Alan Kay on Linux
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN uses it as a quick citation of Alan Kay's dislike of Linux, in threads questioning whether the Unix way is the final word.
What it is
A one-minute clip of Alan Kay giving his blunt critique of Linux and the Unix approach.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2018 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Cites NiveaGeForce · 2018-02 · on “Linux'izing your Windows PC into a dev machine – Part 2”
There are also many developers who are forced to use GNU/Linux dev tools, while prefering to use Windows. Not to mention that Windows has better support for most hardware and modern form factors, such as pen & touch enabled 2-in-1s. If you're buying something like a Surface Pro or Surface Book, the last thing you want to do is cripple its functionality, ease of use, performance and battery life by installing GNU/Linux. But the fundamental reason for why I avoid it, is best explained in this video. [this video]
Cites NiveaGeForce · 2018-05 · on “Shell Style Guide”
> Not to put too fine a point on it, but that's nonsense. In PowerShell you pass structured data around instead of globs of text, which is much more maintainable. Using Bash on Windows is like going backwards, and it's sad that most developers don't even realize it. > Historically, PowerShell was supposed to be a replacement for cmd.exe and roughly equivalent to bash, yet suitable for the Windows environment. They tried early on to port some of the UNIX & Linux tools to Windows and it didn't fly, so this is what we're left with. Nonsense, Powershell is a fundamental improvement. It's not a "this is what's we're left with" situation. > Although parts of Powershell are open source now, I suspe
Cites NotUsingLinux · 2020-05 · on “Linux Productivity Tools (2019) [pdf]”
I guess this is not the place to discuss about how to change all of computing and how it should be done better and that Linux is a distraction? [this video]
Cites georgewsinger · 2022-08 · on “What have we lost? – Demo of exotic OSes (2021) [video]”
This reminds me that Alan Kay really hates Linux: [this video] This stings since I really like Alan Kay and have been influenced by his ideas, but am also working on a Linux-based VR headset as a thinking tool[1]. I think Alan would approve of the hardware but not the software, perhaps ultimately saying something like "you can spend your whole life dicking around in Linux, but still not understand anything about computing". [1] [LINK]
Cites morphle · 2026-04 · on “Apple Silicon and Virtual Machines: Beating the 2 VM Limit”
Apple had real Unix a decade before the Linux crap was made, a bad unix copy. Nextstep was much better than Linux crap. "A budget of bad ideas" is what Alan Kay said about Linux [1], he invented the personal computer. My 1987-1997 ISP was based on several different Unix running on Apple, probably long before you where born. Apple built several supercomputers. [1] [this video] [2] Founder School Session: The Future Doesn't Have to Be Incremental [LINK]