[TUHS] /bin vs /sbin

[Greg A. Woods]

At Wed, 27 Jan 2021 12:06:26 -0700, Grant Taylor via TUHS <tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org> wrote:
Subject: Re: [TUHS] /bin vs /sbin
>
> I've added central... to my hosts file, so hopefully you can email me
> directly if you want to.

Thanks!  (but I still need to pester my service provider for rDNS!)

> > On the other hand "SunOS" the name of the base system OS
> > (i.e. kernel and userland).
>
> Please elaborate.  Including using the same terms for both names.  How
> does "userland" compare to "base system" and / or "user interface"?
>
> I'm also curious what differentiates between SunOS and a minimal
> install of Solaris.

Sorry, I should have been a tiny bit more specific:  the "user
interface" here refers to a Graphical UI.  Unix of course didn't start
out with a GUI of any kind, and workstation vendors like Sun and many
others at the time made a big deal out of how they were offering a
better user interface for their systems.

I separate "kernel" and "userland" (here meaning all the command-line
programs, etc.) only because that's become a more common way to define
the "base OS" in unixy, i.e. linuxy, circles.

This distinction between the traditional Unix layer and the GUI is quite
important in the history of SunOS, since there have been a number of
different offerings from Sun for their GUI (Sun Windowing System,
SunView, NeWS, SunWindows); and also in how Sun promoted their various
GUI offerings as the solutions for wider use.

Even with the advent of a common choice of The X Window System as the
basis for most workstation vendor's GUIs, there were still battles over
which toolkit and window manager and "look and feel" would prevail
(Athena vs. Motif vs. OpenLook), with Sun even evolving their offerings
(SunWindows, OpenLook) over time.

--
					Greg A. Woods <gwoods at acm.org>

Kelowna, BC     +1 250 762-7675           RoboHack <woods at robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods at planix.com>     Avoncote Farms <woods at avoncote.ca>
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