Peeves
As I've written before, I predict that the plethora of vendors distributing Linux will dwindle in the near future as the market starts adopting de facto standards. While I think this is would be wonderful development and necessary for the operating system to gain more acceptance, there are still a lot of idiosyncrasies that remain annoying, and will some day -- I hope -- go away.

You can consider this a gripe session, if you want, but following is a list of five things related to Linux/Unix distributions that I've heard administrators complain about as recently as last week.

1. The UID and GID numbers are not consistent between implementations. Depending on what derivative of the core OS the vendor decided to begin with, you may find UID numbers for regular users beginning their increments from 500 or 1,000. While that may seem like a minor thing, there are many implementations where you need special users, not just reserved and normal, and having an extra 500 to play with can make a great difference.

2. Many of the services installed for integration or legacy purposes are things that should be shunned. While finger is now deprecated on many implementations, the truth of the matter is that it's still too easy a target for an attack. Finger ought to be banned outright, and while this isn't the only service that it should be, it's a perfect example of something we have outgrown.

3. Case sensitivity has outlived its usefulness. In the days without a GUI, it was cool to have usermod --g change the default group and usermod --G change the other groups. But now, that just maintains a learning curve that makes it look like an obstacle to administrators considering coming from one operating system to another.

4. Someone has to win the interface competition. I don't care if it is KDE or GNOME -- I just want to focus on one and not have to tell someone on the phone that what I just told them to do isn't accurate if they're using X instead of Y.

5. The confusion among beginners about builds that can be downloaded for free while they're in development, or that are commercially marketed/supported. While it makes perfect sense to those who've been using the OSes for a while, put yourself in the shoes of a beginner: You're told that you can buy an older version or download the new one for free. Naturally, you would choose to do your evaluation with the new one you download, only to find that it's not as stable (or supported) as you had hoped. While this model is great for development, it's not great for marketing, and something should be done to makes the distinction a bit clearer.

Accolades
Instead of leaving this just as a gripe session, I've decided to add a list of what I do like:

1. Live CDs. Once upon a time, every operating system fit on disks and you could load them into RAM if you had enough. Aside from thin clients, that trend disappeared for a few years. Now, most versions of Linux are offered in a Live CD format which allows you to run the whole OS off of the CD and RAM combo. If you want to make changes and keep them, substitute a flash drive for the CD and you're in business. It's this kind of ease-of-use that lowers the barriers to adoption.

2. SELinux. Slapping in a few modules, you get security-enhanced Linux and mandatory access control. There's promise here and, as simplistic as it sounds, this could be significant enough to give Linux a competitive advantage.

'The Ignorance of Crowds'
A topic I wrote about in January was the lack of innovation in the market. Needless to say, it drew a great deal of criticism.

Nicholas Carr, a technology author of some repute, published an article in May titled "The Ignorance of Crowds" which addresses many of the same issues but in a much more articulate manner. Carr recalls the work of Eric Raymond's seminal The Cathedral and the Bazaar and uses it as the foundation for his argument. It's a well-written paper, and I highly recommend reading it.

Goodbye, Sys Admin
Two of the best sources for Unix and Linux information are going away. CMP Media has decided to stop publishing the monthly magazine Sys Admin and its sister Web site UnixReview.com, effective with the August 2007 issue. These two outlets have published some of the best content on the operating systems. The archives, which go back to 1992, provide a great overview of the changes in the industry.