Unix vs Linux: What Is The Difference?

If yous've just started reading and learning virtually Linux, you might have encountered the term "Unix". The word itself looks similar to Linux, but what does it mean? Perhaps y'all're wondering: what is the difference between Unix and Linux?

Generally, it depends on how you lot interpret each of these two terms, because both tin can have different (yet related) meanings. In this article nosotros bring you a simplified story of Linux and Unix to help yous understand their relationship. As ever, you're welcome to ask questions and add more than information in the comments.

The (Hullo)story of Unix and Linux

The story of Unix began in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in the calculating inquiry section of AT&T Bell Labs in the United States. Together with MIT and General Electric, the Bell Labs were developing a new operating system. Some of their researchers were unhappy with the progress of the projection, and withdrew to create their ain Os. In 1970 the new product was given the name Unix, and 2 years later its code was entirely rewritten in the C programming language. This made it much easier for developers to port Unix to different computing platforms.

As the development of Unix continued, AT&T started selling licenses for its usage to universities, and later to commercial vendors. This meant that non everyone could freely modify and distribute the source code, substantially making Unix a proprietary operating system. Before long, derivatives and variants of Unix for different purposes and with different licenses started popping upward, with BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) as probably the best-known among them.

Linux is based on Unix in spirit and functionality, merely not in code. Equally an operating system, it grew out of two projects: the GNU Project, started by Richard Stallman in 1983, and the Linux kernel, written past Linus Torvalds in 1991. The goal of the GNU Projection was to create an operating system like to Unix, simply separate from it; in other words, containing no code from Unix so that it could exist farther modified and distributed without limitations as gratuitous software. Since their own kernel was incomplete, the GNU Projection accepted the Linux kernel, and then the operating system GNU/Linux was born.

The design of the Linux kernel was influenced past MINIX, a variant of Unix, but the unabridged lawmaking was written from scratch, non borrowed from it. Unlike Unix, which was used on servers, big mainframes and expensive computers at various institutions, Linux was developed for personal computers, a much simpler type of hardware. However, today it runs on more platforms than whatsoever other OS, including servers, embedded systems and mobile phones.

What is Unix?

The term "Unix" can refer to the post-obit:

the original operating organization adult by AT&T Bell Labs from which other operating systems derive.

the trademark – written in all caps, UNIX – held past The Open up Group, which also adult a gear up of standards for operating systems chosen Single Unix Specification. Only those operating systems which comply with the standards can legally bear the proper name "Unix". The certification is not complimentary, and requires the developers of an operating system to pay trademark royalties for the proper noun.

all operating systems which are registered with the "Unix" name because they comply with the aforementioned standards. They are AIX, A/UX, HP-UX, Inspur One thousand-UX, Reliant UNIX, Solaris, IRIX, Tru64, UnixWare, z/OS and OS 10 – yes, the one that runs on Mac computers. (Interestingly enough, OS X celebrated its 14th birthday this week: on March 24. Congratulations!).

What is Linux?

Strictly speaking, the term "Linux" refers only to the kernel. The operating arrangement is not consummate without a desktop surround and applications. Since the majority of applications were and even so are provided by the GNU Project, the full name of the operating system is GNU/Linux.

However, nowadays many people use "Linux" to refer to any and all Linux distributions, and utilize the term as a generic name for all operating systems based on the Linux kernel. The version 4.0 of the Linux kernel is currently in development, equally Linus Torvalds recently decided to switch to a new numbering system for kernel releases.

Linux is a Unix-like system, which means that it behaves like Unix, but doesn't contain its code.

Unix-like systems are often described as United nations*x, *Cypher, or *N?10, or called "Unixoids" in some languages. Linux doesn't take UNIX certification, and GNU is said to correspond "GNU'southward Non Unix", then in this respect, Bone Ten is "more Unix" than Linux. Nonetheless, on the level of functionality, the Linux kernel and the GNU/Linux operating system(south) are very similar to Unix and follow most of the principles of Unix philosophy, like having human-readable code, storing arrangement configuration in plain text files, relying on uncomplicated, small command-line tools, having a shell, a login and a session managing director…

It's important to note that it's possible for a Unix-like system to obtain UNIX certification. In some contexts, all operating systems derived from or based on Unix are referred to as Unix-likes, regardless of whether they take the UNIX certificate or not. Also, they can be commercial or free (and open-source) operating systems.

Key Differences

Linux is costless and open-source, the original Unix is non (just some of its derivatives are);

Linux is a "clone" of the original Unix, but information technology doesn't contain its code;

Linux is just the kernel, while Unix was/is a complete operating system;

Linux was developed for personal computers, while Unix was primarily for large workstations and servers. Today, Linux supports more platforms than Unix;

Linux besides supports more filesystem types than Unix.

As y'all've seen, the defoliation usually stems from the fact that both "Unix" and "Linux" can hateful dissimilar things. Whichever meaning is being used, the fact remains that Unix was in that location first, and Linux came afterward. Linux was built-in out of a desire for software liberty and portability, and inspired by the Unix approach to computing. It's safety to say we're all indebted to the free software movement because, applied science-wise, the world would be a much darker identify without it.

See Also: Linux vs Windows, As Experienced By A Linux User