Linux is old, but so am I.

[dos2unix]

I have two nephews, one lives close to me and I see him frequently. the other lives about 1.200 miles away and I rarely see him.
But I did see him last week. He is taller than me now, I was surprised. ((I'm over 6 ft). But then, the one that lives close to me is also.
I guess I never noticed because I see him all the time. I had to go back and look some pictures from 4 or 5 years back, wow,
time flies.

So what does this have to do with Linux?

I was talking with someone the other day about some specific Linux technologies.
Wayland, Pipewire, NetworkManager, systemd, and a few others.. he says he doesn't like to use them, because they are "too new".
But as it turns out, all of them are over a decade old. Most have been in mainstream distro at least 5 or 6 years now.
A couple are almost 20 years old. wow. Old enough for my nephews to be taller than me.

But I wonder sometimes, does Linux technology just pass by sometimes? The same day, I was taking to someone
on the site about networkd and ifconfig files. I admit, I still have some old rhel 5.x servers, that they won't let me update.
But the questions remains... are we "tool close" to see how fast things change, or too far away



It's easy to see the differences when you've been away for a while, but sometimes hard to see, when you see it eveyday.

Well, that's my soapbox rant for 2026, I'll go take my meds and settle back down.

 

[KGIII]

Linux has a weird group of users. There's a surprisingly high percentage of us that are, for wont of a better word, Luddites. There's also a bunch of emotionally charged people, which is a subject for another day.

are we "tool close" to see how fast things change, or too far away

I wouldn't say that 'we' are universally too close. Sometimes, we reflect on the past -- and even discuss the past.

I don't think I'm among those who don't recall the past. However, I do not view the past through rose-tinted glasses. There are a bunch of people who think the past was the best, but I seldom agree with them. Generally speaking, things are better than they've ever been. That applies to computers and software, or so it seems to me.

I also see a lot of Linux users who will form their opinions without actually knowing much about the subject. But... That's not unique to Linux. We have all sorts of people who hold strong beliefs about things they do not even understand.

Me? Well, I like to actually learn stuff before forming an opinion. If it's too complicated, I find somewhere/someone who provides answers to my questions. I'm diligent about things like that. I suppose that comes from a background of way too much time in academia.

Using systemd as an example, I knew nothing about it. All of a sudden, Slashdot erupted into a sea of hate and vitriol. They despised the new system and hated the author even more. There were other sites where this was true. I just happened to be playing on Slashdot at the time.

So, I looked up what it did and how it did it. I actually read the various reports from the distros that were adopting it -- and those that were not adopting it. One side was providing answers while the other side was mostly frothing at the mouth, probably with spittle-flecked monitors.

It was my opinion that systemd was fine by me, especially because it made it easier for the people putting together my favorite distros. At the end of the day, I learned a few new commands and adopted systemd without a hitch. I have no complaints to this day (though, well, I do like to joke that it'll someday encompass the entire operating system).

Well, that's my soapbox rant for 2026, I'll go take my meds and settle back down.

I'm not sure if my rant/reply makes much sense. There was more I wanted to type, but I don't want it to turn into that kind of thread. It's a nice thread, we can keep it that way.

But, hopefully, it makes sense.

I think the gist of it is that I pay attention to our history of computation, and that I'm not afraid of new things -- especially when those new things benefit me (or 'us', collectively).

 

[osprey]

I was talking with someone the other day about some specific Linux technologies.


It's easy to see the differences when you've been away for a while, but sometimes hard to see, when you see it eveyday.

There are lots of elements in a linux distro that are much older than the invention of linux itself. For example, what today constitutes the coreutils, that is, those basic commands like ls, cp, mv, rm, cat, chmod, chown, dd, df, ln, mkdir etc. were developed by GNU in the 1980s predating the first linux in 1991. However, most of those utilities were conceptually derived from the original UNIX commands with the same or similar names and functions which were developed as early as 1970s, if not a bit earlier.

The original UNIX utilitlies were proprietary, but GNU simulated them as free and open source software, rewriting them so as not to infringe upon proprietary copyrights. The simulation with same names and functionality meant that original scripts and processes in UNIX could be used without modifications in most if not all cases.

Whilst NetworkManager may have first been used in Fedora Core 3 in about 2004, and so is about 22 years old, the command: cd was in the first UNIX system which was run in about 1971 and is about 55 years old today. One difference between the two is that cd pretty much does the same thing that it did when it was first introduced, but NetworkManager has undergone much greater changes in what it does.

I guess that means, in the overall scheme of things, that some technology changes with the times, but some other things don't change much at all, and may not need to change. The modernist may over-emphasise the former, and the Luddite may affiliate themselves more with the latter. Personally, I think I'm more a Mr In-between.

 

[KGIII]

However, most of those utilities were conceptually derived from the original UNIX commands with the same or similar names and functions which were developed as early as 1970s, if not a bit earlier.

I think I'd heard some rumors about some ruffled feathers due to regularly using the same names as UNIX had used for their tools. But I do not recall that ever being a battle after BSD did so. I think that BSD originally complemented UNIX. BSD predates GNU by a few years.

But, the code was different. They used the 'white room' approach. I think the theory was that they'd not seen the original code, but I'm a bit skeptical of that. The first UNIX (from Bell Labs) actually included the source code. RMS had obviously used UNIX, as had the others involved in the project.

As an aside, RMS went to Harvard for a year (before hanging around MIT for like a decade and a half). He went to work at MIT in '71. The amusing bit? His work was in the "Artificial Intelligence Lab". Yup... All those years ago...

He was a... Hmm... Well, let's just say that RMS was actually against passwords. He also hated the idea that he had restricted access to the big iron. Back then, you had time slots during which you could access the big iron. He hated this with a passion.

And, yes, I mean that literally. He despised passwords.The little SOB dude would crack your password and email it to you. He'd also use some of those passwords to get more time on the computer. I've mentioned before that I have opinions on the dude, but I do what I sort of keep them to myself. He's quite the zealot.

But, to give credit where it's due, he's often right.

I've self-censored this post. I kid you not, he hated passwords because it meant other people could use the computers while he couldn't access their stuff. He thought it should be free and open (even though the computing power was limited). Try as I might, I can't think of a time when RMS ever shared his personal password, though I'm sure he must have. Right? Surely, he must have.

I'd go on, but I'm trying to lightly cover some of our shared history. This post is factual. My opinions might be obvious, but they are just my opinions. I'll repeat it, just to make sure I said it well... RMS has an uncanny ability to be right. Not always, but fairly often.

 

[MikeRocor]

I have occasionally been accused of being "change averse", which may be an accurate description.

All change comes with some form of risk and/or cost, be it overwhelming or negligible. Most change that becomes a candidate for widespread adoption (notwithstanding that which originates with Microsoft) also comes with some form of benefit.

I think we've all at least heard of "cost/benefit analysis". While I suspect few of us have ever done it as a formalized procedure, we implicitly do something of the sort every time we make a decision to do or to not do something.

In computer technology, unless there is some driving need that I have to address, I usually take a "wait and see" position with new technologies/methods. If I -don't- have some driving need that has to be addressed, then the existing technology is clearly "good enough" for my use cases.

The argument that "That's the way we've always done it" is lame, at best, if the current way isn't producing the desired results but, if the "old way" -is- producing the desired results and is not introducing undue costs and/or risks, then "This is the way it's done" can be pretty compelling.

The existence of long-standing rules/methods/philosophies for doing things should be a strong indication that these are things that have been demonstrated to work pretty well and that the risk of ignoring them might be pretty high.

I'm currently in the wait and see phase, with varying levels of optimism/pessimism, regarding three biggies: systemd, wayland, and self contained software packages (flatpack, snap, etc). One of my main concerns is that any one of them might completely supplant the previously existing way of doing their respective functions. In my opinion, any new technology, the adoption of which hinders compatibility with the previous, proven technology, should be viewed with intense skepticism as that would be a heavy risk/cost on the cost/benefit balance.

There are, of course, risks, or potential risks, even to taking the very conservative "wait and see" stance. That, along with a certain level of isolation from current trends (among other factors, of course) pretty well scuttled my career advancement in software development. By the time I realized how far behind the times I was getting, it was too late in my career to do anything about it.

 

[dos2unix]

regarding three biggies: systemd, wayland, and self contained [COLOR=revert-layer] software[/COLOR] packages (flatpack, snap, etc).

Ha, well I'm defintely agreeing with you on the "containerized packages"!

 

[Brickwizard]

But I wonder sometimes, does Linux technology just pass by sometimes

I think a lot dose just flow past us, to me, It's the nature of the beast, Linux is organic it grows by the day, some of its branches die off, and new ones grow it is a slow continuing process, Evolution if you like. Whereas other systems have stark changes you could say revolution, just like you and your nephews you have watched one grow slowly so have not noticed he is now a big boy, whereas the other has gone from a little boy to a big boy overnight [in your mind]

Linux has a weird group of users. There's a surprisingly high percentage of us that are, for wont of a better word, Luddites.

I think eclectic may be a better word to describe us users, as for being Luddites yep that goes with the "" If it ain't broke, Don't fix it"" philosophy many of us oldies have.