UNIX OPERATING SYSTEM

UNIX OPERATING SYSTEM

Introduction

To observe a prosperous, extensible and open computing environment, a powerful multi-user, multitasking virtual memory operating system was developed originally in 1969, trademarked as UNIX operating system. UNIX was developed originally at Bells Labs by a group of employees from AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph Company). Later, AT&T transferred all its rights of UNIX to Novell Corporation and UNIX is now, a trademark of UNIX Corporation. This essay tends to explain the different aspects of the UNIX operating system. The paper also discusses the kinds of applications that can be created in UNIX and the use of UNIX shell scripting in creating those applications. Further, the paper strives to discuss the various features and commands, of UNIX operating system, that have been used in the course. Lastly, it describes my expectations to use the knowledge and experience gained in this course, to move forward, with appropriate examples.

Discussion

UNIX operating system, trademarked as UNIX, was developed in 1969 at Bells Labs by a group of employees from AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph Company). UNIX is a multi-user, multitasking virtual memory operating system (Peek, 2006). However, after the production of UNIX system V Release 4, all the rights to UNIX by AT&T were sold to Novell Corporation. Now, UNIX is a trademark of Novell Corporation and there is an intellectual property attached with UNIX, which makes it no more a public domain. Therefore, some editions of UNIX require a paid license in order to use them (Stuart, 2009).

An operating system is the heart of a computer system. No other program can function on the computer system, without an operating system. Therefore, UNIX is an operating system, which allows multiple people to access a computer at the same time. UNIX enables a set of activities and various programs to ensue with one another, in parallel. The popularity of UNIX operating system is growing at an accelerated speed, for commercial, as well as, personal use.

The different aspects of UNIX operating system categorize the system as multi-user, multitasking and virtual memory operating system. The multi-user UNIX feature indicates that there are various users of the operating system. Each user, of the system, may have assorted privilege and access to the different applications and parts of the system, which indicates that the users may need to secure their personal data from the other users. Therefore, UNIX being a multi-user system, allow the users to maintain privacy and security for their personal data. A set of different login names, with separate passwords for each user, are used in UNIX operating system to differentiate one user form the other. The second aspect of UNIX, defines UNIX as a multitasking operating system, which specifies that UNIX has the ability to handle multiple tasks concurrently. The tasks may be classified as various program applications run by a single user or program applications run by various users simultaneously. This aspect of UNIX works simultaneously for personal, as well as, commercial use computers. Another aspect of UNIX, categorizes ...