SlashNOT

Squid writes: According to an article at geek fashion portal Slashdot, Linux has now become too popular in mainstream circles to be the operating system of choice for the discriminating geek: “Let’s face it – with IBM, Sun, Dell, and even AOL using and supporting Linux, it’s becoming just another Windows. Even Microsoft agrees.”

This announcement has left techies wondering where to go for a truly cool, nonconformist OS. Some have resorted to calling it GNU/Linux to make it sound more geeky. Others are clinging to Yellow Dog, Gentoo, and other more obscure Linux distributions.

According to the article, the remaining cool operating systems include fringe projects like AtheOS and NewOS; unsupported classics BeOS and OS/2 Warp; and anything you write yourself. Mac OS X and FreeBSD are still considered geek chic, but are perilously close to the mainstream.

Matthew writes: Major OS vendors Microsoft, Apple, Sun, and Linus Torvalds representing Linux have teamed up to celebrate Berkeley BSD Unix, the OS upon which their products are either based or borrow heavily from, with an all-day rally on the Berkeley campus. Sharing the podium, the CEOs of these most innovative OS developers paid tribute during a “free software and peace” festival style atmosphere.

Festival organizers reported that the companies just wanted to give something back to the students in thanks for the billions of dollars of revenue that their BSD based products have generated for them, and give recognition to the fact that the Internet would be a much slower and less compatible place if every competitive product hadn’t ripped off BSD code.[Continued...] Read the rest of this entry »

Nomad7674 writes:
As previously reported, Sun Microsystems has decided to follow in the footsteps of superstore mega-monolith Wal-Mart by selling bargain PCs running a customized variant of the Linux operating system. Today, Sun Vice President John Loiacono announced the brand name for the line of inexpensive PCs:
“UNIX variants have traditionally had “ux” in the name, or at a bare minimum, “x”. For example, HP’s HP/UX, Apple’s early A/UX, Linux, QNX, AIX, and even OS X. Both of our previous Unix based operating systems, the BSD based “SunOS”, and the System V compliant “Solaris” both violated this naming principle. We won’t be making that mistake again. The new Linux variant will combine the name ‘Sun’ and ‘Linux’ into the powerhouse appellation of S-ux. We are confident that this brand will stick to the minds of consumers and be truly unforgettable to geeks everywhere.”