Unix Vs Linux

Today Linux is in great demand. You can see the use of Linux everywhere. It's dominating on our servers, desktop, smartphones and even used in some electrical devices like refrigerators.

Some people think Unix and Linux as synonyms, but that's not true. Many operating systems were developed to be like Unix but none of them got the popularity as Linux. Linux is the clone of Unix. It has several features similar to Unix, still have some key differences. Before Linux and Windows, computer world was dominated by Unix. Unix is a copyrighted name and IBM AIX, HP-UX and Sun Solaris are only Unix operating system remained till date.

Introduction to Unix

Unix is a family of multiuser, multitasking computer OSes that derive from the actual AT&T Unix, whose integration started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, and others. Unix was intended for use in the Bell system initially, leading to a range of both commercial and academic Unix versions from vendors, including IBM (AIX), HP/HPE (HP-UX), Sun Microsystems (Solaris/SunOS), Berkeley (BSD), Microsoft (Xenix), and the University of California.

Unix systems are designated by a modular design sometimes known as the "Unix philosophy". The operating system should give a group of simple tools according to this philosophy, all of which perform a well-defined and limited function. An incode, unified-based file system and an inter-process communication technique called "pipes" serve as the primary communication means, and a command and shell scripting language is used to merge the tools to implement complex workflows.

Unix differentiates itself from its predecessors as the initial portable OS; almost the whole operating system is specified in the C programming language, which permits Unix to run on numerous platforms.

Components of Unix

The Unix system consists of several components that were actually packaged together. By adding the development environment, documents, libraries, and the modified, portable source code for each of these components, in inclusion to the kernel of an OS, Unix was an autonomous software system.

The filesystem locations and names of the Unix components have substantially changed across the system history. Nonetheless, the implementation of the 7 version is considered by several for having the early structure of Canonical:

• Kernel: It is composed of many sub-components, and its source code resides in the /usr/sys directory.
• Development environment: The recent versions of Unix included a development environment acceptable for remaking the whole system from the source code.
• Commands: Unix makes a distinction between user-level programs or commands for system maintenance and operation, general utility commands, and more general-purpose software like typesetting packages and text formatting.
• Documentation: Unix was one of the initial OSes to add each of its documentation online inside the machine-readable format.

Introduction to Linux

Linux is a family of Unix-like open-source operating systems. Typically, Linux is packaged as the Linux distribution, which contains the supporting system libraries and software and the Kernel, several of which are offered by the GNU Project. Several Linux distributions utilize the word "Linux", but the Free Software Foundation utilizes the "GNU/Linux" name to focus on the GNU software importance.

Famous Linux distributions are Ubuntu, Fedora Linux, and Debian, the latter of which itself composed of several different distributions and changes, including Xubuntu and Lubuntu. Commercial distributions are SUSE Linux Enterprise and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Desktop Linux distributions are windowing systems like Wayland or X11 and desktop environments like KDE Plasma or GNOME.

Linux is one of the most outstanding examples of open-source and free software collaboration. Linux source code may be distributed, modified, and used non-commercially or commercially by anyone upon the terms of its respective licenses, like the GPL (GNU General Public License). For example, the Linux Kernel is licensed upon the GPLv2.

Components of Linux

Installed components of the Linux System contain the following:

• Bootloader: It is a program that can load the Linux Kernel into the main memory of the computer by being run by the system after the initialization of the firmware is performed and when it's turned on.
• Init program: It is the initial process begun by the Linux Kernel.
  Software libraries: These include code that can be used by active processes.
• Basic Unix commands: Basic Unix commands, along with GNU coreutils, are the typical implementation. Several alternatives are available for embedded systems, like BSD-licensed Toybox and the copyleft BusyBox.
• Widget toolkits: They are the libraries utilized to create graphical user interfaces for software applications. Several widget toolkits are present, including Clutter and GTK integrated by the GNOME Project, Qt integrated by the Qt Project and conducted by the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL), and the Qt company primarily developed by the Enlightenment team.
• Package management system: The package management system includes RPM and dpkg. The packages can alternatively be compiled from source and binary tarballs.
• User interface program: The user interface programs are also available in Linux, such as windowing environments or command shells.

Difference between Linux and Unix