So, there are a couple of things. Here is where I push up my glasses and say “well–ahem–”
First, true, BSD is not itself Unix. That specific OS (which began with the PDP-7 Operating System in the late 1960s) really only existed until the late 80s or early 90s, when Bell Labs stopped working on it.
However, it is literally Unix-based. The first version of BSD was forked (as we’d call it today) from the Research Unix source code at UC Berkeley. Since then, the various BSD derivatives and distros have all iterated upon or forked from that initial Unix code. I don’t think any are officially registered as SUS systems (but there are only a handful that are), which means that a pedant would say that BSD is technically “Unix-like.”
But it is based on Unix, it’s a part of the Unix family, just like Windows 11 is part of the NT family. MacOS is also part of the Unix family (I think it might be or used to have been SUS-registered, actually). Linux isn’t, and I think I remember hearing that Torvalds didn’t even use the Research Unix source code to write the Linux kernel originally, but it does follow a lot of the SUS spec and so is definitely Unix-like.
Thanks for the writeup, I have trouble falling asleep on some days, and rereading it a couple times will definitely help.
Anyway, not sure what SUS is, but MacOS was indeed certified as a Unix. They also keep tools and APIs compatibility with FreeBSD so stuff is portable between them, and not just for shits and giggles.
SUS is “Single Unix Specification” or “Single Unix System,” I can’t remember which (I think the former). It’s the name of the certification that MacOS actually has.
I do have to say, I didn’t realize that they were close enough as to be co-portable. That’s really interesting.
Well, I don’t know the details about portability, but there are a couple of pages in their documentation where they straight up say they keep the tools updated, and the APIs are the same except <a list of maybe ten low-level differences> (which differences are in such areas of which I have never heard even with some rudimentary understanding of what Unix syscalls look like and what some parts of a kernel are).
Wait so which is more accurate? Unix-based or unix-like? Also as someone who thought they knew this stuff already, what is “the SUS spec” or are you making some pun on suspect?
The BSDs are UNIX-like because being “UNIX” involves paying to go through a certification process, and I don’t believe any of them target strict compliance. Solaris is a UNIX, as is HP-UX, AIX, and Apple OSX.
Both are accurate. Something can be Unix-like (using many of the same paradigms and keywords and such) without being derived from the source code of Unix, but BSD actually is originally based on that code. Linux is Unix-like but not Unix-based. BSD is both, as is MacOS. Windows is neither.
SUS means “Single Unix Specification,” I think. When it went from being an OS to being a spec, that’s what they called the certification.
Though “SUSpect” would be a great pun on the idea, yeah. Big “Among Us” opportunities.
We got a historian over here! Lol
Twins is a bit strong as a descriptor but the spirit of it might be apt enough.
I wish I had learned more about BSD before getting so ingrained in Linux. Not because one is “better” or anything. They’re just two different worlds. I’m not sure I have the bandwidth to explore it the way I’d like to, like I did with Linux.
But who knows, it’s just one step more than all the distro and setup hopping I’ve done over the years.
If you try FreeBSD you get ZFS as the file system and PF (OpenBSD’s creation) as the firewall. Sound and video will be a little different to set up, but most applications are going to work the same these days.
Yeah, I think it’s a fair characterization, I just wanted to clarify that it is indeed based on Unix.
To my knowledge I’ve never used BSD. I didn’t move away from Windows until I, like you say, just didn’t have the bandwidth to do more than one experimental thing with my computer. Windows pushed me out a few years back, and I went with Linux because of the breadth of support.
I’ve got tons of time to do research, though. By which I mean read random Wikipedia articles in the bathroom, TBH. I found a big tree somewhere on there a long time ago, showing the progression from PDP Unix all the way to the latest FreeBSD (with Linux as a little tag on the side, lol).
I didn’t mean that either results specifically from nature or nurture, but that there’s a lot of nuance between the two that makes me think of that kind of “forbidden experiment”.
It’s the same fabric as any human culture, I suppose, which is endlessly fascinating.
B (Berkeley), S (Software), D (Distribution).
A Unix based OS, developed at Berkeley.
Technically yes, but there’s a lot more to it lol
It’s a bit like if you separated two twins and raised them in isolation to study nature vs nurture
So, there are a couple of things. Here is where I push up my glasses and say “well–ahem–”
First, true, BSD is not itself Unix. That specific OS (which began with the PDP-7 Operating System in the late 1960s) really only existed until the late 80s or early 90s, when Bell Labs stopped working on it.
However, it is literally Unix-based. The first version of BSD was forked (as we’d call it today) from the Research Unix source code at UC Berkeley. Since then, the various BSD derivatives and distros have all iterated upon or forked from that initial Unix code. I don’t think any are officially registered as SUS systems (but there are only a handful that are), which means that a pedant would say that BSD is technically “Unix-like.”
But it is based on Unix, it’s a part of the Unix family, just like Windows 11 is part of the NT family. MacOS is also part of the Unix family (I think it might be or used to have been SUS-registered, actually). Linux isn’t, and I think I remember hearing that Torvalds didn’t even use the Research Unix source code to write the Linux kernel originally, but it does follow a lot of the SUS spec and so is definitely Unix-like.
Thanks for the writeup, I have trouble falling asleep on some days, and rereading it a couple times will definitely help.
Anyway, not sure what SUS is, but MacOS was indeed certified as a Unix. They also keep tools and APIs compatibility with FreeBSD so stuff is portable between them, and not just for shits and giggles.
Lol, nice.
SUS is “Single Unix Specification” or “Single Unix System,” I can’t remember which (I think the former). It’s the name of the certification that MacOS actually has.
I do have to say, I didn’t realize that they were close enough as to be co-portable. That’s really interesting.
Well, I don’t know the details about portability, but there are a couple of pages in their documentation where they straight up say they keep the tools updated, and the APIs are the same except <a list of maybe ten low-level differences> (which differences are in such areas of which I have never heard even with some rudimentary understanding of what Unix syscalls look like and what some parts of a kernel are).
Torvalds was inspired by Minix (which was in turn inspired by UNIX) but didn’t follow Tannenbaum’s micro-kernel model.
Wait so which is more accurate? Unix-based or unix-like? Also as someone who thought they knew this stuff already, what is “the SUS spec” or are you making some pun on suspect?
The BSDs are UNIX-like because being “UNIX” involves paying to go through a certification process, and I don’t believe any of them target strict compliance. Solaris is a UNIX, as is HP-UX, AIX, and Apple OSX.
The BSDs should all be pretty close, though.
Both are accurate. Something can be Unix-like (using many of the same paradigms and keywords and such) without being derived from the source code of Unix, but BSD actually is originally based on that code. Linux is Unix-like but not Unix-based. BSD is both, as is MacOS. Windows is neither.
SUS means “Single Unix Specification,” I think. When it went from being an OS to being a spec, that’s what they called the certification.
Though “SUSpect” would be a great pun on the idea, yeah. Big “Among Us” opportunities.
We got a historian over here! Lol Twins is a bit strong as a descriptor but the spirit of it might be apt enough.
I wish I had learned more about BSD before getting so ingrained in Linux. Not because one is “better” or anything. They’re just two different worlds. I’m not sure I have the bandwidth to explore it the way I’d like to, like I did with Linux.
But who knows, it’s just one step more than all the distro and setup hopping I’ve done over the years.
If you try FreeBSD you get ZFS as the file system and PF (OpenBSD’s creation) as the firewall. Sound and video will be a little different to set up, but most applications are going to work the same these days.
Yeah, I think it’s a fair characterization, I just wanted to clarify that it is indeed based on Unix.
To my knowledge I’ve never used BSD. I didn’t move away from Windows until I, like you say, just didn’t have the bandwidth to do more than one experimental thing with my computer. Windows pushed me out a few years back, and I went with Linux because of the breadth of support.
I’ve got tons of time to do research, though. By which I mean read random Wikipedia articles in the bathroom, TBH. I found a big tree somewhere on there a long time ago, showing the progression from PDP Unix all the way to the latest FreeBSD (with Linux as a little tag on the side, lol).
In a strictly semantic way it is technically true; It is the basic building block of what later became the building block of macos.Responded to the wrong person.
What I meant to write here was: I’ve used both linux and freebsd, and nature vs nature holds true, I th8nk. But I am unsure which one is which.
I didn’t mean that either results specifically from nature or nurture, but that there’s a lot of nuance between the two that makes me think of that kind of “forbidden experiment”.
It’s the same fabric as any human culture, I suppose, which is endlessly fascinating.
Cool, thanks for the straight answer.