Product: 0380815931

in The Beginning…was the Command Line actually managed to change my perception of how operating systems work. While Stephenson’s arguements might be a tad moot in light of Apple’s recent change to unix and recent change intel (Stephenson himself now uses OSX) his ability to make the arguement for open-source developers and operating systems like linux is compelling. At the heart of Stephenson’s arguement is one simple fact: linux is more dependable than any commercial OS currently operating out there and best of all it’s free. Way back in 1997, a few years after linux debuted, I found myself trying to install it and failing horrible. This track record has followed me for almost 10 years through multiple installations and troubleshooting. Today I’m running Ubuntu Linux on an LG notebook (which works beautifully) and have discovered that many of the new installations of linux work out of the box with most computers on the market today and even with many of the propertiary and formerely hard to configure laptops out there. The point behind In Beginning… is that Microsoft and Apple command mindshare and not product quality as the means of extending their hegemony. While this isn’t entirely true, for instance a majority of drivers are windows only making linux the kinda small underdog having to write it’s own drivers for each new board of peripherial, his basic point that commerical operating systems frequently make themselves seem better than they really are and maintain a kinda virtual world in which the buyer is subject more to marketing trends than an honest recount of the problems inherint in any operating system. Afterwards you find yourself, regardless of your level of gnu advocacy, with a new angle on the whole market of how computers work and what they mean. An important part of the debate over free computing and increasingly, although Stephenson hardly touches on it, an important statement of what seems to be a brewing debate between people who want to share and altruistically develop technology versus those who crush competition with copyright and lawsuits.
Rating: 4
0380815931
Count: 32