Linux and Unix: The Comparison
Linux distributions and UNIX are two of the most prominent operating systems available to us. While UNIX was developed much earlier than Linux, Linux has improved leaps and bounce over the years.
The UNIX operating system was build in the early 1970's at Bell labs. It was initiallty written in an assembly language. In 1972, UNIX was written in C programming language. This migration to a high level language made the operating system more reliable and easy to operate. The first source license of linux was sold in 1975. some of the versions of UNIX are OS x and Solaris
Linux is a UNIX-like operating system developed by Linus Torvalds on 17th September,1991. Linux is called as “Unix-like” as it was built on the UNIX platform but does not possess its source code or in no way is associated with UNIX. A growing need of free and open-source software led to the development of Linux. Some of the distribution of Linux is Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat and Debian
Here are some of the major parameters on which the two operating systems are compared.
Development
Linux is an open-source operating system which means that it's source code is available to the users for interpretation and development. It has adopted the methodology of sharing the source code and features through forums and is open to suggestions. Linux is distributed by various vendors and the product is called distributions. This is a very major reason in the rapid development of the operating system as it is being developed by various communities all around the globe.
On the other hand, UNIX is not so open in its approach. The UNIX operating system is generally developed in the AT&tT labs or by some commercial organizations . The main purpose of this is to keep the operating system more secure.
User Base
Linux distrbutions are one of the most popular operating systems in the world. Linux has a wide range of user base starting right from the novices to the experienced developers. Linux is used in homes, offices and in one of the largest organizations in the world.
UNIX operating system were developed mainly for servers and mainframes. The UNIX environment also had a substantial contribution in the development of the Internet.
File System Support
The file systems supported by Linux is EXT2, EXT3, EXT4, Jfs, ReiserFS, Xfs, Btrfs, FAT, FAT32, NTFS.
Whereas, the file system supported by UNIX are jfs, gpfs, hfs, hfs+, ufs, xfs, zfs.
Graphical User Interface
Linux is a very versatile operating system and provides you with a variety of alternatives when it comes to Graphical User Interfaces. The most common GUI provided by Linux is KDE and Gnome. However, there are a lot of options to choose from. Some of them are Unity, Mte, LXDE etc.
UNIX was originally developed as a command based operating system for servers and mainframes. However, later a GUI called Common Desktop Environment was developed. Now, most of the distributions have adopted Gnome.
Shell
The default shell for Linux is the BASH (Bourne Again SHell) shell. It can support multiple command interpreters.
The default shell was originally the Bourne shell. But later it became compatible with BASH, Korn and C.