what's the difference between linux and unix??

[guitarman]

What actually is the difference between linux and unix? In your own words please. No wikipedia plz.

[HarryR]

Anything that's Unix (e.g. AIX, Solaris, Unixware, Tru64) is actually based off the original Unix or sysv source code developed by Bell labs (a branch of what used to be AT&T before SBC bought it).

Everything else, like FreeBSD, Linux, Minix was developed from scratch and contains no Unix source code (licensing problems).

The only odd one at the moment is the BSD series which was originally based on the Unix source code, but was made open-source after they removed all AT&T code and re-wrote most of it (hence no licensing problems).

[guitarman]

thanks Harry,

So does it mean, unix isn't open source and am I safe to say that Most dedicated servers or hosting servers are on Linux rather than Unix?

In otherwords, Unix is expensive and only large university will make use of its power? whereas, Linux is freely available and everyone could use it i.e. I can download linux but will have problem running unix?

[HarryR]

Sort of...

Most dedicated servers will be running Linux or FreeBSD rather than a commercial Unix mainly because they run on commodoty (cheap) hardware.

Most versions of Unix aren't open-source due to licensing issues, with the exception of OpenSolaris (the open-source version of Sun's Solaris).

Unix in general really isn't expensive, Solaris is free, AIX comes licensed (nearly free) whenever you buy IBM Power servers etc.

Now days, Linux is as powerful as Solaris and AIX (and many times better than Unixware) - so it makes sense in almost any environment.

However, if you're looking for a large scale system with commercial support, IBM and Sun are the people to go to, but with Linux there are less large-scale installations and companies able to do them.

Not sure if this clears it up for you.