This might be why OpenBSD looks attractive to some. Its kernel and all the different applications are fully integrated with each other -- no distros! It also tries to be simple, I believe, which makes it more secure and overall less buggy.
To be honest, I think OSes are boring, and should have been that way since maybe 1995. The basic notions:
multi-processing, context switching, tree-like file systems, multiple users, access privileges,
haven't changed since 1970, and the more modern GUI stuff hasn't changed since at least the early '90s. Some design elements, like
tree-like file systems, WIMP GUIs, per-user privileges, the fuzziness of what an
"operating system" even is and its role,
are perhaps even arbitrary, but can serve as a mature foundation for better-concieved ideas, such as:
ZFS (which implements in a very well-engineered manner a tree-like data storage that's
been standard since the '60s) can serve as a founation for
Postgres (which implements a better-conceived relational design)
I'm wondering why OSS - which according to one of its acolytes, makes all bugs shallow - couldn't make its flagship OS more stable and boring. It's produced an
anarchy of packaging systems, breaking upgrades and updates,
unstable glibc, desktop environments that are different and changing seemingly
for the sake of it, sound that's kept breaking, power management iffiness, etc.
To be honest, I think OSes are boring, and should have been that way since maybe 1995. The basic notions:
haven't changed since 1970, and the more modern GUI stuff hasn't changed since at least the early '90s. Some design elements, like are perhaps even arbitrary, but can serve as a mature foundation for better-concieved ideas, such as: I'm wondering why OSS - which according to one of its acolytes, makes all bugs shallow - couldn't make its flagship OS more stable and boring. It's produced an