Calculating your Home Unix Score
After a discussion with a friend the other day, I took a quick survey around the house and was amazed at the number of machines running UNIX or a UNIX variant kicking around my house. Gaze upon my junk, ye mighty, and tremble:
- Mac PowerBook laptop (Mac OS X)
- Eee mini laptop (Ubuntu linux)
- Series 2 TiVo (running a Yellow Dog modified linux, I have heard, but maybe not)
- DNS-323 NAS (custom linux distro)
- Nokia N800 tablet (Meamo linux)
- XO laptop (Fedora 7 variant)
- Chumby alarm clock (custom linux distro)
- Garmin Nuvi GPS (custom linux distro)
- iPhone (Mac OS X, sorta)
Other, non-UNIX devices:
- Xbox Media Center (running on a cut down Windows 2000)
- Wii (running Nintendo’s firmware)
- Xbox 360 (Windows 2000 again?)
- Microsoft Vista KPC desktop (Vista)
- Jennifer’s ThinkPad (XP)
That’s UNIX 9, Other OSs 5, for those keeping score at home — a far cry from the dreaded “Microsoft Everywhere” future so dreaded in the early part of this decade. What’s your Home Unix Score?
August 16th, 2008 at 11:49 am
This is Unix, I know this:
- EEE PC 700 netbook (Ubuntu Linux)
- Nokia N800 (Maemo Linux)
- Powermac G4 Desktop (Ubuntu Linux)
- 2 custom built Intel Core 2 Duo Desktops (one for me, one for the SO, both run Ubuntu Linux)
- an old P4 Dell desktop with a 500GB hard drive acting as my local Ubuntu Mirror (Debian Linux)
- an old AMD gaming machine with various hard drives acting as my file server (Debian Linux)
- Linksys WRT-54G router (Tomato routing firmware based on Linux)
This is not Unix:
-Xbox
-Xbox 360
- Wii
- Gamecube
- PS2
Score Unix 8, Other 5. You beat me with the power of Chumby and iPhone, I salute you.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Holy cow! You win. I only have 2: one with an aluminum case and one that puts the internets in my pocket. I used to have an old PowerMac that I had installed Yellow Dog Linux on, but I gave it away. I wonder if I could put Ubuntu on my old PowerBook? (I mean really old–black case, rainbow logo, thick as a brick, pre-G3.)
August 19th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
It’s possible, but very difficult, to install linux on a real old-skool PowerBook. The “Old World ROM” era pretty much makes it impractical, and you have to do something boneheaded like bootstrap the system with OS 9.
My Unix score is surprisingly low…