GUI for UNIX System V

[ratiw]

I'm learning UNIX and doing it by using an old unix system V os which is run on an 86box emulator, I'd like to know: is there a graphical user interface for UNIX system V?

In any case what is the first gui available for UNIX?

[Normand_Nadon]

First question is Why? Why learn it on a version so old that has nothing in common with modern unix?

You might answer "why not"... And I have no counter argument!

 

So, the Wikipedia entry on SysV lists 3 GUIs in the "overview" section...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_V

 

Also, I know there was a 3-D file explorer for Unix at some point... Featured in Jurassic Park!

Would love to see that in action! Useless, but fun!

[ratiw]

7 minutes ago, Normand_Nadon said:

First question is Why? Why learn it on a version so old that has nothing in common with modern unix?

You might answer "why not"... And I have no counter argument!

 

So, the Wikipedia entry on SysV lists 3 GUIs in the "overview" section...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_V

 

Also, I know there was a 3-D file explorer for Unix at some point... Featured in Jurassic Park!

Would love to see that in action! Useless, but fun!

really nothing in common? I believe the fundamental basis are the same right?

what do you suggest for modern unix?

[Sauron]

3 hours ago, ratiw said:

what do you suggest for modern unix?

Well, macOS is by far the most used modern iteration of Unix

[Normand_Nadon]

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

Well, macOS is by far the most used modern iteration of Unix

It is a stretch to say that!

It was based on BSD, and it forked a long time ago! It is Posix compliant and there are some similarities in the file structure and functions, but it is not Unix!

[ratiw]

I know mac, linux, bsd are unix derivatives, I was looking for something closer to original unix, possibly with a gui, if it's old that's fine, purpose is learn unix while experimenting the first steps in C programming.

[wasab]

14 hours ago, ratiw said:

really nothing in common? I believe the fundamental basis are the same right?

what do you suggest for modern unix?

modern unix just means that if you paid some money to some organization that sells unix certification, and after they run a suite of tests to confirm your os implements basic requirement for posix compilance, you can now call your os unix. that is about it. This means windows can be unix and linux can be unix and any os can be unix if they implement posix standards and pay money for some certifications. This is why unix is NOT an operating system but rather a family of operating systems. This means unix in modern day is just a trade mark, not actually an os that consumers install on their computers. in the past, it used to be an os but not anymore nowadays. this is part in which most people are confuse about. it is as much an os as a mcdonald franchaisee right is a mcdonald resturant. 

 

obviously, a lot of os and their vendors do not bother with unix certifications for obvious reasons. Unix like os is practically de facto unix with only certain differences that wont really matter to day to day consumers. 

[Eviljuche]

4 hours ago, ratiw said:

I know mac, linux, bsd are unix derivatives, I was looking for something closer to original unix, possibly with a gui, if it's old that's fine, purpose is learn unix while experimenting the first steps in C programming.

The GUI to "original" UNIX is an oxymoron. UNIX was designed for teletypes and DEC VT series of text-only terminals, not for anything even remotely close to graphical output. That is also one of the reasons why UNIX(Linux, MacOS, BSDs) users are really dependent on the terminal (or should I say, a DEC VT220 terminal emulator) up to this day.

[Normand_Nadon]

1 hour ago, Eviljuche said:

The GUI to "original" UNIX is an oxymoron. UNIX was designed for teletypes and DEC VT series of text-only terminals, not for anything even remotely close to graphical output. That is also one of the reasons why UNIX(Linux, MacOS, BSDs) users are really dependent on the terminal (or should I say, a DEC VT220 terminal emulator) up to this day.

My father uses Linux, and he does not even know what a terminal is....

Modern Linux is not dependent on terminal... All regular functions can be achieved using the GUI... But for some stuff, it is so much faster to just pop a terminal and enter the command when you know it!

 

Now back to topic...

With Unix-like system, you can chose whatever GUI you want, even Gnome...

Those old systems were using some implementation of X-Server if I remember right!

Keep us posted!

[10leej]

I'm curious why you want to use UNIX, it's literally only deployed in IBM and Cisco mainframe systems these days. This is coming form someone that actually has a depreicated AT&T UNIX mainframe system in storage along with the 6000 opage UNIX System Administration Guide.

 

I guess if you want a more UNIX like system to learn on you could look at Linux distros, but really FreeBSD is much closer to the UNIX I'm experienced with.

 

As for a GUI for System V Init, it doesn't exist. if you need docs Linux From Scratch literally has the best SysV Init docs available.

https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/

 

That said, slackware is the only reasonable distro that ships SysV init, as Devuan still has no real purpose or advantage  to exist (The whole "No systemd" thing is kinda pointless as people who protest systemd, dont understand that systemd-initd is the init system)

[Eviljuche]

3 hours ago, Normand_Nadon said:

My father uses Linux, and he does not even know what a terminal is....

Modern Linux is not dependent on terminal... All regular functions can be achieved using the GUI... But for some stuff, it is so much faster to just pop a terminal and enter the command when you know it!

All of those regular GUI functions are implemented via the graphical frontends for terminal shellscripts - unlike modern Windows, where Win32 apps do actually work with NT kernel directly. And some kinds of software are just GUI interfaces for console commands done in a background (e.g. Gparted for parted, Kdenlive for ffmpeg, etc.). So it's still depends heavily on the terminal commands, but it's not the user who runs those directly.

[Normand_Nadon]

27 minutes ago, 10leej said:

I'm curious why you want to use UNIX, it's literally only deployed in IBM and Cisco mainframe systems these days. This is coming form someone that actually has a depreicated AT&T UNIX mainframe system in storage along with the 6000 opage UNIX System Administration Guide.

 

I guess if you want a more UNIX like system to learn on you could look at Linux distros, but really FreeBSD is much closer to the UNIX I'm experienced with.

 

As for a GUI for System V Init, it doesn't exist. if you need docs Linux From Scratch literally has the best SysV Init docs available.

https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/stable/

 

That said, slackware is the only reasonable distro that ships SysV init, as Devuan still has no real purpose or advantage  to exist (The whole "No systemd" thing is kinda pointless as people who protest systemd, dont understand that systemd-initd is the init system)

That was very informative, thank you!

[Normand_Nadon]

2 minutes ago, Eviljuche said:

All of those regular GUI functions are implemented via the graphical frontends for terminal shellscripts - unlike modern Windows, where Win32 apps do actually work with NT kernel directly. And some kinds of software are just GUI interfaces for console commands done in a background (e.g. Gparted for parted, Kdenlive for ffmpeg, etc.). So it's still depends heavily on the terminal commands, but it's not the user who runs those directly.

In my mind, this is how a computer should work! Old versions of Windows worked this way and they were amazing!

It means you can operate the same functions using ssh on a machine or directly on the gui, or through a bash script...

 

Now try to script something on Windows!

You need to use powershell and call Gui functions through a terminal! Is is horrible!

(I don't like Powershell.. I  am biased!)

[maplepants]

22 hours ago, Normand_Nadon said:

It is Posix compliant and there are some similarities in the file structure and functions, but it is not Unix!

It literally is.

 

Fair enough to prefer HP-UX, AIX, or some other UNIX OS to macOS but it's not true to say that macOS isn't UNIX.

[Sauron]

On 3/22/2023 at 12:11 PM, Normand_Nadon said:

It is a stretch to say that!

Not at all, it is Unix certified.

[Jira Rudolfirina Bills]

AT&T still uses their proprietary version of Unix for their ISP backend. I noticed this when playing around with my router. But there's a way to force GNU to be POSIX compliant, and henceforth a real Unix in the end.

 

https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/POSIX.html

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40916071/making-unix-shell-scripts-posix-compliant#40922501

 

EDIT: I forget if Linux has POSIX compliance as a filesystem switch or if you need to recompile the Linux kernel. But I forget. It may not be as straightforward as a shell script switch. Plus you'd still need to identify POSIX compiler macros when compiling your C code. Overall, though, Red Hat (bought by IBM) and SUSE Enterprise Linux (used by Microsoft internally) are the mainline industry's sources for most GNU/Linux stability and enhancements features. Canonical (that makes Ubuntu) focuses on client side improvements, but now has a focus on cloud deployments, so they do add general value to the work that red hat and SUSE provide. I'm paying 12 dollars a year or so in donation to System 76 for their hardware/software parity as a small time hardware vendor like Apple started out as, but they piggy back off of canonical and the arch community it looks like.

 

But the X windowing system was released in 1984. That's the GUI backend for Unix at the time. Start by looking into that.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System

 

Of course if you're interested in putting the Wayland compositor on an old Unix, it has the latest version of a GUI display server. Mira is another makeshift display server.

 

[Stugots]

Closest thing I’ve found to Unix on x86 is probably OpenBSD, and even that’s a far cry from the other Unix variants I’ve had hands on. Irix, Solaris, AIX.

 

I’ve been an AIX admin/engineer since 2007.

 

if you have the money to spend, I’d recommend a small VPS instance to host AIX like IBM PowerVS. Of all the remaining Unix’s, AIX will probably be the last to die. 

[Herr.Hoefkens]

i remember CDE being popular on allot of unix systems.: prolly will look familiar to many : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Desktop_Environment

[wasab]

i am certain that gui as we know it today, as in something containerized inside a rectanglular "window" and with mouse cursor to click on stuffs with drag/close/resize/minimize/stacking ability ect did not come about until apples mac computers, at least for mass produced consumer oriented ones. I used to always be under the impression that microsoft chose to called their operating systems "windows" percisly because they copied off apple computers rectangular containerized gui design. before that, computers were like a text console. you type commands into them. a lot of none gui applications are all console applications, they are pretty much like how computers used to look like before the gui era. 

[Herr.Hoefkens]

On 3/23/2023 at 2:57 PM, Sauron said:

Not at all, it is Unix certified.

i know darwin is but is the whole of OsX?

19 hours ago, wasab said:

i am certain that gui as we know it today, as in something containerized inside a rectanglular "window" and with mouse cursor to click on stuffs with drag/close/resize/minimize/stacking ability ect did not come about until apples mac computers, at least for mass produced consumer oriented ones. I used to always be under the impression that microsoft chose to called their operating systems "windows" percisly because they copied off apple computers rectangular containerized gui design. before that, computers were like a text console. you type commands into them. a lot of none gui applications are all console applications, they are pretty much like how computers used to look like before the gui era. 

how certain are you , because ....

not an apple / mac : (released in 1973 .... it took apple until 1976 to release the apple 1 (pic under this one ...)

note the windows on the screen , and the mouse next to it ...

 

apple came with this 3 years after the one above.... not the differences

[wasab]

1 minute ago, Herr.Hoefkens said:

i know darwin is but is the whole of OsX?

how certain are you , because ....

not an apple / mac : (released in 1973 .... it took apple until 1976 to release the apple 1 (pic under this one ...)

note the windows on the screen , and the mouse next to it ...

 

 

apple came with this 3 years after the one above.... not the differences

 

at least for mass produced consumer oriented ones

 

if it aint personal computer then it aint counting. 

[Herr.Hoefkens]

ps apple's first gui 'windowing' os was only released in 1984 i think :

system1

 

[Herr.Hoefkens]

7 minutes ago, wasab said:

at least for mass produced consumer oriented ones

 

if it aint personal computer then it aint counting. 

well looking at it , it for sure isnt a laptop , a server or a mainframe so ... i guess its a PC, possibly the first one to actually have that title

[wasab]

12 minutes ago, Herr.Hoefkens said:

well looking at it , it for sure isnt a laptop , a server or a mainframe so ... i guess its a PC, possibly the first one to actually have that title

Alright, tell me what that computer is and I will see if it fits the definition of a pc. I will also personally look into its gui design to see if it is actually a stacking windows manager or not rather than some other things like tiling windows(shout out to all you linux i3 lovers)

[Sauron]

14 hours ago, Herr.Hoefkens said:

i know darwin is but is the whole of OsX?

Yes, the whole system. I don't know what you think is covered but most of the requirements to be unix certified have to do with core systems like the kernel and core utilities, userspace programs and guis can do pretty much whatever.