What is the meaning of *nix?

Question

What is the meaning of *nix, and what is its relation with Ruby?

Just saw that in an interview question... I think there is something to do with UNIX distros, but I am not sure.

Could not find it here or in the Wikipedia, so I am asking.

What is the meaning ?

And what is its relation with Ruby ? because the question was about Ruby.

Solution 1

*nix just means operating systems that are like the old workhorse Unix. Some examples include Linux, FreeBSD, and Mac OS X (its kernel, Darwin, is based on BSD).

The main relation between *nix and Ruby is just a pragmatic one; most Ruby developers seem to prefer to work on Unix-like OSes (typically Linux or Mac OS X). There's no official relationship, and it's quite possible to work with Ruby on non-*nix OSes like Windows.

Solution 2

*nix means UNIX-like; it is an operating system that behaves in a manner similar to that of a UNIX operating system without necessarily conforming to the Single UNIX Specification.

Wikipedia:*nix actually redirects to Wikipedia:Unix-like.

As for Ruby's connection to *nix, Ruby was developed mostly on GNU/Linux by the open-source community, so it may be something to do with Ruby running better on *nix systems or Ruby developers preferring to work on *nix systems.

Solution 3

It's an abbreviation for UNIX-like operating systems, including LINUX.

See also the UNIX-like Wikipedia page.

Solution 4

*nix is a general term to refer to the whole family of Unices, to the operating systems that follow the POSIX¹ standard.

Ruby is a programming language, there's no general relationship between the two.

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1: Portable Operating System Interface [for Unix]

Solution 5

It means the unix-like family of OSes. No relation to Ruby.

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Comments

[Ajay Choudhary]

It also commonly includes OS X

[Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams]

@kubi: Yes, because OS X is Unix.

[scaryguy]

Just to note; if you prefer Windows over *nix systems to make development in Ruby, get ready to struggle with a lot of OS related issues. if you are unable to afford a Mac, just install Ubuntu to your PC or laptop. If you do so, one day you're gonna thank me. Also see: programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/32526/…

[John Strood]

It's funny how the meta character * in *nix never matches Linux. It should have been *x which eagerly matches Unix, Linux and OS X too.

[kidpixo]

*n.x would match them all :-D

[Daniel Katz]

John Strood right if this was where it came from, I would've said that's the answer, like a loosely interpreted rejex. But one example above says FreeBSD which is confusing. Maybe it should've been simply "unix-like" coz I still don't get the asterisk. If there was a list of distributions matching *nix under which FreeBSD falls, that would make sense.