What is the difference between Linux and UNIX operating systems?
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myleso
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from google: UNIX has many implementations and flavors, like the AT&T's System V, University of California - Berkeley's BSD, Santa Cruz Operations very own SCO, Novell's UnixWare, Sun's SunOS/Solaris, IBM's AIX, Hewlett-Packard HP-UX, SGI's IRIX, Compaq (DEC)'s Digital UNIX, Apple's Mac OS X and Linus Torvald's Linux just to name a few.
GTP
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Woa! Many of those are "Unix like" but are not Unix. The question is actually very complicated and either someone else can take a crack at it or the OP can Google a bit more.
In simple terms Unix, BSD and Linux are three entirely different OSs with some common conventions.
In simple terms Unix, BSD and Linux are three entirely different OSs with some common conventions.
Markverhyden
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Licensing.
nlinecomputers
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No there not. You are flat wrong there. BSD is a directly licensed descendant of AT&T Unix.
"Initially intended for use inside the Bell System, AT&T licensed Unix to outside parties from the late 1970s, leading to a variety of both academic and commercial variants of Unix from vendors such as the University of California, Berkeley (BSD), Microsoft (Xenix), IBM (AIX) and Sun Microsystems (Solaris). AT&T finally sold its rights in Unix to Novell in the early 1990s, which then sold its Unix business to the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) in 1995,[4] but the UNIX trademark passed to the industry standards consortium The Open Group, which allows the use of the mark for certified operating systems compliant with the Single UNIX Specification(SUS). Among these is Apple's OS X,[5] which is the Unix version with the largest installed base as of 2014." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix
BSD IS Unix. Linux is not Unix it is a clone of Unix using it own unique kernel and tools mostly from GNU at the core. Technically Linux is really ONLY the Kernal of the OS and a few die hards will correct you if you misuse it to include the rest of the OS. But that battle has been lost and for the most part, people equate Distro with Linux. In truth, each Distro, Debian, SuSE, RedHat are all different OS that shares some common components like the Linux kernel and some tools.
tldr Unix is a family of OS that all come from licenses copies UNIX from AT&T. Linux is a clone of Unix that shares the same commands and structure using Open Source copies of the Unix counterparts.
GTP
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As in Gnu's not Unix! see: Richard Stallman.
I stand corrected.!
Porthos
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Great discussion but the OP never answered @Cadishead Computers question in the intro.
https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/hiii.72156/#post-570355
https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/hiii.72156/#post-570355
Markverhyden
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Years ago I was at a meeting he was at. Someone mentioned something about how Linux and GNU were different. Man, did that ever set him off. We all had to listen to this lecture about how Linux is just a Unix emulating kernel released under GPL. And should be called GNU Linux and all of the software was not part of it, blah, blah, blah. LOL!!!
nlinecomputers
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And his GNU tools are emulating UNIX tools? He says he wants everything to be open source and then gets his knickers in a twist because they will not label it with credit he doesn't deserve.
That is why I tend to refer to the distro and not just use a generic Linux. While they share some code RedHat is far different than Debian or Slackware or SuSE.
fencepost
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As others noted, it's a pretty complicated question. Some of the ones listed that are true "Unix" (descended from the original code written back in the 70s) are AIX, SysV, UnixWare, Solaris, etc. Anything "BSD" including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc. as well as MacOS X I believe are descended from BSD Unix (also a descendant of that early code) but for legal reasons can't actually be called Unix.
Linux is a Unix-like OS, but the Linux kernel was written separately by originally by Linus Torvalds then later by many people. Minix is a teaching OS, also written independently and was an inspiration for Linux, which led to some of the friction between the camps that you'll see if you read about the early days of Linux.
There are also some other unrelated Unix-like operating systems, most notably QNX designed for real-time and embedded systems work I believe and GNU/Hurd which never really caught on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix-like is probably a good place to start to at least see which ones are related and not.
Keep in mind also that there's a distinction between the kernel (UNIX, Linux, Minix, QNX, etc.) and the utilities and software available (much of which is cross-platform and will work on almost any POSIX-compliant system).
Linux is a Unix-like OS, but the Linux kernel was written separately by originally by Linus Torvalds then later by many people. Minix is a teaching OS, also written independently and was an inspiration for Linux, which led to some of the friction between the camps that you'll see if you read about the early days of Linux.
There are also some other unrelated Unix-like operating systems, most notably QNX designed for real-time and embedded systems work I believe and GNU/Hurd which never really caught on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix-like is probably a good place to start to at least see which ones are related and not.
Keep in mind also that there's a distinction between the kernel (UNIX, Linux, Minix, QNX, etc.) and the utilities and software available (much of which is cross-platform and will work on almost any POSIX-compliant system).
johnrobert
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If Bill Gates never came along with M$ would it be possible that we could all be using Linux instead
would it work without a registry
would it work without a registry
Altster
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M$-DOS worked fine without a registry. All of the related files to a given program resided in the programs sub-directories (now called folders).
GTP
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OS/2 Warp could also have been a contender. I think I read somewhere that Messrs Gates/Allen used this as a basis for Windows?
glennd
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I think that was where they developed their "embrace and extend" policy.
Markverhyden
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There's a little more to it than just M$ hooking up with IBM, it involves decisions made by Apple, IBM, and many others.
Back in the late '70's IBM noticed the emergence of the standalone computer, like the Apple II, Commodore, etc, etc. and it's growing popularity in the business world. Management told them to develop a similar machine for sale to businesses, low priced. IBM never saw the PC as being a meaningful competitor to their big iron and terminals. LOL!!! How history repeats itself.
With the very first one they had 3 DOS's available, DR-DOS, PC-DOS (M$), and CP/M. Don't remember the details but IBM ended up going exclusive with M$ shortly after. Not long after hardware clones started popping up in the market place. IBM made a decision to not go after any of them for Copyright infringement even though they had reverse engineered/copied the BIOS. This was a critical decision as it allowed hardware prices to drop very quickly. Some, like Compaq, used a clean room technique to document that their BIOS was completely original. At the same time the agreement that IBM had with M$ also allowed M$ to market to anyone else.
Parallel to this Apple also had others who were trying to copy their products. Unlike IBM, they went after the imitators with all they could afford. Hard to say whether this was a result of the personalities involved or basic business decisions - does a company allow other companies to copy the products that are it's life blood. Years later Apple did license their hardware and software to others but it was too little, way too late.
Back in the late '70's IBM noticed the emergence of the standalone computer, like the Apple II, Commodore, etc, etc. and it's growing popularity in the business world. Management told them to develop a similar machine for sale to businesses, low priced. IBM never saw the PC as being a meaningful competitor to their big iron and terminals. LOL!!! How history repeats itself.
With the very first one they had 3 DOS's available, DR-DOS, PC-DOS (M$), and CP/M. Don't remember the details but IBM ended up going exclusive with M$ shortly after. Not long after hardware clones started popping up in the market place. IBM made a decision to not go after any of them for Copyright infringement even though they had reverse engineered/copied the BIOS. This was a critical decision as it allowed hardware prices to drop very quickly. Some, like Compaq, used a clean room technique to document that their BIOS was completely original. At the same time the agreement that IBM had with M$ also allowed M$ to market to anyone else.
Parallel to this Apple also had others who were trying to copy their products. Unlike IBM, they went after the imitators with all they could afford. Hard to say whether this was a result of the personalities involved or basic business decisions - does a company allow other companies to copy the products that are it's life blood. Years later Apple did license their hardware and software to others but it was too little, way too late.
johnrobert
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When you think of all the un ending problems with Windows 95, 98, Millennium, 2000, XP, Vista, Win7, win8 win 10. In my opinion, the only one that was any good out of the lot was Win7
it’s like paying $200 for a night’s stay in a hotel and being told you have to sleep on the floor. It used to be the customer was always right, now they are treated like ****, when you think about it , it's a comedy of errors
I think anything would have been better than M$ When you think of the billions of hours in lost productivity by people waiting for their computer to update before they can use it.
Something on the lines of Unix/Apple with things basically staying the same after upgrade
it is good for us and Washington state
it’s like paying $200 for a night’s stay in a hotel and being told you have to sleep on the floor. It used to be the customer was always right, now they are treated like ****, when you think about it , it's a comedy of errors
I think anything would have been better than M$ When you think of the billions of hours in lost productivity by people waiting for their computer to update before they can use it.
Something on the lines of Unix/Apple with things basically staying the same after upgrade
it is good for us and Washington state
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