Encouraged by IBM to organize informal meetings to share expertise
1.2. From single-purpose to time-sharing
Concept of time-sharing: Operating System
Allows computers to become generali-purposes (serving multiple users running different programs)
Enables system operators to transition into the role of system administrators.
MIT, General Electric (GE), and Bell Labs collaborate to create the first time-sharing system call Multics
Multiplexed Information and Computing Service
1.3. The birth of UNIX
Bell Labs left Multics in 1964 (over budget, behind schedule)
Ken Thompson, Rudd Canaday, Dennis Ritchie continued working on Multics
Summer 1969
Ken Thompson’s wife and kids were out of town for a month
One week was assigned for each key components of UNIX (the operating system, the shell, the editor, and the assembler).
UNIX
UNiplexed Information and Computing Service
An emasculated Multics
By 1971: as, cal, cat, chdir, chmod, chown, cmp, cp, date, dc, du, ed …
By 1973: 16 new UNIX installations (components)
C programming language (Dennis Ritchie)
Pipe (designed by Doug McIlroy, implemented by Ken Thompson)
1.4. A new era for UNIX
Ritchie, D.M. and Thompson, K., 1973. The UNIX time-sharing system. ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, 7(4), p.27.
After 6 months, number of UNIX installation tripled.
Due to AT&T’s antitrust settlement in 1958, UNIX cannot be sold as a product, but Bell Labs still retains licensing right
Individual software and licenses must be shipped to others.
1974: Berkeley UNIX (BSD - Berkeley Software Distribution - led by Robert Fabrey at University of California at Berkeley)
1976: V6 (John Lions at University of New South Wales - Australia)
1982: SunOS (Sun Microsystem by Bill Joy - graduate student of Robert Fabrey)
1983: AT&T UNIX System V (after court-ordered divestiture of AT&T in 1983)
1.5. The rise of Skywalker system administrators”
Managing general-purpose computing systems requires a different set of skills.
Serving a wide variety of users and applications.
Universities were early leaders in fostering system admin groups
Purdue, Utah, Colorado-Boulder, and SUNY Buffalo were the initial hotbeds
Evi Nemeth: Mother of system administration
Graduate student administrative team.
A system administrator:
Jack of all trades
Rabid jacks of all trades: Hardware, software, system configuration, programming …
1989: First edition of UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook
1.6. The Birth of Linux
Late 1990, UNIX was gaining ground everywhere …
1992: AT&T filed copyright lawsuit against BDSI and the Regents of University of California
1994: The lawsuit was settled and three files were removed from BSD code base.
Impact was lasting
Everyone moved to Microsoft Windows
1984: Andrew Tennenbaum of Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam developed MINIX as a learning software for his students.
1992: Linus Torvalds, an undergraduate at University of Helsinki, Finland, developed his own OS called Linux, with inspirations from both UNIX and MINIX.
UNIX administration skill sets applies directly to Linux
{“Linux Announcement”}
1.7. Post dot-com bubble burst
Unix and Linux becomes more mainstream, as their TCO for computing servers was significantly lower than that of a Windows server.
It is not a war, but rather the right combination of Windows and Unix/Linux systems within an organization.
With its new CEO, Windows has been embracing Linux and open-source:
