Berkeley Software Distribution

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Berkeley Software Distribution is a derivative of the Unix operating system that was created by and is distributed by the University of California, Berkeley. The first official release of "Berkeley UNIX" was in 1977.[1] Other derivatives of the original BSD Unix such as FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD are also collectively known as "the BSDs." BSD Unix and its derivitives have had a profound influence in the architecture and design of future modern operating systems, from Linux to Mac OS X to Microsoft Windows (especially Windows NT).

History

In the mid 1970s the Berkeley campus of the University of California became a hotbed of activity in the budding world of Unix operating system development. When one of the original creators of Unix (Ken Thompson) taught there during a sabbatical in 1975-1976[1] this also encouraged students at the University to hack away on a brand-new, revolutionary OS (operating system).

In 1977 the first Berkeley UNIX version was released, from a lab run by a grad student named Bill Joy (who would subsequently become one of the 'big names' in Unix and Computer history in general when he co-founded Sun Microsystems).

Related Topics

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Origins and History of Unix, 1969-1995" (retreived 07-April-2007).
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