Usefulness of Linux?

[lakerdonald]

Well I figure if I can convince M.I.T. to use Jedi on their servers, then when I apply, I'll just say:
"You know your servers? Yeah, I wrote that."

[ibowtotux]

uhhhhh...Linux is a type of Unix, hoss.

Litux is not a type of UNIX, it is a UNIX clone.

Linux is a unique type of Unix. It is built upon the same fundamentals. Thus making it a TYPE of the UNIX operating system. Whether or not you call it a clone or a type, it is the same idea. By saying "Linux != Unix" is simply absurd in meaning. I am of course quoting Bjarne Stroustrup from a conference he made. But what would he know, right? He only knew Ritchie...

[lakerdonald]

Linux is a Unix-like OS, let's leave it at that (/me smells another OpenBSD Thread)

[ibowtotux]

PM if you wish to give an uncut/unedited take on me...

[lakerdonald]

That wasn't an attack against you by the way, that was me pre-emptively defusing the situation

[techieMoe]

Linux is a unique type of Unix. It is built upon the same fundamentals. Thus making it a TYPE of the UNIX operating system. Whether or not you call it a clone or a type, it is the same idea. By saying "Linux != Unix" is simply absurd in meaning. I am of course quoting Bjarne Stroustrup from a conference he made. But what would he know, right? He only knew Ritchie...

This isn't a matter of opinion. You simply have your facts confused. Linux is NOT Unix, see my previous post for that. Unix is a trademark for a set of operating systems that have paid a fee to The Open Group, who bought that trademark from Novell, who acquired it from AT&T.

Linus Torvalds created a kernel that was designed to act like a UNIX kernel, but that is where the comparison ends. Linux is a completely free, non-proprietary kernel that has no ties to UNIX other than the way it works.

BSD on the other hand at one time did contain UNIX code from AT&T (see history of BSD here), so you could technically say that in the past, BSD was UNIX. Now however all vestiges of the AT&T code to the best of my knowledge have been removed, but it still remains much closer to UNIX than Linux.

I hope that clears up any confusion and we can move on.

[lakerdonald]

However, to be painstakingly accurate, Linus borrowed a lot of ideas from Tannenbaum (and Minix was UNIX).
Some similarities between UNIX and Linux would be:

-Same basic filesystem layout (where everything is a subset of / )
-A lot of the same commands
-GNU/Linux metadistributions generally either use BSD Initscripts or System V Init, inherited from BSD and System V, respectively.
-And the list goes on...

However Linux is not Unix, however it is a UNIX-like environment.

[jamey112]

i went to a tech school (tennessee technology center) and they didn't care if you even knew how to turn on a computer. pointless school, dont recommend to anyone. now i am going to a real college, and they still dont care. as someone said in an earlier post, its all about money. no prior experience was necessary.

[techieMoe]

However, to be painstakingly accurate, Linus borrowed a lot of ideas from Tannenbaum (and Minix was UNIX).

No, to be painstakingly accurate, Minix was a clone of UNIX, to the best of my knowledge contained no proprietary code, and was never registered under the name of UNIX, therefore Minix is also not Unix. (source)

PS - Guys, I'm not trying to be difficult here, I'm just trying to clarify what I saw as a misinterpretation of publicly-available factual information. I know it might be silly (and off-topic) to argue this point, so I'm just going to stop here.

[lakerdonald]

However, to be painstakingly accurate, Linus borrowed a lot of ideas from Tannenbaum (and Minix was UNIX).

No, to be painstakingly accurate, Minix was a clone of UNIX, to the best of my knowledge contained no proprietary code, and was never registered under the name of UNIX, therefore Minix is also not Unix. (source)

PS - Guys, I'm not trying to be difficult here, I'm just trying to clarify what I saw as a misinterpretation of publicly-available factual information. I know it might be silly (and off-topic) to argue this point, so I'm just going to stop here.

I will also stop here by saying this:
As far as I knew, Minix was in fact a Unix Microkernel optimized for the PC...then again I could be wrong.