Foundational Unix Papers, Books, Videos, and other Resources

First published — Sep 22, 2023
Last updated — Jul 03, 2024
#unix #bsd #gnu #linux

Original Unix, BSD, GNU, and Linux books, papers, videos, and similar materials.

Article Collection

This article is part of the following series:

1. Unix

Table of Contents

Introduction

This article lists documents, books, and audio-video materials relevant for understanding Unix and the Unix ecosystem.

Original Unix documents are important for two reasons:

First, as expected, they are relevant for understanding the history and principles on which Unix, the Internet, and modern software is based.

Second, even more importantly, they are useful for understanding the magical, unsurpassed combination of simplicity and power in Unix. Being familiar with it comes handy when using Unix-based systems, but it has broader effects, making one’s own solutions more powerful and elegant.

Available resources are sorted by category and date. You are not necessarily expected to read them all or in order:

If you want to learn about the Unix culture, feel free to start with popular books and videos, for example the light-hearted 2019 BWK’s Interview with Ken Thompson and 2016 Interview with Brian W. Kernighan, followed by 1988 Bill Joy's Talk at IBM Yorktown.

If you want to learn about Unix itself, start with foundations and one or two manuals, followed by for example some videos.

Foundations

Important Unix papers and documents:

UNIX Programmer’s Manuals

Doug McIlroy organized “Unix Programmer’s Manuals” to be written, and editions of manual became the versions of Unix they were describing.

The manuals consisted of manpages and papers. They are user-oriented, i.e. they do not discuss Unix internals, OS design principles, or C programming.

The editions were:

Please note that above links point mostly to resources hosted at https://www.tuhs.org/. In chapter AT&T / Bell Labs Unix Releases a bit more contextual information surrounding the editions can be found, along with alternative links pointing to https://gunkies.org/.

Books and materials related to Unix:

Videos

Unix videos and documentaries:

Magazines

Other Resources

Misc links and resources, mostly to collections of books, papers, and documents.

Article Collection

This article is part of the following series:

1. Unix

Automatic Links

The following links appear in the article:

1. For Fun and Profit: A History of the Free and Open Source Software Revolution - For-Fun-and-Profit-A-History-of-the-Free-and-Open-Source-Software-Revolution.pdf
2. Odd Comments and Strange Doings in Unix
3. Software Tools - Software-Tools.pdf
4. The Bastard Operator From Hell - http://www.bofharchive.com/BOFH.html
5. The Daemon, the GNU & the Penguin - http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20051013231901859
6. ZIP File With the Book and Code - https://archive.org/details/CommentarySixthEditionUNIX
7. The UNIX Programming Environment - https://archive.org/details/UNIXProgrammingEnvironment
8. A Quarter Century of Unix - https://archive.org/details/aquartercenturyofunixpeterh.salus_201910
9. The Cathedral and the Bazaar - https://archive.org/details/cathedral-bazaar
10. Computer Chronicles - https://archive.org/details/computerchronicles
11. Elements of Programming Style - https://archive.org/details/the-elements-of-programming-style-second-edition/
12. UNIX REVIEW - https://archive.org/details/unixreview?sort=date
13. Unix Programmer's Manual, 8th Edition - https://archive.org/details/unixtimesharingsystemprogrammersmanualeighthedition
14. Unix World - https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Unix+World%22&sort=-date
15. AT&T / Bell Labs Unix Releases - https://crystallabs.io/unix-bsd-gnu-linux-history/#att--bell-labs-unix-releases
16. A Commentary on the Sixth Edition Unix Operating System - https://cs3210.cc.gatech.edu/r/unix6.pdf
17. Reflections on Software Research - https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1283920.1283939
18. The UNIX Time-Sharing System - https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/361011.361061
19. Review of "Software Tools" - https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1110841.1110847
20. Alternative Link - https://dspinellis.github.io/oral-history-of-unix/index.html
21. Wikipedia Page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastard_Operator_From_Hell
22. Wikipedia Page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Chronicles
23. Doug McIlroy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_McIlroy
24. Wikipedia Page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers:_Heroes_of_the_Computer_Revolution
25. Wikipedia Page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions%27_Commentary_on_UNIX_6th_Edition,_with_Source_Code
26. List of Episodes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Computer_Chronicles_episodes
27. Wikipedia Page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_C_Programming_Language
28. Wikipedia Page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg_(book)
29. Wikipedia Page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Programming_Style
30. Wikipedia Page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hacker_Crackdown
31. Wikipedia Page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unix_Programming_Environment
32. The C Programming Language - https://github.com/AzatAI/cs_books/blob/master/The.C.Programming.Language.2nd.Edition.pdf
33. The Design of the Unix Operating System - https://github.com/jyfc/ebook/blob/master/03_operating_system/the_design_of_the_unix_operating_system.pdf
34. UNIX Implementation - https://github.com/manjunath5496/Ken-Thompson-papers/blob/master/ken(6).pdf
35. Hello World (Plan 9 and UTF-16) - https://github.com/manjunath5496/Ken-Thompson-papers/blob/master/ken(9).pdf
36. Ken Thompson's Papers - https://github.com/manjunath5496/Ken-Thompson-papers/tree/master
37. https://gunkies.org/
38. Program Design in the UNIX System Environment - https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nmh-workers/2012-11/pdfGsAjwogf3t.pdf
39. Linux Weekly News (LWN.net) - https://lwn.net/
40. Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - https://oceanofpdf.com/authors/steven-levy/pdf-epub-hackers-heroes-of-the-computer-revolution-download/
41. Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project - https://producingoss.com/en/producingoss.html
42. Unix Programmer's Manual, 7th Edition - https://s3.amazonaws.com/plan9-bell-labs/7thEdMan/index.html
43. Unix Programmer's Manual, 10th Edition - https://web.archive.org/web/20150611142736/http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/10thEdMan/index.html
44. Alternative Download at TUHS - https://wiki.tuhs.org/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=publications:qcu.pdf
45. Advanced Unix Programming - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0131411543
46. Advanced Unix Programming - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FIZKNYE
47. Dennis M. Ritchie's Homepage at Bell Labs - https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/
48. The UNIX Time-Sharing System - https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/cacm.pdf
49. The Development of the C Language - https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html
50. Proposing a Unix Portability Experiment - https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/firstport.html
51. The Evolution of the Unix Time-Sharing System - https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/hist.html
52. Portability of C Programs and the UNIX System - https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/portpap.pdf
53. A Stream Input-Output System - https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/st.pdf
54. The Truth About Unix: The User Interface Is Horrid - https://www.ceri.memphis.edu/people/smalley/ESCI7205F2009/misc_files/The_truth_about_Unix_cleaned.pdf
55. A Research UNIX Reader: Annotated Excerpts From the Programmer's Manual, 1971-1986 - https://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/reader.pdf
56. Afterword - https://www.mit.edu/hacker/afterword.html
57. The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier - https://www.mit.edu/hacker/hacker.html
58. O'Reilly Open Books - https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/
59. Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software - https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/
60. Open Sources: Voices From the Open Source Revolution, 1st Edition - https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/opensources/book/
61. Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing - https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/osfreesoft/book/
62. https://www.tuhs.org/
63. Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd Edition - https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dennis_v2/v2man.pdf
64. Unix Programmer's Manual, 3rd Edition - https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dennis_v3/
65. Unix Programmer's Manual, 4th Edition - https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dennis_v4/
66. Unix Programmer's Manual, 5th Edition - https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dennis_v5/
67. Unix Programmer's Manual, 6th Edition - https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dennis_v6/
68. UNIX PROGRAM DESCRIPTION - https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/USDL/unix_program_description_jan_1976.pdf
69. An Oral History of Unix - https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/OralHistory/
70. History of UNIX - https://www.tuhs.org/Mirror/Hauben/unix-Contents.html
71. ;Login: - https://www.usenix.org/publications/loginonline
72. UNIX Videos From AT&T Tech Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@ATTTechChannel/search?query=unix
73. Alternative YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@ComputerChroniclesYT/videos
74. Computer History Museum's Oral Histories - https://www.youtube.com/@ComputerHistory/search?query=unix%20oral%20history
75. BWK's Interview With Ken Thompson - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY6q5dv_B-o
76. Interview With Jon 'Maddog' Hall - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZMA3Ge144U
77. X Window System Design Principles - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdmNHM9BKY0
78. VCF East 10 Interview With Brian W. Kernighan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUWt_StXKsY
79. Warner Losh's FOSDEM Talk on the Forgotten History of Early Unix - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuzeagzQwRs
80. The History of Unix; Rob Pike's Experience - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2NI6t2r_Hs
81. A Political History of X - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj02_UeUnGQ
82. Origins of the C Programming Language - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de2Hsvxaf8M
83. Video of V0 Unix Running on a PDP-7 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvaPaWyiuLA
84. Bill Joy's Talk at IBM Yorktown - https://youtu.be/EmC5yoE_7PY
85. A UNIX TM Operating System for the DEC VAX-11/780 Computer - unix-32v-reconstructed-draft1.pdf