Can Unix run Linux files, or vice versa? Any help on this topic would be infinitely appreciated.

Depends on what you mean by "files". Interpreted items such as shell or perl scripts will likely run but may take some tweaking for minor differences. Not all Linux options to commands are available to Unix and vice versa and there may be simple differences in output such as where the command shows up in "ls -l" - might be column 53 on one and column 55 on another so "cut -c 53- " would give odd results).
Also if you have something "#!/bin/bash" as your interpreter line in a Linux shell script you'd likely have to replace it with "!/bin/ksh" on Unix as bash is not the default shell for Unix and usually isn't even installed unless someone added it after the fact - not part of the distributions usually.

Binaries almost certainly won't for two reasons:
1) binaries are processor type specific - something designed for a RISC chip won't run on an x86 (PC) chip. (Doing "file <filename>" would tell you its a data file rather than an executable.)

2) Even when processor type is the same there are apt to be differences in libraries called by the binaries (possibly even the library name itself). If "file <filename>" reports it as an executable you might be able to try running it but if it makes call to external libraries as most things do nowadays its very likely to fail.

Depends on which Unix on which platform and which Linux on
which platform you are talking about ... generally it's safe to assume
that things that can be compiled on Unix can be compiled on Linux
and vice versa (potential library dependencies granted). For binaries
it's not necessarily true (e.g. an executable from Intel/Linux WON'T
run on PPC/AIX).


Cheers,
Tink

Thanks, so does that mean that a linux program that runs for debian on x86, will not run on debian ppc?

That's correct, too. Again, you will most likely have it there
already, and if you don't you'll be able to apt-get it. But if
you copy ls from a Deb/PPC to a Deb/x86 box it won't do
anything.


Cheers,
Tink

So Linux running on the same type of processor as Unix will be able to use it's binary files too?

Possibly but not necessarily.

This is a bit of a stretch but here it goes. So If I downloaded an open source os like darwin that claims to run unix and mac os x files. What are the chances that ppc linux files will run on this?

Not familiar with darwin (OSes don't evolve - they're intelligently designed )

Seriously though a claim to "run Unix and Mac OS X" seems a little broad for the reasons I mentioned before. There are many variants of Unix (its been around since 1969) that run on a plethora of hardware (x86, Sun SPARC, IBM RS6000, HP PA-RISC, Motorola, PowerPC, DEC Alpha are just a few I've encountered) and as noted even on a single platform like x86 you can have BSD, Solaris, SCO, Linux (in most of its distros), AT&T SVR4, Qnix, Xenix and God knows what all.

Early on before the advent of shared libraries I did have some success in running AT&T compiled binaries for x86 SVR4 under SCO 3.2-4.2 on x86 but only because it was a self contained binary so it was processor specific and OK (of course even there you'd could see unexpected results due to things like expected field placement as I mentioned for scripts). However nowadays almost everything relies on shared libraries.

So unless darwin is running "virtual servers" on top of your "physical" chip its unlikely to run everything. Its hard for me to believe there's a product that runs every conceivable Unix "virtual server" though I could see where one might run one. Note that if they are saying they run Mac OS X which supposedly is running a Unix kernel (I've heard arguments that it doesn't actually) it may be they're loosely using the terms Mac OS X and Unix interchangebly.

Thanks for all this information. Just for all ur guy's info Darwin is the open source mac os x kernal that is also partially based on unix. The fact that darwin is based partially on unix is what confused me.

The OS you're running is less relevant than the architechture that you're running it on. Binaries are compiled to run on a specific processor and they are not interchangable. Any x86 stuff won't run on PPC, regardless of whether you're using linux, AIX or Darwin.

I fully understand about the processors. The only questions I have are about operating system compatibility.