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"What UNIX Cost Us" - Benno Rice (LCA 2020)

linux.conf.au · talk · Watch on YouTube

Operating systems & kernelsLinux & open-source ecosystems

What it is

Benno Rice's linux.conf.au 2020 talk asks whether UNIX was the best design we could have had. He looks at what alternatives existed, what was gained and lost, and what could be re-learned, including the limits of treating everything as a file.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Recommended as an insightful and entertaining critique of UNIX design choices such as file descriptors and 'everything is a file'.

  • 3 people recommended it
  • 3 different months
  • 2 strong recommendations
  • first 2022, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “Benno Rice is an insightful, energetic, witty, and just plain enjoyable tech speaker.”

    Insightful, witty talk on UNIX's historical costs by an engaging speaker

    pxc, 2024-08 · Strong recommendation · in “Systemd, 10 years later: a historical and technical retrospective (2020)”

  2. “Benno Rice gave a fantastic talk a few years ago called”

    Shows USB device code on macOS, Windows, Linux to critique files-as-everything

    favorited, 2025-03 · Strong recommendation · in “Exploring Polymorphism in C: Lessons from Linux and FFmpeg's Code Design (2019)”

  3. “this video argues that file descriptors are not as good as the author claims in their opening paragraph”

    Argues file descriptors and 'everything is a file' are idiosyncratic flaws

    sph, 2023-12 · Recommendation · in “Reforming Unix”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: unix, file descriptors, operating systems, freebsd, everything is a file

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