[From Wikipedia] Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix) is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, Michael Lesk and Joe Ossanna. The Unix operating system was first developed in assembly language, but by 1973 had been almost entirely recoded in C, greatly facilitating its further development and porting to other hardware. Today's Unix system evolution is split into various branches, developed over time by AT&T as well as various commercial vendors, universities (such as University of California, Berkeley's BSD), andnon-profit organizations.
The Open Group, an industry standards consortium, owns the UNIX trademark. Only systems fully compliant with and certified according to the Single UNIX Specification are qualified to use the trademark; others might be called Unix system-like or Unix-like, although the Open Group disapproves[1] of this term. However, the term Unix is often used informally to denote any operating system that closely resembles the trademarked system.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the influence of Unix in academic circles led to large-scale adoption of Unix (particularly of the BSD variant, originating from the University of California, Berkeley) by commercial startups, the most notable of which are Solaris, HP-UX and AIX, as well as Darwin, which forms the core set of components upon whichApple's OS X, Apple TV, and iOS are based.[2][3] Today, in addition to certified Unix systems such as those already mentioned, Unix-like operating systems such as MINIX, Linux, Android, and BSD descendants (FreeBSD, NetBSD,OpenBSD, and DragonFly BSD) are commonly encountered. The term traditional Unix may be used to describe an operating system that has the characteristics of either Version 7 Unix or UNIX System V
What are other unix-like operating systems?Linux (including all its flavours eg, Redhat, Suse, Ubuntu, Centos, Debial etc)
Android
BSD (OpenBSD, FreeBSD etc)
Apple Mac OS (including iOS)
Apple's operating systems are derived from Unix, therefore they share a lot of features with Linux and other Unix/Unix-like operating systems.
Where is Linux used
Linux is, and has been the main driver of Internet (servers) for decades. It is the most used operating system in Servers (behind the scenes stuff) with Windows being the most popular for Client systems (Personal computers and desktops)
There are some upcoming popular Linux Desktops eg. Ubuntu
Linux, just as its parent Unix, has given birth to its own set of various derivatives like Android
Because Linux is highly customization, a lot of hardware manufacturers have used it as the operating system in their electronic products. Because these products are specialised (one task) computers, this operating system within them is generally know as the firmware
Firmware for many networking (internet) capable hardware devices use Linux
eg. Routers, TVs, Portable Media Players, Soft Phones all use some form of Linux at the core of its operations.
Some sensor devices like the Zigbee sensors also use some form of Linux as their central system
A majority of mobile phones (both feature and smartphones) use a derivative of Unix/Linux as their operating systems
Why Linux is so popular, whilst little known
Linux is like underwear in our life. Its necessary and everyone subtly uses one, without thinking about it, but there are great companies producing these undergarments around the clock. You have freedom to wear the one you like, that suits your needs, or even to modify at will. You have choice to have the very cheap (or free) yet functional ones, or flashy brands according to your taste. Most people who use Linux say the major thing about is "Freedom" Whatever that means, Linux is a basic component of our modern technologies.
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