Notes
In the primary sources section, most of the documents are from the UNIX creators. Some of the referenced material is not strictly from UNIX authors. This distinction is made clear by hyperlinking every author for the relevant document, so that the reader can check for themselves who is from Bell Labs, some university or just another bloke from the world.
About this project
It has been 50 years since the 1970 epoch. The Unix epoch is a common baseline for global timekeeping found in many systems.
Many have seen monolithic IBM machines in media such as Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, but most have not encountered the term "mainframe" in their entire life. A datacenter or any kind of cloud-connected resource is conceptually equivalent to the "mainframe." In general, compute resources may be plenty, but need to be shared amongst many users. The solution to this problem turns out time and time again, to be Unix.
Today, Unix is deployed ubiquitously around the world. All the major branches of Apple's iOS and MacOS, as well as Linux and Android are designed and integrated around the semantics of the unix system. This includes other operating systems derived of Unix such as Solaris (illumos), AIX and every BSD. BSD variants include FreeBSD and NetBSD which are used for example, in computers that do network routing.
Terminal emulators are a thing. Some wonder what are terminals and why do we emulate them. Are these equivalent to a "console"? Technical jargon gets used a lot across the computing business, but this can often obscure meaning and create confusion.
In short, this reference exists as a guide to present the subject in a clear manner that is well suited for study.
A lot of ground work was also done by The Unix Heritage Society, and this document refers to many of its resources. Be sure to see the TUHS Wiki for more information.
About the linker
Avindra Goolcharan was created in 1991, the year of the first public Linux kernel release. Since 1997, Avindra resides in the state of New Jersey, which is the location of many of these stories. Before the turn of the millennium, the family got a computer for the first time. It ran Microsoft Windows 98 SE, and was later upgraded to Windows XP and a Pentium 4 chip.
In the early 2000s, Ubuntu emerged. At the time, Ubuntu physically delivered free CD-ROMs to users who needed them, which made it simultaneously practical, easy and affordable for people to adopt Linux, including Avindra. To him, the default Gnome interface was a breath of fresh air to the Mac and Windows systems that schools and businesses seem to prefer.
By 2008, the author started writing original computer programs and scripts. Around 2015, Avindra started using the openSUSE Linux distribution, and can be found contributing patches as an openSUSE member.
About UNIX
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group