Performance Support

Unix OS Fundamentals: Linux and Unix

Transcript
Unix has gained success in smart phones, tablets, and Internet-of-Everything devices. And while Unix
came first, Linux has taken its place as a widely used operating system. In many ways, Linux is just a
spin-off of Unix and Unix appeals to certain niche markets. So why is that? There are plenty of ways
that the systems are similar and there are ways in which they differ. In this video, I'll discuss the
similarities and differences between Linux and Unix and explain the appeal of each.

So let's talk about the origins of Linux and Unix. On the Linux side, we talk about the Linux kernel,
that's the engine that runs Linux. It was developed by Linus Torvalds back in the early 1990s. And that
kernel is developed today by the community, so literally tens of thousands of developers. And there are
many, many distributions of Linux. On the Unix side, the largest manufacturers of Unix are IBM, HP,
Oracle, and Apple, and of course, Apple's Mac OS X is based on Unix.

As for implementations, on the Linux side, you can have desktop, server, mini or supercomputers, and
it's used in very small to very large environments. So it's really a broad sort of canvas upon which
Linux will operate. On the Unix side, pretty much the same thing, so desktop, server, mini/super, and
the distinction here is it's widely used in large commercial environments.

While Unix has traditionally been a large server-based platform and Linux has been a small user-
focused platform, the lines have blurred. So today it's sort of different than it was, say, 10 or 15 years
ago where if you mentioned Unix, Unix was meant to be implemented in large network environments
with large numbers of computers and Linux was more of a desktop or a single-server solution, and that
has sort of blurred a bit.

As for uses, on the Linux side, we've desktop, mainframes, supercomputers, phones, tablets, and
Internet-of-Everything devices. So that's pretty much anything from set top boxes to connected
appliances that you might have in your home, and it's very common in those types of devices. On the
Unix side, again desktop, mainframes, supercomputers, and there's a large number of Unix
implementations in financial infrastructure and 24x365 solutions. So these are instances where you
really need to have a permanently available solution with no down time, and that's where Unix really
shines.

As for cost and open source, on the Linux side, it's mostly open source. There are some commercial
versions available and typically, you would not pay for the software but you'd pay for the support itself.
So that's important to remember. And the other important thing to remember because it's easy to
think of Linux as being free and it's not. It's not free, you have to think about the total cost of the
ownership. So even though we often sort of default to thinking of Linux as a free operating system, it's
really not.

On the Unix side, there are some open-source versions; there are commercial versions available. And
typically, you'll pay for a license support and you are paying for the hardware and customization. So
when you buy Unix, typically you will buy the hardware and a customized solution that comes with it.
And so it's a value-added sort of approach to it. And this is a key distinction between Linux and Unix
because you are buying a commercial version with licensing and what not, and often you'll find that
there might be special tools and capabilities with whatever version of Unix you decide to go with.

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As for architectures, on the Linux side, Linux can run on the Intel platform, SPARC, PowerPC, ARM
microprocessors, MIPS processors, OpenRISC, and many more. So it's really covering pretty much
everything out there. On the Unix side, again the Intel platform, SPARC, PowerPC, Itanium, PA-RISC,
and many, many more. So the takeaway here is that really it's available, both platforms are available
on a number of different types of hardware.

As for filesystems, on the Linux side, you have the typical Ext2, 3, and 4 filesystem types, which are
typical for Linux. You have the Ext2, 3, and 4, which are typical for Linux. You have the Journaling File
System, ReiserFS, XFS, BTRFS. And then here, we actually have some compatibility with Windows-
based systems or DOS-based systems, so you have FAT, FAT32, and NTFS. On the Unix side, generally
speaking, UFS, the Unix File System is sort of the default system. It also supports the Journaling File
System, GPFS, HFS, XFS, and ZFS, so a number of different filesystems here and some of them do
cross over with Linux.

As for command shells, on the Linux side, BASH, the Bourne Again Shell, is probably the most popular.
But you'll also find the C Shell, KORN, and TCSH, and many more. So there are a number of different
shells available for Linux. And on the Unix side, pretty much the same thing, BASH you are going to
find, C Shell, KORN, and there are many, many different shells available for Unix as well. And a lot of
them are built on the BASH solution or maybe C Shell. So you will find that there are a number of
different options there available to you.

And then as for GUIs, on the Linux side, there are various GUIs available, Graphical User Interfaces.
So we've the K Desktop Environment, Gnome, Xfce, and Unity. And KDE and Gnome are pretty much
the two most popular ones. You'll find them in pretty much any distribution of Linux that you get. But
there are many more, so there's a number of different options there available to you.

And then on the Unix side, it's originally and it was based on…it was originally a command-based
environment. But today we actually, you know, work with GUIs, we are familiar. That's the metaphor
that we like to use, it's easy and it's easy to use. And the Common Desktop Environment was
developed later on for Unix, but today most current distros will support Gnome, KDE, and probably
some other GUIs as well.

Now as for security and stability, on the Linux side, there have been approximately a 100 viruses
reported for Linux to date. And that's really important to know because you think about a 100, if you
are familiar at all with working with Windows or even the Macintosh, you'll know that a 100 is a drop in
the bucket, that there are thousands and thousands of viruses out there today for various operating
systems, so around a 100 and as far as I know, I don't think any of them are really active today. So
it's important to note that because really Linux is a very stable system in that respect.

And the other thing too with software bugs, bugs tend to be fixed very quickly, and I mean within days
by the online community. So that's one of the major benefits of Linux, is that you can report a bug and
you'll have people working on it nearly practically right away, I guess, and have those bugs fixed pretty
quickly. On the Unix side, again only about a 100 viruses reported and none of them appear to be
active today.

The difference, the distinction between Linux and Unix is that bugs on Unix usually require patches, so
you have to wait for a software patch as opposed to that sort of quick response from the online
community on the Linux side.

Now the two systems combined, these are some of the benefits, the security and stability benefits, the
segmentation of user domain is a very important feature of security for any computer environment.
Discretionary Access Control, encrypted passwords, isolation of tasks in multitasking, again a very
important feature for stability. Generally, both systems are extremely secure. They have very high
availability and reliability, and both systems handle high server loads extremely well and seldom

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require reboot. So these are some things, some reasons why people tend to want to work with Linux or
Unix.

Now here is the bottom line and this is really important. Why should you pick one over the other? Well,
because they are both very similar, but here's the reason that people typically choose Linux. The price,
okay, remember it is often very low cost in terms of purchasing. We are getting the software, purchase
and support, and implementation. Performance, flexibility, is open source, that's a big thing to a lot of
people and that's the reason why it's so easy to get rapid response when you've software bugs
because the community is out there working with the source code. Security, very important, and
scalability, so these are some of the reasons that people choose Linux.

On the Unix side and rather than sort of guess on this, I took a study that was done in 2011. And this
is the reason…these are the reasons that some IT managers said that they preferred to stay with Unix:
availability, scalability, ease of maintenance, security, partitioning, and total cost of ownership, and
that's really important because remember we talked about total cost of ownership of Linux.

And the thing is that IT managers are out there saying that the TCO for Unix is one of the reasons they
preferred to stay with it. So you really have to take a close look at both systems, understand what
you're getting into, understand the distinctions. But really at the end of the day, very large solutions
require high availability and reliability. Typically, Unix is the one you are going to want to go with, but
certainly consider Linux as well because it's got all those great features that you find in Unix as well,
with some differences obviously that I hope I've shown you here.

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