Steve Jobs & the NeXT Big Thing by Randall E. Stross covers the NeXT years extensively and in period. Highly recommended also to do some “archeological” read/research into what it was like to sell computers in the late 80’s, early 90’s
Yes, everything at CERN, at least in the 2000s, was in AFS. Fermilab was also using AFS extensively.
I remember compiling AFS from source for Scientific Linux 3.x because there was a weird bug that didn't let the machines mount AFS when they were integrated with LCG (before it was renamed to WLCG: https://wlcg.web.cern.ch/)
I’ve been lucky enough to see in person many of these pieces when they were exhibited in DFJ’s offices in Sand Hill Road (~2017-2018). It’s an extraordinary collection.
Steve Jobs & the Next Big is a great read with tons of context about the tech world at the end of the 80’s/beginning of the 90s. Also, a candid view on Jobs’ reality distortion field.
+1 to this. I remember installing software in 1998 on Red Hat and it was absolute hell. It was a hit or miss endeavor and when it failed, it failed badly. All those broken dependencies took ages to resolve.
Then I switched to Debian Potato and never turned back. It was such a clean and sane experience.
Unfortunately, I could not scape rpm hell at work as Fermi Linux, and then CERN Linux, were both based on Red Hat.
I think it’s the closest thing to that dream today.