From e67abcec47fb3bd4873c35a14bc1d1029f50ea77 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Sadeep Madurange <sadeep@asciimx.com>
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2025 22:07:53 +0800
Subject: wip: Unix post.

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 _site/archive/desktop-unix/index.html | 63 +++++++++++------------------------
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diff --git a/_site/archive/desktop-unix/index.html b/_site/archive/desktop-unix/index.html
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@@ -46,60 +46,37 @@
         <div class="twocol justify"><p>The Unix operating system project appears to have started in 1969 at Bell Labs.
 Something resembling contemporary Unix-like systems may have been developed in
 1973 when Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson rewrote the Unix kernel in C. Both of
-these important milestones, unfortunately, predate me by a number of years.</p>
-
-<p>Nevertheless, operating systems created in the image of Unix and, more
-importantly, that inherit its philosophy, have survived. Linux and OpenBSD are
+these important milestones predate me by some years. Nonetheless, operating
+systems that preserve the Unix philosophy have survived. Linux and OpenBSD are
 two such systems that I am personally familiar with.</p>
 
-<p>Operating systems like OpenBSD and Linux are free and open-source alternatives
-to commercial operating systems such as Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows.
-OpenBSD is developed by a group of hackers led by Theo de Raadt. Linux is
-community-driven, although, increasingly and ironically, under the stewardship
-of corporations such as IBM and Microsoft.</p>
-
-<p>Commercial operating systems, and the corporations behind them, are becoming
-increasily hostile towards their users. Viewing their users merely as a means
-to an end, the unbridled harvesting of personal data for targetted advertising,
-influencing the behavior of the masses, and training generative neural networks
-has become their primary objective. the book ‘The Age of Surveillance
-Capitalism’ by Professor Shoshana Zuboff documents in detail unassailable
-evidence and poignant consequences of the surveillance activities by these
-corporations.</p>
-
-<p>Conversely, Unix-like operating systems are open to the user to use them as
-they deem fit. They do not spy on their users, sell hidden agendas, and some,
-like OpenBSD, do not show commercial interests whatsoever. The following is a
-screenshot of my custom Arch Linux setup in 2020. It uses X display server and
-i3 for window management, Urxvt terminal emulator made translucent with the
-help of the Xcompmgr compositor.</p>
+<p>The following is a screenshot of my Arch Linux setup from 2020. It uses X
+display server and i3 for window management. The urxvt terminal emulator is
+made translucent using the Xcompmgr compositor.</p>
 
 <p><img src="linux.png" alt="Arch Linux" /></p>
 
-<p>The following is an equivalent setup on OpenBSD from my 2024 desktop:</p>
+<p>The following is a screenshot of my OpenBSD laptop from 2024:</p>
 
 <p><img src="openbsd.png" alt="OpenBSD i3" /></p>
 
 <p>This degree of customization is impossible with commercial operating systems.
-The operating system vendor sets firm boundaries around how the machine should
-be used. As a consequence, the user is forced to suffer slow animations,
-arrangement of windows, and blatant infringements of privacy.</p>
+The vendor sets firm boundaries about how the machine should be used.</p>
 
-<p>The conceptual elegance and technological superiority of Unix-like operating
+<p>The conceptual elegance and architectural supremacy of Unix-like operating
 systems lie in how programs developed independently come together to accomplish
-complex tasks. For instance, to read and reply to an HTML email on OpenBSD,
-Mutt, my email client, requests credentials from Pass, which retrieves
-credentials and requests GPG to decrypt them. With the decrypted credentials
-Mutt fetches the email, opens the Lynx browser to render the HTML content. To
-reply, I press Shift+R key, which opens Vim, the text editor I use for all my
-text editing tasks. I prepare the reply and press ‘y’ to dispatch it.</p>
-
-<p>The entire process of handing control from one program to another is seamless
-and instantaneous. The magic is in the fact each of these programs are
-developed by different programmers, without so much as exchanging an email to
-make sure that they can interoperate. In fact, none of these programs were
-designed to interoperate for the specific use case of sending an email. The
-interoperability is a direct consequence of how Unix was designed.</p>
+complex tasks. For instance, to read an HTML email, I may use Mutt, an email
+client. Mutt would request credentials for my email account from Pass, a
+password manager, which in turn uses GPG to decrypt them before handing them
+over to Mutt. Mutt would then authenticate and fetch the email and delegate the
+rendering of the email to Lynx a web browser. The chaining of different tools
+resembles a sofware symphony.</p>
+
+<p>Each of these programs were developed by different programmers (at times
+decades apart), without an explicit intent for them to interoperate.
+The interoperability is a direct consequence of the Unix engineering
+philosophy. Engineers generations apart have kept that tradition alive (like
+a cathedral built by many generations).</p>
 
 <p>Files: <a href="dotfiles.tar.gz">dotfiles.tar.gz</a></p>
 </div>
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