Umm, no. NeXTSTEP preceded Linux by a few years. NeXTSTEP was developed in the late 1980's and its first release was in September 1989. Linux Torvalds released the first Linux kernel -- not a Linux distro in the modern sense -- in September 1991. There is no relationship between the two. Linux is an independent development, unrelated to NeXTSTEP or any other Unix-based OS except by functional similarity.
NeXTSTEP (and OS X and iOS) are derived from the BSD Unix family. The Linux kernel and the Gnu operating system are "UNIX-like" in that they function similarly, but neither one is derived from the other.
I suggest you do some research before making unsupported statements about the evolution of operating systems. If you still believe you're correct, I invite you to provide reputable citations to support your claim. You might find the image I posted at the end of this comment helpful.
> My experience actually predated linix with ATTunix a flavor of unix.
Well, then we share that in common. My experience with Unix goes back to 1985, when I acquired an AT&T 3B2-300 minicomputer, learned C language, and mastered Sys5 Unix.
