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This article mainly introduces "what is the difference between Linux and Unix". In daily operation, I believe many people have doubts about the difference between Linux and Unix. The editor consulted all kinds of materials and sorted out simple and easy-to-use methods of operation. I hope it will be helpful to answer the question of "what is the difference between Linux and Unix?" Next, please follow the editor to study!

The terms Linux and Unix can be used interchangeably to refer to the same operating system. This is largely due to their striking similarities that many people are unable to distinguish between the two. In the Linux vs Unix puzzle, there is confusion about which system does what. If you were born in the mid-1990s, you probably only interacted with the Linux operating system. Linux occupies a huge market share in data centers and cloud computing platforms. Linux is ubiquitous and supports most smart devices such as smartphones, Android TV and Internet of things devices.

While Linux and Unix do have a lot in common, especially in terms of file system hierarchy and terminal commands, we cannot ignore the differences between the two systems. In this article, we will learn more about Unix and Linux and explain in detail the differences between them.

First of all, Linux is a clone of Unix. It is a Unix variant that has grown rapidly and has produced hundreds of styles or distributions. They are maintained by a dynamic community of developers. To better understand how we got to where we are today, let's review the history of Unix. Later, we will look at a series of events that raise the creation of Linux.

History of Unix

Unix dates back to the late 1960s, at Bell Labs in AT&T, when a group of ambitious developers led by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson were seeking to develop multi-user multitasking systems for minicomputers called PDP-7. At that time, Unix was a derivative of the Multics operating system (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service). This is a system that supports mainframes.

By the 1970s, however, the two leading developers began to feel uneasy about the direction of UNIX. Disappointed with the scope and direction of Multics, they decided to develop a different route to derive a new operating system from Multics. With the joint efforts of Dennis Ritchie, who is regarded as the father of C language, and Ken Thompson, the inventor of Go language, a better system, later UNIX, was born. UNIX has proved to be portable and can be installed and supported by many hardware architectures.

Unix developed rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s and became popular in academic circles. Among the institutions that adopted and changed the trajectory of Unix, engineers at the University of California, Berkeley (University of California in Berkley) further modified and developed Unix, resulting in a new system called BSD, short for BSD Software Development (Berkeley Software Development). BSD comes with some enhancements and new software applications that herald a new era for the operating system. At the same time, AT&T developed its own route and launched its own version of UNIX, System V. Later, BSD appeared and soon replaced System V, deriving variants such as NetBSD, OpenBSD and FreeBSD from BSD.

The birth of Linux

In 1990, Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, further studied UNIX and finally came up with a viable Linux kernel, which he called Linux. The kernel opens the door to operating systems with utilities and other applications, away from proprietary UNIX systems. Over time, Linux became an open source and free-to-use tool under the GNU/GPL licensing model. This makes room for other distributions, such as Slackware with a Linux kernel, GNU tools like the GCC compiler, the X windows system (graphical user interface), and other BSD components.

There are hundreds of Linux distributions now. The most popular and widely used distributions are Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora, Debian, CentOS, Arch Linux, and Manjaro.

So far, we have learned about the brief history of UNIX and how it produced Linux, a free and open source system, through the joint efforts of many developers. The question is, what's the difference between UNIX and Linux? what is there in UNIX that is not available in Linux?

Now let's change the angle and focus on the difference between the two:

Linux vs UNIX

Now let's look at the difference between the two operating systems.

First, Unix is an operating system originally developed by AT&T Bell Labs. Linux and its derivative products are derived from Unix. The Linux code was developed from scratch by Linux Torvalds in 1991.

Linux is downloaded and used free of charge. Although some enterprise distributions, such as RHEL, require paid subscriptions, most distributions are still largely free and open source. This is a feature that makes it so popular and widely used by developers and software engineers. It mainly explains why we have countless Linux distributions, each with its own unique approach. On the other hand, UNIX is largely proprietary and is usually pre-installed in most hardware, and macOS is a good example.

In addition, although Linux is open source, UNIX is not. You need permission from its manufacturer, and even then, you can't view, modify, or even redistribute the code. In Linux, the situation is completely different. Linux is free and open source, allowing users the freedom to modify and redistribute code without any restrictions.

Because of its cost-effectiveness, Linux is more popular than UNIX in data centers, cloud-hosted platforms, and even desktops at home or office. UNIX is proprietary and has always been reserved for application servers and internet servers. With the passage of time, the use of UNIX gradually decreases, and Linux occupies a leading position in the cloud hosting platform.

In terms of portability, Linux is very portable and can be installed on almost any hardware platform. You can install it on intel, AMD processor hardware, or even ARM devices, such as Raspberry Pi. By contrast, UNIX can only be installed on a few platforms.

What about support?

Linux forms a broad community of active open source enthusiasts. In addition, there are a large number of forums to provide support and guidance to Linux users. However, unlike Linux, support in UNIX is commercial.

Summary

In this article, we will clarify the history of UNIX and how developers have made various efforts to develop Linux into a free and open source system. Finally, we discussed the differences between UNIX and Linux and explained the nuances in detail.

Linux dominates the open source world, with a large number of distributions that can be downloaded and used for free. Although it is still used on special platforms, the use and demand of UNIX is declining. This is mainly due to vendor locking and proprietary licenses.

At this point, the study on "what is the difference between Linux and Unix" is over. I hope to be able to solve your doubts. The collocation of theory and practice can better help you learn, go and try it! If you want to continue to learn more related knowledge, please continue to follow the website, the editor will continue to work hard to bring you more practical articles!

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