Diffrence between unix and linux ???????

[Brijesh Modi]

Dear all,

let me know the diffrence between unix and linux ??????? give me 10 diffrences.

thankx,

Brijesh

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell]

Hi
I will give you one that is inportant if you are considering using linux for a business server.

Unix is an old stable system which has evolved over many years.

Linux ???


Paula

[Thierry Poels_1]

Hi,
Linux = unix.
Linux is "just" another flavour like HP-UX, Digital Unix, AIX, Solaris, ...
The basics are the same, but every flavour has its own specific options, administrator utilities, system software, file locations, ...
regards,
Thierry.

[Thierry Poels_1]

Hey Paula,
if you are attacking Linux for its stability, I hope you're not running Windows ;-)
regards,
Thierry.

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell]

Hi Thierry

I am afraid I have to run windoze:- word, excel photoshop etc

At for stability try this for size:-

If (God forbid) you had to go on a Life support machine and had a choice of Windoze,unix or linux as the OS which would you choose?

;^)

Paula

[Thierry Poels_1]

Paula,
1st choice : the one I'm sysadmin of ;)) whoehahahaha
okay 2nd choice : (HP-)Unix
Thierry ;)

[Philip Chan_1]

Linux != Unix /* that is the NOT EQUAL sign */

Linux = Unix clone

Linux is a Unix clone, that was why they share a lots of similarity.

In my opinion the critical differences one should be aware are

1. stablity
2. security

I agree with Paula about the fact that Unix has been evolved for so many years therefore it is a far more mature OS. On the other hand, quite a number of mission critical features such as async I/O and raw partition support, were just being added to the 2.4 Linux kernel recently. These features, are nothing new in HP-UX, Solaris, or even AIX.

From the external look and feel, the differences between Linux and Unix could be very small. But internally, there are still many complicated features in Unix that are not available in Linux yet.

Just my 2 cents.

~Philip

[A. Clay Stephenson]

I've being doing UNIX since System III and enjoy examining internals. If you enjoy knowing how things really work it is fun to get the freely available source code. Although this is possible for some of the free UNIX's,
it is not for HP-UX. Now, If I were in a production environment where stability and reliabilty are paramount then it's a no brainer - HP-UX.

[boley janowski]

I though linux was spanish for i dont know how to spell unix (el unix).

there both unix, one runs on a pc, and the other on proprietary hardware, some commands are different from flavor to flavor of all unix o/s.

[Ralph Grothe]

I would say it really depends what you consider as being Linux.

Strictly speaking Linux is "only" the kernel sources.
But that's not yet what one would regard as a full fledged operating system.
So in a wider sense it also comprises the abundance of programs and utilities that make up a modern Unix, but these come from many different sources (e.g. the Free Software Foundation, GNU etc.)
Of corse this differs from distributor to distributor (e.g. RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, Debian, ...)

If you take into account that this was all compiled by thousands of volunteers only joined by the Internet who program, document, bugfix this as part of their hobby it is really awe aspiring of what has been achieved in such a short period (I think the first Kernel was published in the Internet by Linus Torvalds only as late as `91/`92).

Since all my fore posters are advocating the HP-UX I think I have to stress in what respects I consider Linux superior to many propriotory Unices such as HP-UX.

By the way, the long evolution and experience from other Unices of corse have also gone into the development of Linux.

First the most obvious difference is that the complete OS together with all its programs and tools are available in source code, and in fact every user of Linux is encouraged to take part in the development and improvement of the OS.

The availability of the sources is in my view the main reason for the proliferation of driver development and bugfixing.
Just consider how long you have to wait with other OSes until certain hardware is supported (chances are never if it isn't promissing to gain revenue)

Just have a look of what is available as real loadable kernel modules for instance with HP-UX.
Linux is capable of running a highly modularized kernel with drivers being automatically removed when no longer needed and vice versa.

Another important point is security/anonimity (e.g. with encryption algorithms, backdoors etc.).
This was one of the reasons why GnuPG evolved instead of relying on PGP (especially with regard to the evasdropping desires of certain governments, e.g. NSA, Echelon)

So you consider HP-UX being rock solidly stable and relatively bug free?

Just another one of those bleek experiences I had only last week.
The Chasis Loging Deamon clogd on one of our new HP boxes took a whole CPU 100% occupying it.
When I called the HP support they told me this is a known behavior and HP are working on a fix but they couldn't tell me when a patch will be available.

With the working power of thousands of volunteer testers and developers the fixing of bugs in a free OS is unbeatably fast.

Another pro is that the OS is highly customizable (of corse, some regard this as a curse).
If you aren't happy with what you are given no one can keep you from messing with the sources at will.

I think there can be found many more advantages that speak for Linux (not to mention that it doesn't cost you more than the price for the media)

[Philip Chan_1]

Hmm... how one would appreciate these difference OS flavourites depend on their purpose and needs,

User friendliness -> Windows, MAC
Maturity and consistency -> HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, FreeBSD
New features and hacking -> Linux

[Greg OBarr]

Here are the biggest differences, in my opinion:

Linux is UNIX, written for the Intel architecure. The basic Kernel was written by Linus Torvaldes and it has been modified and added to innumerable times since then by programmers/hackers all over the world - some with a genuine interest in improving the operating system, others??? who knows? Some were motivated just to get their name in the source code of the OS. Linux was written for the Intel processor and there are many, many differences in the different brands of PCs, not to mention clones, in the world. There are many different BIOS versions on these different systems, etc.

HP-UX, Solaris, etc., on the other hand, all originated from the same Bell Labs UNIX and have been modified since by a company that has had to be concerned with running it ONLY on their own hardware. Modifications have been made in a business environment to meet the needs of their customers and to increase performance, reliability, etc with the goal of having a superior operating system that works specifically with their proprietary hardware. Development is in-depth enough that you patch the operating system for a specific platform and boot prom (BIOS) version on that specific platform.

How could anyone see Linux as a viable competitor in a production environment?

[A. Clay Stephenson]

I will give one one more - it is very difficult to get Linux past a security audit team. Because it is open source it is too easy
to 'improve' and difficult to convince the auditors that your system has not been 'improved'.

[Jason Samsa]

Greg, your response seems to imply that linux was written exclusively for x86 architecture. One of the advantages of linux is that it runs on more hardware than almost any other system. I believe NetBSD may be the only os that runs on more platforms.

Here is an excerpt from www.kernel.org:
Linux was first developed for 32-bit x86-based PCs (386 or higher). These days it also runs on (at least) Compaq Alpha AXP, Sun SPARC and UltraSPARC, Motorola 68000, PowerPC, ARM, Hitachi SuperH, IBM S/390, MIPS, HP PA-RISC, Intel IA-64 and DEC VAX. Ports are currently in progress to the AMD x86-64 architecture.

[Greg OBarr]

I stand corrected. However, this only adds to the argument against running Linux in a production environment, for support issues if nothing else. I don't think Red Hat or any other Linux provider has every model of every platform that Linux runs on sitting in a lab somewhere waiting to duplicate and resolve a critical production issue.

[Dana Price]

I am a bit fuzzy on this so others might wish to correct or add comments. When considering differences between hp-ux and linux there is a significant difference in the way the two solve printing issues. hp-ux uses a script based system where as linux uses a binary/driver based system.

Attempting to send printer output from hp-ux to linux or the reverse can introduce some unexpected results. I recall sending linux based output to an hp-ux based print server and finding negative (-) length files on the hp-ux server. This was very confusing to the hp-ux print server.


Of course there are ways to work around differances of this nature. The point is - the two are different. Linux is not unix. The linux source code was developed independantly of unix. Features are often similar. One might consider them to be like two car engines. One built by Ford the other built by Honda. They both use gasoline and they both perform the same service but Ford != Honda != Ford.

[Hamdy Al-Sebaey]

Dear all,
I think, for a small business Linux is ok,but for a big one with a heavy database,then is Unix is the best one,I do'nt attack linux,not at all,but let us think on a rational way,then I consider yo?'ll say Linux needs time to match Unix.
Thanks,
Hamdy