more like the M1 tanks of the U.S. Army, made of space-age materials and jammed with sophisticated technology from one end to the other. But they are better than Army tanks. They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free."

It's an enjoyable read. I hope you check it out :)