LIFE WITH UNIX LIFE WITH UNIX A Guide For Everyone Don Libes & Sandy Ressler PRENTICE HALL, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 07632 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Life with UNIX, A Guide For Everyone UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T. Production: Sophie Papanikolaou Cover production: Eloise Starkweather Cover design: Lundgren Graphics, Ltd. Cover artwork: Sandy Ressler Marketing: Mary Franz Life With UNIX was edited and composed with Frame Maker on a Sun Microsystems work- station running UNIX. Camera-ready copy was prepared on a Linotronic 100P by Profession- al Fast-Print Corporation using PostScript files generated by Frame Maker. 1989 by Prentice-Hall, Inc. A division of Simon & Schuster Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 07632 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, without written permission from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Prentice-Hall International (UK) Limited, London Prentice-Hall of Australia Pty. Limited, Sydney Prentice-Hall Canada Inc., Toronto Prentice-Hall Hispanoamericana, S.A., Mexico Prentice-Hall of India Priviate Limited, New Delhi Prentice-Hall of Japan, Inc., Tokyo Simon & Schuster Asia Pte. Ltd., Singapore Editora Prentice-Hall do Brasil, Ltda., Rio de Janeiro To our loving families Contents Preface .................................................................................................................. xiii How To Read This Book ......................................................................................xvii SECTION 1: Past, Present, Future........................................... 1 Chapter 1: UNIX History .........................................................................................3 1.1 Before the Beginning ........................................................................................... 3 1.2 In the Beginning................................................................................................... 4 1.3 Philosophy ......................................................................................................... 11 1.4 1979 – Seventh Edition...................................................................................... 12 1.5 Politics – Part I................................................................................................... 12 1.6 Politics – Part II ................................................................................................. 20 1.7 UNIX Cloning.................................................................................................... 21 1.8 The UNIX Trademark........................................................................................ 22 1.9 Recent History: 1980-1986................................................................................ 23 1.10 Politics – Part III ................................................................................................ 27 1.11 Is UNIX Just History?........................................................................................ 28 1.12 Who’s Who ........................................................................................................ 29 Chapter 2: UNIX Present.......................................................................................37 2.1 UNIX – A Perfunctory Definition ..................................................................... 37 2.2 The UNIX Philosophy ....................................................................................... 37 2.3 The User Interface.............................................................................................. 39 2.4 UNIX, the Operating System............................................................................. 41 2.5 Versions ............................................................................................................. 44 2.6 Portability – Part I.............................................................................................. 47 2.7 Portability – Part II ............................................................................................ 48 2.8 UNIX Licensing................................................................................................. 49 vii viii Contents 2.9 Buying UNIX..................................................................................................... 50 2.9.1 Making the Decision........................................................................... 50 2.9.2 The Mechanics.................................................................................... 51 2.10 The Dominant UNIX Sellers ............................................................................. 52 2.11 The Dominant UNIX Hardware and Porters ..................................................... 55 2.12 The Dominant UNIX Cloners............................................................................ 58 2.13 The Dominant UNIX Customers ....................................................................... 59 2.14 The Dominant UNIX Competitors..................................................................... 64 Chapter 3: UNIX Future........................................................................................67 3.1 Standards............................................................................................................ 67 3.1.1 C Standards ......................................................................................... 68 3.1.2 UNIX Standards.................................................................................. 71 3.2 Merging System V with BSD with XENIX....................................................... 75 3.3 Mach .................................................................................................................. 76 3.4 Berkeley 4.3 and BRL........................................................................................ 77 3.5 Changing Technologies ..................................................................................... 78 3.6 User-Friendly UNIX – The Macintosh/Smalltalk Influence ............................. 78 3.7 C++ .................................................................................................................... 80 3.8 The Networking Influence ................................................................................. 81 3.9 Portables and Laptops........................................................................................ 82 3.10 UNIX: The Standard Operating System ............................................................ 84 3.11 A Foundation for Innovation ............................................................................. 85 SECTION 2: UNIX Information............................................. 87 Chapter 4: Printed Information.............................................................................89 4.1 The UNIX Manuals............................................................................................ 89 4.1.1 A Little History................................................................................... 89 4.1.2 Obtaining Manuals.............................................................................. 91 4.1.3 Organization of the Manuals............................................................... 91 4.1.4 What?!? No Manual On the Kernel? .................................................. 93 4.2 Sources Are The Ultimate.................................................................................. 95 4.3 UNIX and C Bookstores and Publishers............................................................ 99 4.4 Reference Cards................................................................................................. 99 4.5 Books ............................................................................................................... 100 4.6 Periodicals........................................................................................................ 110 Chapter 5: Nonprinted Information ....................................................................115 5.1 Conferences...................................................................................................... 115 5.1.1 Conference Freebies and Other Trash............................................... 120 5.2 Workshops ....................................................................................................... 122 5.3 Courses............................................................................................................. 123 5.4 User Groups ..................................................................................................... 124 Contents ix SECTION 3: Inside UNIX..................................................... 129 Chapter 6: The User’s Environment ...................................................................131 6.1 Beachcombing for Shells ................................................................................. 131 6.2 Shell Basics...................................................................................................... 134 6.2.1 I/O Redirection.................................................................................. 135 6.2.2 Pipes.................................................................................................. 136 6.2.3 Shell Scripts ...................................................................................... 137 6.2.4 Aliases..............................................................................................