unix like but what about real unix

D

Diablotin

Hi,
first of all, sorry for my english.

when i hear the term unix-like, i know we are talking about FreeBSD, OpenBSD, OpenSolaris, etc. My question is... What about a UNIX System ? Does it exist ? If yes, what it is ?

Thank you and sorry for my ignorance
 
The Unix family tree has branched and split so many times over the past 40+ years. The BSDs are direct code descendants of the original AT&T Unix, as is Solaris, SCO/OpenServer, AIX, HP/UX, but there's not much original code left anymore. I suspect if you want to run real, original UNIX you'll need a PDP-7 and a dusty copy of some circa 1970 UNIX code.

Otherwise the BSDs are probably as close are you're going to get, unlike Linux and Minix which are just look alikes.
 
It depends on what you mean by "real unix". There are two kinds. One kind is allowed to use the UNIX trademark, and the other kind descends "genetically" from AT&T UNIX.

Free Software Genetic Unix: FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, OpenSolaris, etc.
 
UNIX(TM) systems are those systems that have necessary certification from the Open Group.

Linux, Minix, and others are Unix-like systems that were designed to emulate the behaviour of UNIX(TM) systems.

On the other hand, freeBSD, netBSD, openBSD, Darwin and OpenSolaris are Unix-based systems, because they descended from original BSD UNIX.

If you take a look on http://www.freebsd.org, you'll see a large label saying "Based on BSD UNIX(TM)". Therefore, there is a difference between Unix-like and Unix-based systems, and UNIX(TM) systems.
 
Bill Joy created the first BSD. Endowing AT&T UNIX with ex, vi, csh and the tcp/ip stack. He could be considered the first system admin as he patched the system and shared patches back and forth from Berkeley to Bell Labs in the late 70s. After Joy left Berkeley students reworked the kernel to run on a VAX machine. In the late 80's Keith Bostic suggested that all AT&T code be replaced in BSD. Within 18 months it was complete.

If you really want to follow the events in order look for info on CTSS and Multics with Martin Richards BCPL and follow that through to what would eventually become UNICS with B and later UNIX with C on a PDP-7 and later PDP-11.

Following the shell and it derivative languages( i.e. perl, ruby) is also an interesting historical aspect of computing as you can follow form the 1950's the mathmatical concept of regular sets( now known as regular expressions) through the line editor qed( later became ed once regex was implemented). Doug McIllroy's piping concept which would later bring us grep. Then sed. and finally awk.

btw I am old enough to know that FreeBSD is UNIX. Unix-like is for OSes running a clone like the GNU userland based ones. Though this is a common mistake people make since the lawsuit.
 
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