1.3 Overview of the UNIX Operating System
1.3.2 UNIX varieties
There are currently a number of varieties of UNIX and most are fairly similar since they are all based on the industry standard SVR4 previously mentioned. Most of them have the letter X in their name representing some form of UNIX. Sun's version of UNIX is called Solaris and is one of the most widely used in networking today. AT&T's version is referred to as UNIX. IBM's version is AIX, Hewlett Packard's is HP-UX and Digital Equipment (now Compaq) is called Ultrix. These varieties of UNIX are designed to run on the hardware and CPUs made by the manufacturer (IBM, HP, etc.). Linux is another type of UNIX developed to run on the Intel microprocessor. Solaris can run not only on Sun Computers but also on Intel-based machines. By learning any one of these UNIX varieties, it is fairly easy to move to one of the others. The table shows some of the CPU manufacturers and the various UNIX and some other operating systems they support.