Is there is a good reference URL that outlines the differences? I understand and appreciate the whole OSS background, but is there more than philosophy?
The philosophy is much of the difference. A number of OSes meet the POSIX standard (which gives most Unices much of their Unix-ness), including Linux, BSD, and the commercial variants of Unix (AIX, HP-UX, Irix, Solaris, etc). At the moment, it may be the sweet point of price (usually free, or low cost which gives it an edge over "real" Unix), reliability (a big edge over the Redmondian product line), and popularity (giving it a slight edge over the [Open|Net|Free]BSD projects). With the popularity, it also sees stronger driver support for more obscure hardware. There are also slight variations in system calls. Whee [grins]
It, like many *nix variations, can be fairly easily ported to new platforms, from watches to super-computers.
http://www.hk8.org/old_web/linux/run/ch01_08.htm#INDEX-565
(it compares Linux with a variety of OSes, but the inline anchor should pop you to the bit on "Other implementations of Unix"
Other comparison links:
http://expertanswercenter.techtarget.com/eac/knowledgebaseAnswer/0,,sid63_gci988013,00.html
http://www.computerhope.com/unix/linux.htm
http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=04/05/12/1327217
http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/16/42/ (BSD vs. Linux)
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/archive/20/2004/06/1/178287
A caveat on that one...one poster details that Solaris has serial console support and Linux doesn't. Bosh. Linux supports them too. The poster may mean that pre-boot stuff can't be sent to the serial console, but that's a hardware, not software limitation.
What is the best term to refer to matters relating to both Unix and Linux?
I generally use "*nix" which I picked up after finding it used elsewhere. Tends to be one of the most popular references to "Unix(tm)-like-operating-systems"
I now wonder if my preferred phrase for someone who is experience with the CLI, Unix Geek, can offend on two levels!
"geek" will suffice for many of us [grins]
Hope this helps answer some of your questions.
-tim
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