Linux & Unix
 

Hi,

I just want to know what the difference is between Linux and Unix. I think that Linux is a sort of flavour of unix!? I've also read in some articles that Unix is on its way out due to Linux. I had a look at some solaris 10 pics with the java system etc and it looks similar to Linux. If you run Solaris would programs written for linux work on unix?like mplayer etc

Regards
Juan

I know that the questions are very broad and shooting in the air type. I wa just wandering what your opions are?

Most POSIX-compliant programs will work on most POSIX-compliant OS'es. That said, the primary difference between UNIX and Linux is that UNIX (the commercial version) is closed-source and proprietary. Linux is a kernel for an operating system, usually in a distribution with a bunch of other utilities, that was written from scratch by Linux Torvalds in 1991, but based on the source code of Minix and is released under the GNU GPL. Read this article for a little more understanding: http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd...bsd4linux1.php

Sure they look similar, but you are confusing the graphic environment with the kernel.
Most of a standard Linux distribution code is not Linux, but Gnu, other GPL and non GPL software. The kernel as about 3% of the whole.
Most of these freewares are portable, so run on top of Linux, BSD, Solaris and other O/Ses.
When the same graphic environment is used on any O/S, it looks the same, and JDS is based on gnome.

Scuzzman:
Solaris is (a real) Unix, and Solaris is open source, so Unix is no more closed source.
Linux is not based on Minix code, but was written from scratch.

Solaris is not OpenSource, but OpenSolaris is. If UNIX was no longer closed source, we would not have the problem with SCO.

OpenSolaris is Solaris, just have a look at the source code.
The problem with SCO has nothing to do with that, it is a licensing violation issue.

As far as I know OpenSolaris is Solaris without the proprietary UNIX stuff. And yes the whole SCO issue is to do with UNIX and alleged UNIX code in Linux.

You are mistaken, it is true OpenSolaris is missing some source code, not that much, but this has nothing to do with Unix, that code is copyrighted by third parties not willing to open source it, the Unix part of Solaris, I mean the one SCO has some rights on, is certainly open sourced.

The SCO issue is completely different.

As far as I know, it is about relicensing code to GPL without the owner consent, while OpenSolaris which uses a license that protects the original owner rights doesn't violate that.

While the discussion is whether Solaris is OpenSolaris etc. Will linux programs like mplayer etc run on unix. I'm using Suse10 and was wondering what the hype over solaris 10 was. So, basically I'd just like to know if I'd be able to do the stuff I do in Suse(take a basic perpective not someting weird like porting visual studio on solaris via wine etc) on solaris as well. I think its something like $50 for the complete package. I'm just curios, so I was wondering if its worth it to spend the money.I don't have n fast internet connection so downloading is out

Mplayer is not (exclusively) a linux program, but an open source and quite portable freeware that happen to run on Linux, BSDs, Solaris, SGI Irix, HP-UX, QNX, Windows Cygwin, MacOS X and Amiga MorphOS ...

Similar comments can be made about many (most?) of the freewares running on Linux.

However, mplayer is not part of the Solaris distribution, so you will need to download it from sites like blastwave, which may be is an issue as you seem to have Internet bandwidth problem.