Appendix A. UNIX and Solaris Milestones

UNIX is plural. It is not one operating system but many implementations of an idea that originated in 1965. As a system administrator, you need to understand the history of the UNIX operating system—where it came from, how it was built, and where it is now. Understanding the various versions of UNIX and its origins makes it clear why UNIX became known as a somewhat hostile operating system. For example, UNIX was not developed by a single company with a large marketing organization driving the user interface. (In other words, it did not follow the development path of, say, Microsoft Windows.) On the other hand, hackers who were fooling around did not invent UNIX; it grew out of strong academic roots. The primary contributors to UNIX were highly educated mathematicians and computer scientists employed by what many people feel is the world’s premier industrial research center, Bell Laboratories. Although knowledgeable and experienced in their own right, these developers maintained professional contacts with researchers in academia, leading to an exchange of ideas that proved beneficial for both sides. Understanding the symbiotic relationship between UNIX and the academic community means understanding the background of the system’s inventors and the history of interactions between universities and Bell Laboratories.