if you just started reading and learning about linux, you might have come across the term "unix". the word itself is similar to linux, but what does it mean? you might be wondering: what is the difference between unix and linux?
Unix vs. Linux
in general, it depends on how you interpret each of these two terms, as both can have different (yet related) meanings. in this article we give you a simplified history of linux and unix to help you understand their relationship. as always, feel free to ask questions and add more information in the comments.
the history of unix began in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in the computer research department at at&t bell labs in the usa. together with mit and general electric, bell labs developed a new operating system. some of their scientists were dissatisfied with the progress of the project and withdrew to create their own OS. In 1970, the new product was named unix, and two years later its code was completely rewritten in the c programming language. This made it much easier for developers to port unix to different computer platforms.
As the development of unix continued, at&t began selling licenses for its use to universities and later to commercial vendors. this meant that not everyone could freely modify and distribute the source code, essentially making unix a proprietary operating system. soon derivatives and variants of Unix for different purposes and with different licenses began to appear, with BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) probably the best known among them.
