Unix is a computer operating system, like Microsoft Windows, but does it completely different. It is mainly used on large computer systems due to its stability and security.

Unix is an OS like Windows, and like Windows it has many flavours. With Windows we have Winodws 95, 98, ME XP etc but these all come from the same manufacture - Microsoft. With Unix there are many different manufacturers. HP have HP-UX, IBM have AIX Sun have Solaris. (Others such as Dynix/PTX, Dec Ultrix, OSF1, SCO Xenix, are the equivalents of Window 3.11 - there time has gone). They are all very similar, if you are used to one, it doesnt take long to learn another. Linux is not a flavour of Unix but the two are extremely similar and share a lot of components and commands. Like Unix, Linux has several variants - Red Hat, Susie etc.. The principles behind Unix are very simple (basically it treats everything as a file - a directory is a special type of file). This simple architecture and the fact that it was designed with networking in mind means that the Unix flavours have not been beset with the security problems that have seemed to have plagued microsoft. Virus's, spyware, and crashes are not normally associated with Unix boxes, hence they are often used by businesses to run their important applications. Solaris and Linux are available on PCs - not sure about the others. Solaris can be downlaoded free from www.sun.com If you want to install Linux - just look at PC magazines in shops - every month several of them seem to have a flavour of Linux you can install.

uniplexed information computing system