Unix/Linux

What is Unix & Linux?Unix is a computer operating system

originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna.

Linux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

History (1960s-1970s) 1960s- In the 1960s,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, AT&T Bell Labs, and General Electric developed an experimental operating system called Multics, on GE's latest mainframe, a GE-645, designed specially for it.[1] Multics was a highly innovative, braving many new computing frontiers for the first time, including the ability to serve several users from the same computing machine all at one time. It had many problems, but eventually Multics became a functional commercial product.

1970s- In the 1970s Brian Kernighan coined the project name Unics for UNiplexed Information and Computing Service, a play on Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service). The Uni and Multi prefixes refer to the number of simultaneous users the operating system can support, so when Unics could eventually support two simultaneous users, it was renamed Unix.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix

History (1980s-2000s) 1980s- AT&T licensed UNIX System III, based largely on Version 7, for

commercial use, the first version launching in 1982. This also included support for the VAX. AT&T continued to issue licenses for older Unix versions. To end the confusion between all its differing internal versions, AT&T combined them into UNIX System V Release 1. This introduced a few features such as the vi editor and curses from the Berkeley Software Distribution of Unix developed at the University of California, Berkeley. This also included support for the Western Electric 3B series of machines.

1990s- In 1990, the Open Software Foundation released OSF/1, their standard Unix implementation, based on Mach and BSD. The Foundation was started in 1988 and was funded by several Unix-related companies that wished to counteract the collaboration of AT&T and Sun on SVR4. Subsequently, AT&T and another group of licensees formed the group "UNIX International" in order to counteract OSF. This escalation of conflict between competing vendors gave rise again to the phrase "Unix wars".

2000s- In 2000, SCO sold its entire UNIX business and assets to Caldera Systems, which later on changed its name to The SCO Group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix

Unix/LinuxFeatures: Local processing facilities. Compilers. Editor. Document preparation system. Efficient file system and access control. Mountable and de-mountable volumes. Unified treatment of peripherals as special files. The network control program (NCP), is integrated within

the Unix file system. Network connections treated as special files which can

be accessed through standard Unix I/O calls. The system closes all files on program exit. "desirable to minimize the amount of code added to the

basic Unix kernel".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix

AdvantageUnix hosting is cheaper than

Windows hosting. Because most web hosts use the free version of Unix (like Linux), they don't have to compensate for huge overhead expenses.

http://uk.hosting-review.com/uk-hosting-articles/unix-hosting.shtml

DisadvantageThe main disadvantage of using

Unix hosting is that your provider may only allow access to your account via Telnet or SSH.

http://uk.hosting-review.com/uk-hosting-articles/unix-hosting.shtml

PopularityUnix popularized the hierarchical file

system with arbitrarily nested subdirectories, originally introduced by Multics.

Making the command interpreter an ordinary user-level program, with additional commands provided as separate programs, was another Multics innovation popularized by Unix.

Unix popularized a syntax for regular expressions that found widespread use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix

UnpopularityLinux started the open sourced movement to

operating system fun and game, many years ago. But today it still had problems of suffering ultimate demise just like many Linux distros gave up their hobby.

The secret of open source Linux operating system suffering its own demise is based on the discovery of many strange file names that open sourced community and hobbyists did to themselves without the knowledge of setting standards to keep Linux operating system with interchangeable parts. When one module can not plug into another without extensive change of file names, you will ultimately give up, because the chore is too time consuming and it exceeds the pleasure of successful programming.

http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/17086