Re: The future of your Nokia Windows phone
 

I don't know of any other OS that is currently installed on more devices than S40, or the core running S40 to be precise whatever that is.

Re: The future of your Nokia Windows phone
 

Honestly, still confused here. Point one: today's Unix user need never touch a command line. Most OS X users don't even know what "bash" is.

Point two: POSIX is merely a standard describing one method for how to interact with an OS. You can build an OS to be POSIX-compliant without forcing the user to use the OS in that way. For example, Windows is POSIX-compliant via Microsoft's Interix package.

Point three: both iOS and OS X run on top of the Mach kernel. iOS may have a radically different interface than you'd expect from other flavors of Unix, but somewhere deep underneath there, the heart of a Unix system is beating...

Re: The future of your Nokia Windows phone
 

That's normal. Smartphone is just contributing to a small portion of the entire embedded system world, in terms of market coverage and revenue.

I know you're in fact specifically referring to smartphone market, but since you mentioned embedded systems in general...

Re: The future of your Nokia Windows phone
 

I'm not sure what you mean. S40 is not a smartphone OS, it is the OS that is installed on most current Nokia dumbphones. It is an RTOS of some sort, referred to as "Nokia OS".

Re: The future of your Nokia Windows phone
 

Quite a bit of assertions for someone that is confused. Generally, individuals ask questions for clarification ;). But I can appreciate that you're trying to win an argument. :)

I'm not sure I can simplify this further, but I will try:

Yes, Unix is beneath iOS. But the user interface is certainly not Unix, is quite far removed from it, and heavily tied to iOS. So saying that people are 'learning unix' takes a bit more than a stretch. Put another way: using iOS would not make you more proficient with Open Solaris, nor would it with Ubuntu, or even the common Unix denominator between these OSs.

So I'd say confidently, that using iOS is learning how to use iOS. I would raise the same arguments for Ubuntu, but since the CLI is available, and the FS is exponsed (users/permissions/etc), etc, I would say that there's a degree *more* 'Unix learning' there, than with iOS.

Re: The future of your Nokia Windows phone
 

Aha, now I understand! We differ in our definition of what "Unix" is. Thank you for the clarification. :)

Personally, I tend to tie the concept of "Unix" much closer to the kernel than you do. Back in the good old PDP-11 days, when Unix first appeared, the shell, editors, compilers, and other utilities bundled with the OS were just that: bundled with the OS, not actually part of it. Unix has always had a plethora of command line shells, and when GUIs became popular, a whole bunch of them too; so, I've never personally gotten comfortable with saying that any particular shell or GUI is the true "Unix" user interface.

So, from my point of view, the iOS GUI is just as much a Unix interface as the OS X GUI is. (Even if it does lack many of my favorite features.)

Similarly, using Windows 7 doesn't necessarily mean you'd do well using Windows 3.1, or DOS, or Interix for that matter. Just because two operating systems share some particular heritage with one another doesn't mean that their interfaces need to be in any way similar.

Again, though, this is using my own definition of what an operating system is. If you believe that the user interface is the operating system, then yeah, neither iOS nor OS X are truly "Unix".

Re: The future of your Nokia Windows phone
 

It generally comes down to semantics, nay? :)

I don't think that the UI is the OS, but part of it. As such, I would say that there are many spatially significant heritage trees of OSs, with degrees of compatibility, structure, interface, similarity, etc, between each node. The further down (or up) you move, the more different the OS becomes for that characteristic to the reference node. Thus, I have found that absolutes don't jive well with OS classification -- which is why it is generally a lively topic of debate. This is the very reason I stick to 'degrees of similarity' in one area or another.

I believe the whole idea of classifying OSs, is like classifying humans -- each case has a multitude of differing characteristics, and thus loses relevance as an activity, unless you're considering a very narrow characteristic.

I remember getting nailed to the wall when I suggested that Android was Linux.... I don't do that anymore :D

Re: The future of your Nokia Windows phone
 

Okay, I promise, I'll stop after this, but OS X is the only common desktop OS that is UNIX.

At all times, I have 2 Terminals open with 3 tabs each.

X, su, sudo, vi, a terminal and bash (the default shell) come pre-installed and pre-configured on every Mac.

EDIT:

As does ssh, sshd, scp.

Re: The future of your Nokia Windows phone
 

Android is as much Linux as Ubuntu. ;)

Re: The future of your Nokia Windows phone
 

More on the future of your Windows Phone.

http://bsdly.blogspot.com/2011/02/pr...microsoft.html

While not specifically about Windows Phone, it is about how Microsoft handles email. And therefore what you can expect to have on your future Windows Phone.