LinuxQuestions.org - UNIX Vs Linux

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A new article entry has been added:

UNIX Vs Linux

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Most of you might have wondered what the difference between UNIX and Linux is.
Here is some of the information I found out while googling.

UNIX Vs Linux.

1. Most common difference: UNIX is propriety system while Linux is an
Open Source system.

2. Technical
a) In UNIX

Unfortunately, as I found in following the SCO vs. World lawsuits, defining *nix is complicated.

I still feel the OSI Position Paper a good source for history/definitions of UNIX.

Actually, UNIX is a specification while Linux is a kernel.

Also, whilst versions of a specific Unix eg Solaris may be relatively consistent, there can be large differences (at the sys admin level) between Solaris vs HP-UX vs AIX...

nice article, cleared some of my questions.

Debian Development

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Originally Posted by 2damncommon (Post 3068637)

Actually, UNIX is a specification while Linux is a kernel.

Good point!

Many people forget this.

-C

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Originally Posted by nick021

Here is some of the information I found out while googling.

Don't trust everything you found by googling ;)

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1. Most common difference: UNIX is propriety system while Linux is an Open Source system.

This has already be corrected: UNIX is an Open Group specification while Linux is an Open Source kernel designed for an Open Source UNIX clone: Gnu/Linux.

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c) In UNIX developers are bounded by standard while in Linux developers are free and have no restriction.

The difference is less extreme. Actually Gnu/Linux is close to comply with most UNIX standards.

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3. Hardware
a) UNIX was coded for small handful h/w platform/architecture.
Linux was designed to be as compatible as possible. Runs on dozens of architecture and support numerous I/O devices & other external devices.
Supported devices are limitless.

UNIX (the OS) was the first operating system to be written in a high level language with the obvious goal to be portable to various architecture. It demonstrated this portability long before Linux birth.

Linux (the kernel) was originally designed to run only on the x86 architecture. It was modified several years later to be portable though (DEC Alpha, SPARC, m68k, ...).

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b) Commercial UNIX is usually custom written for each system, making the original cost quite high, but having the benefit of being exactly what you need.
e.g.
HP-UX => PA-RISC & Itanium m/c
Solaris=> SPARC and x86
AIX=> Power Processor

These UNIX OSes aren't custom written for a system. They all started from AT&T UNIX System V forks.

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Linux has base packages that are required, then you install more to get the system you need. (In this respect, Linux is closer in model to windows than a commercial UNIX OS is.)

All UNIX OSes have required base packages and optional ones. There is no fundamental difference there.

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4. Kernel
a) UNIX kernel is not freely available.
Linux kernel is freely available.

*BSD kernels are freely available and can be qualified as UNIX kernels given their pedigree.
(Open)Solaris kernel is freely available and open source. Solaris is UNIX compliant and is based on UNIX System V release 4.0 code.

(I agree with jlliagre)

You forget to differentiate traditional Unix with Unix(Unix is not Unix)such as the *BSD family. The traditional Unix(TM) kernel is indeed closed source, however Unix is open. They operate in much the same way, almost clones of each other.

Thought I would let you know. ;)

Is the command language the same, close or different?

There are many command languages, assuming you mean shell interpreters here, and most are equally available for both Unix and Gnu/Linux distributions.

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Originally Posted by jlliagre (Post 3308119)

Don't trust everything you found by googling ;)
Linux (the kernel) was originally designed to run only on the x86 architecture. It was modified several years later to be portable though (DEC Alpha, SPARC, m68k, ...).

Actually Linux was originally only designed to work on one computer. The computer was owned by Linus Torvalds. It was designed to work only with his motherboard, hard drive etc.

I can say that the most stable system I have ever worked with is HP-UX

As of 2017, illumos is a free (non-proprietary) Unix system, so at least one of the claims in the article is not true anymore.

This correction along with several others were already posted 9 years ago... See post #6.

Ah, my fault. Just pretend I wasn't here!