Why Unix?

Unix is an operating system (suite of programs), originally developed in 1969 at the Computing Science Research Group at Bell Labs. In 1991, Linus Torvalds released a Unix-like kernel called the Linux kernel that he subsequently open-sourced. Linux-based operating system are the most widely used Unix-like operating system, and what we use in our local high performance computing cluster.

From here on out, any mention of UNIX should be regarded as meaning both UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems, primary Linux-based operating systems.

PC vs. Shared System

There is a distinction between the computing paradigm popular at the time of UNIX's creation and the one present within UNIX. Personal computing (PC) vs. a shared system.

Whereas previous systems were meant to be used by one person at a time, UNIX has multi-user and multi-tasking support.

Aside from that feature, UNIX also had these features that made it popular:

• network-ready (built-in TCP /IP networking makes easy to communicate between computers).

• very powerful programming environments (free of the many limits imposed by other operating systems).

• robust and stable.

• scalable, portable, flexible.

• open source.