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"What UNIX Cost Us" - Benno Rice (LCA 2020)

linux.conf.au · 217.6K views · 2020-01-15 · 34:14

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Overview

Benno Rice's linux.conf.au 2020 talk asks whether UNIX was the best design we could have had. He looks at what alternatives existed, what was gained and lost, and what could be re-learned, including the limits of treating everything as a file.

On Hacker News

Recommended as an insightful and entertaining critique of UNIX design choices such as file descriptors and 'everything is a file'.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2022–2025

Topics

Operating systems & kernelsLinux & open-source ecosystems
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unixfile descriptorsoperating systemsfreebsdeverything is a file

What people said

favorited · 2025-03 · Strong recommendation

> for instance, Linux handles network socket, special files (like /proc/cpuinfo) or even USB devices as files. This is a powerful idea that can make easy to write or use programs for linux since we can rely in a set of well known operations from this abstraction called file. Benno Rice gave a fantastic talk a few years ago called "What UNIX Cost Us," which he starts off by showing how to write some USB device code in macOS, Windows, and Linux. It only takes a few minutes to demonstrate how pretending that everything is a file can be a pretty poor abstraction, and result in far more confusing code, which is why everyone ends up using libusb instead of sysfs. [VIDEO]

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pxc · 2024-08 · Strong recommendation

I'll second this recommendation! Benno Rice is an insightful, energetic, witty, and just plain enjoyable tech speaker. 'What UNIX Cost Us'[1] is another favorite of mine that the audience on this post might enjoy: [VIDEO]

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sph · 2023-12 · Recommendation

Not the author but I recommend: "What UNIX cost us" by Benno Rice: [VIDEO] In fact, this video argues that file descriptors are not as good as the author claims in their opening paragraph. They are another runaway idiosyncrasy borne out of the "everything is a file (but not really)" philosophy that underpins Linux.

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Sources

Video by linux.conf.au, played through YouTube.

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