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== UNIX today ==
Now, in 20122024, UNIX and its clones and derivatives are more popular than ever. Apple decided to open-source the kernel and user tools for Darwin, the basis of Mac OS X, and even Solaris, one of the last bastions of old-school commercial UNIX, has since been opened up. Various PC-centric distributions of Linux are giving Microsoft a run for its money for the first time in years, especially on low-end PCs that can't run Vista orWindows 711, and a resurgent Mac (running UNIX itself) is competing with Microsoft on the high end. The BSDs are popular in server, networking and security-related applications. Ubuntu, a distributionDistributions of Linux, isare quite popular with computer-savvy people who appreciate its ease of use and its excellent hardware support, and is even starting to dent the average userdom. There are also several forks of the official Linux kernel being used on high-end electronic devices and smartphones, as well as in networking gear like Ethernet switches and routers, and in many embedded devices. In the coming decade UNIX systems are likely to spread further into the consumer desktop environment as Microsoft prepares to bring the Windows product line to an end.
The rise of small, simple, low-cost, low-power basic laptop computers for $300 or less with ARM chips such as entry level Chromebooks and the certain high end ARM computers continues to make inroads in the consumer market. Additionally many educational boards such as the Raspberry Pi are frequently configured to run Linux, though by no means is it always the sole option. Add on to that a number of consumer multimedia devices, household robots, internet of things devices, etc. finding their way into the household, and Unix has quietly made Unix and Linux one of the most common operating systems around the home.
The rise of small, simple, low-cost, low-power "netbooks"--basic laptop computers for $300 or less geared towards Internet functionality at the expense of gaming and multimedia--has also worked in UNIX's favor. Many netbooks have discarded the traditional x86 architecture due to power consumption and cost concerns in favor of the Advanced RISC Machine (ARM) architecture, also used by the vast majority of embedded devices such as cell phones. The only version of Microsoft Windows for ARM processors is the largely incompatible "Windows CE" (Microsoft has shown Windows 8 [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20026429-64.html working on ARM], however; a version of Windows 8 called Windows RT came shipped with tablets for a time, though this was eventually replaced with the similar yet largely incompatible Windows 10 for ARM devices, which ran more applications and supports traditional Win32 programs as well as those compiled for x86 through emulation), and the vast majority of ARM netbooks run some version of UNIX, usually Linux. While ARM is currently used on only a small proportion of netbooks, its share is growing, and one manufacturer believes that ARM machines will control 50% of the netbook market by 2012. Existing Windows netbooks often still run Windows XP, which is now a full three generations out of date, as netbooks' low-performance hardware simply cannot cope with the demands of Windows Vista, although more and more netbooks are now coming with a stripped-down version of Windows 7 called "Windows 7 Starter". The netbook trend died out in the early 2010s however in favour of Android and iOS tablets due to their use of low-power systems-on-chip.
In addition to netbooks, other portable and consumer devices nowadays often contain some code from UNIX or UNIX-like operating systems; Apple's iOS, used on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, contains code from the Darwin base of [[Mac OS]] X and iOS's main competitor, Google's Android operating system, contains a fork of the Linux kernel at its core.:
* Apple's Darwin, the core of [[MacOS]] for desktop and laptop, as well as the core for iOS, used on the iPhone, Apple TV, and iPad.
* Google's Android operating system, contains a fork of the Linux kernel at its core.
* Googles Chrome OS, also based on Linux.
* The [[PlayStation 4]] and [[PlayStation 5]] use a highly customized BSD under the hood.
* Valve's Steam Deck runs Linux.
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