Servers, I have learned, are equivalent to picking out a car. Fast, stable, slow, not-secure, too secure, robust, etc. Within this category, you can chose different flavors-some are type-specific, others are cute, some idiot proof, others are plain ugly. In all cases, what server and server flavor you choose says a lot about you as a person.
So, when ICI began in 2000, when I said we use "Unix", eyes blinked. It was easy to sense that people scoffed at me. Apparently, Unix was an old-timers nightmare. In 2000 I was asked why we weren't developing software using microsoft? Now, no one is surprised when we are not using Windows anymore, but I am quickly corrected, "Oh, you mean linux."
So rather than looking at me as if I had three heads, now I only have two. I have been told the difference between Unix and Linux--but I never got it until the other day when our server was crashing. It seemed hardly possible, its a machine with seven hard drives, but as Nick our Unix guru at gti.net explained that during a drive rotation, the machine hiccupped at exactly the worst moment, the drive was being backed up sending her into a tailspin with a backup tape that may be damaged.
Nick explained that I need not worry. Even in the worst case scenario, the data on the Unix machine spills out like sand and can actually be put back together like an intricate puzzle. While, if it had been a Linux box, the data would be a clump of wet tissue paper--undecipherable, unrecoverable, dead as a door nail.
Now, I get the difference.
When I explain my case to others, Linux and Windows folks-still both argue that Unix is not user-friendly and Unix developers are more expensive by the hour and harder to find. This translates to they act superior, like those of a caste who are born with the gift of Parsal tongue. None deign to share their secret powers and indeed few ever crawl out of their rooms.
And yet, these strange people need to work less to make their machines work better--and yes, they are proficient in their language---when it is your data and your business on the line, proficiency counts.
When it is your plane going down, you don't want someone who just opened the manual waiting the flight "wizard prompt" to go through the steps one-by-one. In fact, you do the math, pay more by the hour, but it takes less time, lasts longer, and less crash endings. No worries, the server crash was turned out not to be as bad as initially thought (her rescue by the Parsal tongues is another tale).
Signed: Unix user, Free BSD flavor
Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX) is a computer operating system originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and Douglas McIlroy. Today's Unix systems are split into various branches, developed over time by AT&T, as well as various commercial vendors and non-profit organizations.
The present owner of the trademark UNIX is The Open Group, an industry standards consortium. The rights to the Unix source code, however, are being challenged in a 2004 federal lawsuit, in which UNIX vendor SCO Group Inc. accused Novell of slander of title. Note the trademark owner uses the name UNIX, not Unix, which is sometimes used. The term UNIX is not an an acronym, but follows the early convention of naming computer systems in capital letters, such as ENIAC and MISTIC.
Only systems fully compliant with and certified to the Single UNIX Specification qualify as "UNIX" (others are called "Unix system-like" or "Unix-like").
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Unix's influence in academic circles led to large-scale adoption (particularly of the BSD variant, originating from the University of California, Berkeley) of Unix by commercial startups, the most notable of which is Sun Microsystems. Today, in addition to certified Unix systems, Unix-like operating systems such as Linux and Mac OS X are commonly encountered.
Sometimes, Traditional Unix may be used to describe a Unix or an operating system that has the characteristics of either Version 7 Unix or UNIX System V.
