I know it’s popular with professionals and scientists, and of course there’s MacOS, but I don’t know why. What makes it better or more preferable than something like Windows?
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I think it’s the ability for greater customization to be able to do a specific task easier and faster. Plus it doesn’t have a lot of “bloat ware” that is present in windows/OSx environments.
UNIX… or Linux? They’re similar in more ways than one, but I think you’re referring to Linux. And the short answer is it’s incredibly versatile, highly-configurable, and it’s (mostly) open-source. This means it can be customized for *a lot* of purposes, such as for web servers, for phones (Android is a type of Linux), super computers, desktop computers, video game systems, and as the underlying operating system for a lot of devices you probably don’t even think of as having operating systems (such as some synthesizers, washing machines, TVs, cars, cameras, medical equipment, scientific instruments, etc.) And the nice thing is *you* can customize your devices as much or as little as you’d like with various types of Linux.
Unix has alternative design philosophies that, while some parts are quite outdated by today’s standards, still make certain types of work much easier.
If you look into Unix history and behaviour, you may have heard the expression “everything is a file”. What this means it that an actual file on disk, a directory listing, communication between two programs access to some hardware (eg: keyboard input on a console), a network TCP connection, all behave somewhat similarly from an application’s standpoint. Those that don’t scrutinize their data sources can be “tricked” into using any of the above as a data source.
Eg: there’s a program called `sort` which does what it sounds like. Given a text file, treat each line like it’s a row in an Excel spreadsheet and sort them. I can sort an actual file, I can have a program’s output sorted before it’s shown, I could just copy/paste some text into it from my clipboard to be sorted for whatever reason, and if I have some massive job that one computer can’t do by itself I could have it send the job to another computer with more RAM to do the sort in real-time. The `sort` program itself doesn’t care – it’s all the same.
Process management (that is, running programs) may seem weird on Unix, but consider this. When you run a new EXE, the program that requests the new EXE be run is destroy and replaced by the new running EXE. That may sound weird, but if you have program A running and monitoring program B, it allows program B to substitute itself for program C but it’ll still be monitored by program A because it’s the same process ID number and all that. There’s also a process cloning function called “fork”. If you’ve seen the movie Multiplicity, it’s like that. A program can set itself up, and then duplicate itself into multiple processes all ready to go, all already set up. It’s also how you run a new program without losing the old one – make a fork first.
Some of it may sound weird, but the idea is to give you a bunch of dumb pieces but as few limits on how to connect them as possible. These become the fundamental building blocks upon which you can build something smart.
In general, Windows talks back to the user a lot more than Unix does. It says “no, you can’t do this”. Windows assumes the user is dumb and needs to protect itself from the user. Unix lets you do what silly things you want (as long as it doesn’t violate security rules) because it gives the user maximum creative flexibility, albeit at their own risk. Gotta know how to work it, and I’ve made my fair share of dumb mistakes.
This is how I used to explain it: Microsoft designed windows using the concept that the operating system (and apps) are smarter than the user.
Unix used the opposite philosophy: you are smarter than the operating system.
Although I’m repeating part of another post, everything is a file is such an amazing concept that once you get it, every other way seems stupid.
FYI MacOS runs on a variant of Unix, so if you’re running something like the terminal or command line, many of the commands are the same. The UI of various variants of Unix is of course different as is the MacOS UI, and also the Apple specific calls an and APIs. Same for iOS.
I’ve been doing computer stuff for quite awhile. While other posts have some good points, the big reason has been stability. Windows machines have been notorious for crashing or having degraded performance (dubbed Windows rot) which is tough to diagnose or fix. This was years ago and windows is much better these days, but trust me when I say that there is probably some Unix machine that hasn’t been restarted in thirty years in some closet somewhere and it’s fine. Not secure, but humming away. Windows machines had to be rebooted a lot. So, if you’re a company building software that does something that takes a week to calculate, where do you want it running? Not on Windows.
So software that was mission critical just didn’t go on Windows. Windows was a consumer product – not professional grade. In recent years, windows has become much more stable. Microsoft has made a HUGE effort. If you look closely, you’ll see that windows has become much more like Unix under the hood, but the paradigm of using a mouse is still king. (Not for long, I wager. Voice and eye tracking are getting close!)
Unix isn’t popular because it’s a loosely assembled set of keyboard driven tools. You need to know what you’re trying to do. It’s not intuitive. Before you get too confused: the “black screen” is Unix, the clicky interface (on Mac or on Windows or on Ubuntu) is an overlay. This is sort of true of windows, too, but Windows is very tightly integrated- maybe even to the point of that NOT being true.
When you choose Windows, you are forever locked with one supplier – Microsoft. They are the only company, who produces Windows-like OSes. If you have some niche problem with Windows – Microsoft can just refuse to service you, or demand an outrageous price. You can try to hack it yourself – but Microsoft will not help you, or even actively stop you.
There are many Unix-like OSes, many with open source code, some are even free. If you are having an uncommon problem, you can just hire a programmer to modify your OS. You can even create your own OS by taking a code of an existing one, and slapping your own code on top (that’s how MacOS was created ~~from FreeBSD~~, or how Sony creates OSes for their Playstation consoles).
There is also quite a lot of programs written for Unix – those programs can be easily converted to run on a new OS.
It is what Macintoshes are based on.
It is the backbone of most, well, everything that is solid and dependable.
If you can hack Unix, there will be a job waiting for you.
I remember a lot of the minicomputer users who used Unix said that it gave you something like the timesharing operating systems on mainframe computers (like the PDP-10 and IBM-360) on a, for the time, low-cost computers.
not many people are using unix but a lot of people do use linux, which tends to attract users with a slightly more technical bent that proprietary OSs.
One thing they like is that the operating system is free – they arent paying for a license on top of their hardware purchase.
Another thing that attracts people to it is that it is generally going to perform better on older hardware. Machines from, say, 10 years ago will run fine with it as long as they have enough RAM, whereas windows for example may be sluggish on the same hardware.
Its also much, *much* more configurable. So if you like to fine tune how a PC runs, theres a lot more flexibility in *nix OSs than for example OSx or Windows.
One example of this is there are about 8-10 different popular desktops available which will easily run on Linux. With windows AFAIK there is only one. Same with OSX. Having this kind of choice can seem quite advantageous if you want a higher degree of control over your use experience.
Linux also can be run very lean. PC geeks are highly averse to ‘bloat’ which is when there is more code than necessary, taking up space or getting in the way of performance, or whatever. Its possible to run very minimilistic or very specifically targeted Linux os’s to any particular use-case.
Also, privacy concerns with proprietary OSs. The FOSS community likes that they can see and check the code of whatever they install. This is not possible with proprietary systems, which are designed to be impenatrable in this respect (they are not ‘open’). FOSS enthusiasts feel safer running software they can see the builds of, rather than software that could be serving problematic interests.
There are a bunch more reasons I guess, but these are the first that come to mind. Hope this helps.
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