Very Computer

: What does Unix (Specifically Linux) look like?  

A bunch of ones and zeros ;-)

: Is it like Dos? Windows?

No, thank God.

: Something else?

Yes.

There's a simple answer...

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What does Unix (Specifically Linux) look like?  Is it like Dos? Windows?
Something else?
Alan Simons

In fact, it's very adaptative and modular, so, depending on how you (or
your sysadmin) sees the world.

You can use it in command mode, like a very powerful and more practical
DOS (and you can choose different command modes ("shells")), or in a
graphical way with the X Window System. In this case, the "look and
feel" depends on your window manager, and the way you have customized
it. If you want to have something that look like Winbug95, you can...
but usually, Unix users try to avoid what remind them of MacroBucks ;-)

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: What does Unix (Specifically Linux) look like?  Is it like Dos? Windows?
: Something else?
: Alan Simons

DOS 1.0 was a rewrite of CP/M, everything added to DOS since then was modled
after Unix.  The file system, commands etc.
mkdir, rmdir, cd, more, etc are all Unix commands.  Unix uses a different,
and better windowing system called X-windows.

Differences:
DOS uses / as an option switch as in "dir /w", whereas Unix uses a - as in
ls -l (list files in long format).  Because DOS used / for the option
switch, they had to reverse that for use in directory seperators.
\usr\bin in DOS, becomes /usr/bin in Unix.

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Well, generally, its a kernel that is hardware specific and is compiled
for the particular machine you have.  Then there are /dev and /device
directories where the peripherals (monitors, tape and disk drives etc)
are described in files that the kernel uses to read and write from and
to them.  Then there a bunch of user programs such as ls, rm, cp, etc
(try typeing that one ... :-), then there is a shell that accepts your
commands and executes them.

There.  That's a seriously gross description of UNIX.  Dos is UNIX's
younger sibling by another parent (BIll Gates) but the file system and
shell paradigm (COMMAND.COM in dos) is borrowed from UNIX which was
invented in the early seventies, written in assembler for the first year
or two of its life, now excusively (I think anyway) written in C.

Not like Windows.  It's curtains for Windows. :-)))  Now .. X-Windows is
another matter entirely.

Alastair.