Operating Systems Quotes

• Computer science is the operating system for all innovation.

  Steve Ballmer

  Innovation, Computer, Computer Science

  17 Copy quote

• No one cares what operating system you run as long as it stays up.

  Bruce Perens

  Running, Long, Care

  9 Copy quote

• Operating systems are like underwear — nobody really wants to look at them.

  Bill Joy

  Underwear, Looks, Want

  10 Copy quote

• We will never make a 32-bit operating system.

  Bill Gates

  Historical, Bits

  28 Copy quote

• UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity.

  Dennis Ritchie

  Simple, Simplicity, Genius

  125 Copy quote

• You must know your faith with the same precision with which a specialist in information technology knows the operating system of a computer.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Technology, Information, Computer

  6 Copy quote

• All operating systems sucks, but Linux just sucks less

  Linus Torvalds

  Linux

  65 Copy quote

• Culture is your operating system.

  Terence McKenna

  Culture, Programming

  14 Copy quote

• There's no other company that could make a MacBook Air and the reason is that not only do we control the hardware, but we control the operating system. And it is the intimate interaction between the operating system and the hardware that allows us to do that. There is no intimate interaction between Windows and a Dell notebook.

  Steve Jobs

  Notebook, Air, Window

  Steve Jobs (0101). “Motivating Thoughts of Steve Jobs”, p.31, Prabhat Prakashan

  11 Copy quote

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• Unix is not so much an operating system as an oral history.

  Neal Stephenson

  Unix, Oral History

  4 Copy quote

• There's no magic line between an application and an operating system that some bureaucrat in Washington should draw.

  Bill Gates

  Magic, Lines, Should

  "The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But The Truth". Interview with John Heilemann, www.wired.com. November 1, 2000.

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• I started Linux as a desktop operating system. And it's the only area where Linux hasn't completely taken over. That just annoys the hell out of me.

  Linus Torvalds

  Taken, Linux, Annoying

  "Aalto Talk with Linus Torvalds". Q&A session with the audience at the panel at Aalto Center for Entrepreneurship (ACE) in Otaniemi, www.youtube.com. June 14, 2012.

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• To a programmer, an operating system is defined by its API.

  Charles Petzold

  Programmers, Defined

  Charles Petzold (1998). “Programming Windows”, p.35, Pearson Education

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• I think operating systems work best if they're free and open. Particular applications are more likely to be proprietary.

  Larry Wall

  Thinking, Application, Particular

  6 Copy quote

• Microsoft isn't evil, they just make really crappy operating systems.

  Linus Torvalds

  Technology, Evil, Microsoft

  Linus Torvalds‏ @Linus__Torvalds, twitter.com. January 29, 2013.

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• If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at a lot
  of different places, just write a Unix operating system.

  Linus Torvalds

  Writing, Different, World

  7 Copy quote

• It is the fate of operating systems to become free.

  Neal Stephenson

  Fate

  7 Copy quote

• I have developed a Zen-like approach to the operating systems that people use: 'When you're ready, the right operating system will appear in your life.

  Guy Kawasaki

  People, Use, Ready

  7 Copy quote

• The best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating systems.

  Bill Gates

  Success, Leadership, Work

  Interview with Suzanne Lammers, programmersatwork.wordpress.com. 1986.

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• There is no neat distinction between operating system software and the software that runs on top of it.

  Jim Allchin

  Running, Distinction, Neat

  8 Copy quote

• UNIX is a user-friendly operating system.
  It just picks its friends more carefully than others.

  David Wolfe

  Friendly, Unix, Picks

  6 Copy quote

• I think Linux is a great thing, because Linux is an alternative to Windows, and because, of all the operating systems that are at all relevant today, Unix is the best of a bad lot.

  Jamie Zawinski

  Thinking, Alternatives, Today

  10 Copy quote

• I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time.

  Bill Gates

  Believe, Important, Program

  OS/2 Programmers Guide, November 1987.

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• In my opinion MS is a lot better at making money than it is at making good operating systems.

  Linus Torvalds

  Funny, Humor, Microsoft

  "The Pragmatist of Free Software: Linus Torvalds Interview". Interview with Hiroo Yamagata, www.tlug.jp. September 30, 1997.

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• Thompson and Ritchie were among the first to realize that hardware and compiler technology had become good enough that an entire operating system could be written in C, and by 1978 the whole environment had been successfully ported to several machines of different types.

  Eric S. Raymond

  Technology, Different, Machines

  Eric S. Raymond (2001). “The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary”, p.8, "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

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