If you were a Unix, what would you be?

Ok, I was bored and the only reading material in sight was a glossy "major market" Woman's magazine with a stunning cover, roughly the intellectual depth of a road stain, and some photos inside that would qualify as porn in any other venue.

On the other hand it had a fun quiz along the lines of "If HE were a vegetable, what would HE be?"

I tried to make myself come out as a yellow zuccini, but apparently horse radish is more like it - oh well, at least it gave me an idea for today's blog.

What one word most describes your perception of each major Unix variant you've worked with?

For me:

• Linux: precocious

  I see Linux as a second or third year class of bright kids - they don't know what can't be done so they just go ahead and do it: sometimes not all that well, sometimes amazingly well, but generally well enough that you just want to applaud.

• BSDs: committed

  The BSDs, in contrast, look to me like a graduate seminar: quarrelsome but focused, individually out to change the world and likely to succeed.

• AIX: smarmy

  From a vi that offers inappropriate, and unwanted, tips to unfathomable controller management the thing reminds me of sales people who don't have a clue, but use their access to all the right people to coerce you into buying from them anyhow.

• HP-UX: stolid

  Like Solaris I see it as solid, but, unlike Solaris, it's a short timer gamely putting in its last days while watching the timer count down.

• Solaris: Popeye

  More depth than you expect, and certainly up on its spinach.

Dumb game, huh? I thought so too, but it's harder than it looks and more interesting too - notice, for example, that the first words I thought of all describe Unix in terms of people and emotional states, not software and machine states.