Unix-like operating systems

UNIX-LIKE OPERATING SYSTEMS

21 SEPTEMBER 2025

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The Unix operating system project appears to have started in 1969 at Bell Labs. -Something resembling contemporary Unix-like systems may have been developed in -1973 when Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson rewrote the Unix kernel in C. Both of -these important milestones predate me by some years. Nonetheless, operating -systems that preserve the Unix philosophy have survived. Linux and OpenBSD are -two such systems that I am personally familiar with.

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The following is a screenshot of my Arch Linux setup from 2020. It uses X -display server and i3 for window management. The urxvt terminal emulator is -made translucent using the Xcompmgr compositor.

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Arch Linux

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The following is a screenshot of my OpenBSD laptop from 2024:

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OpenBSD i3

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This degree of customization is impossible with commercial operating systems. -The vendor sets firm boundaries about how the machine should be used.

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The conceptual elegance and architectural supremacy of Unix-like operating -systems lie in how programs developed independently come together to accomplish -complex tasks. For instance, to read an HTML email, I may use Mutt, an email -client. Mutt would request credentials for my email account from Pass, a -password manager, which in turn uses GPG to decrypt them before handing them -over to Mutt. Mutt would then authenticate and fetch the email and delegate the -rendering of the email to Lynx a web browser. The chaining of different tools -resembles a sofware symphony.

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Each of these programs were developed by different programmers (at times -decades apart), without an explicit intent for them to interoperate. -The interoperability is a direct consequence of the Unix engineering -philosophy. Engineers generations apart have kept that tradition alive (like -a cathedral built by many generations).

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Files: dotfiles.tar.gz

by Wickramage Don Sadeep Madurange