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Best summarized by this quote from a coworker: “AIX is what you’d get if aliens implemented a UNIX.”

Utilities exist, but they tend to be different.

There’s also oddities like the compiler (xlC) emitting code that is able to dereference null pointers, with the zero page. It’s a valid but odd choice of undefined behavior. [1]

[1]: https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.c/c/OJwY1pWFYhE

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This is a old quote and IIRC was e.g. for the way AIX handles services (SRC / System Resource Controller) and stores configuration data (ODM / Object Data Manager). It felt 'alien' for admins used to use rc scripts (which are possible too) and files in /etc (used in aix too).

Now, nearly three decades later, we have even more automated and integrated mechanism 'systemd' and I think that there would be still features worth adopting from AIX. Not the first time i have such thoughts with an OS slowly vanishing.

> “AIX is what you’d get if aliens implemented a UNIX.”

The first version of AIX, for the IBM RT PC, actually ran on top of a microkernel written in PL/I, called VRM - how’s that for alien.

Subsequent versions moved closer to the Unix mainstream by dropping the PL/I microkernel.

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