USENIX成立于1975年，当时的名字叫做Unix用户群，其主要目的是学习和开发Unix以及类似系统。1977 年 6 月，美国电话电报公司的律师告诉用户群他们不能继续使用UNIX这个名字，因为UNIX是美国电话电报公司所拥有的一个商标。所以这个用户群更名为“USENIX”。此后，USENIX逐渐发展成一个倍受尊敬的由计算机操作系统用户，开发者和研究者所组成的机构。USENIX从创建之初就出版一份技术杂志名叫;login:

USENIX在其内为系统管理员另辟一个特殊兴趣小组，名叫大型系统安装管理会议。

The USENIX Association is the Advanced Computing Systems Association. It was founded in 1975 under the name "Unix Users Group," focusing primarily on the study and development of Unix and similar systems. In June 1977, a lawyer from AT&T Corporation informed the group that they could not use the word UNIX as it was a trademark of Western Electric (the manufacturing arm of AT&T until 1995), which led to the change of name to USENIX. It has since grown into a respected organization among practitioners, developers, and researchers of computer operating systems more generally. Since its founding, it has published a technical journal entitled ;login:.