Unix

[daz|n00by]

Any body use this?
whats it like?
what are its advantages over windows or Linux?
Were do you get it?
is it compatible with usual programmes?
do driver company's make drivers for this OS?

Think that about covers it

any info would be gratefully received
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"Its Better To Burn Out Than Fade Away!!!!!!" "Lifes a bitch and then you Die"
"I`m a tool, one with just enough intelligence to know it, just enough spirit to resent it...but not enough backbone to do anything about it. " Siggi 2006 pure class.

[shorty]

[NSR Mick]

unix and linux are very closely related but i wouldnt sudgest trying to install it on anything. You are better off going with a supported distribution such as Fedora, RedHat, suse etc...
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If you dont like the way that I ride.......Stop trying to keep up!!!

[daz|n00by]

[shorty]

[tokarev]

I have to use it for some of my university courses. It is command line. So you have to learn lots of commands to use it. Sorry I can't really say much more on the subject as I am a novice at unix!

Here is a screenshot showing a couple of basic commands (telnet to my university unix account).

https://img402.imageshack.us/img402/5508/unixtelnetuni0hw.jpg

[Nath]

Linux is a unix OS. Technically it's not, but you don't need to know why.

There are other 'free' unices besides Linux, the main ones being FreeBSD and NetBSD. These 'different' operating systems actually use the same software, so do not really differ much from the user's point of view.

commercial unices tend use their own software, but it mostly works in the same way as the open source stuff. However they are more 'integrated', so feel more like an actual operating system than a collection of different pieces of software. I think some of the modern unices also tend to be more graphically based (eg Solaris, Irix).


Shorty strikes me as somewhat of a bullshitter, but he is right in that Unix operating systems run on Unix hardware. Old Sun hardware is available very cheap on eBay, and you should be able to get something that comes with a version of Solaris either installed or on media (though I think you can download Solaris for free now anyway). The other most widely available unix hardware are SGIs.

To be honest, I have a Sun workstation and I run Debian linux on it. I also have an old HP box, which if I can ever be bothered to get working will also run Debian. There is no real reason to use a commercial *nix system in this day and age, as the GNU software is generally better than anything being sold by the 'old guard'. Before I stuck Debian on the Sun I had a poke around with the /old/ version of Solaris on it, and whilst it was interesting to see how the system was arranged differently and how the software was inferior, it would have been a pain in the arse to use for any practical purpose.

The only thing that would tempt me away from linux is the Hurd, however last time I looked it was still in its infancy and not a realistic proposition for a usable system. I wouldn't have thought it really has much of a chance of gaining popularity really Linux is popular, but most of its users are not really interested in the philosophy of free software. I doubt that business will get behind the Hurd, as for them it will be tainted with the liberal doctrine of the FSF compared to the relatively business-friendly linux.
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Hard livin', hard luck.

[shorty]

[Nath]

Sorry, that was probably a bit harsh.

A large proportion of people who take an (unhealthy) interest in the Internet try installing linux at some point or another. They try blatting around in KDE or Gnome for a bit, then get bored and go back to windows - However whenever anyone mentions linux they will jump at the chance to educate us all based on their vast array of experience Obviously you are not one of these people, but the people described above are one of my pet hates and really get on my tits, so when I noticed some inaccurate statements I couldn't help but stick in the knife.

I am always very careful to avoid giving an opinion about things I do not truly know about unless I clearly state that is the case.



The Internet is the very thing that effectively killed off legacy Unix. For a start, it allowed independent developers to work together from across the globe to create Linux and other open source software. However in the age of the internet, the web is king. Nobody is going to pay big money for a Unix server and software license, when you can run linux on cheap PCs which perform perfectly adequately for running webservers on. I don't remember the statistics, but the majority of the web is hosted on Linux boxes running Apache, with much of the remainder being on Windows IIS. Unix makes up only a tiny tiny minority. This is precisely the reason why Sun Microsystems brought out their own Linux distribution - To get back into the webserver market.
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Hard livin', hard luck.

[Tarmacsurfer]

I keep an old Sparc Ultra-2 around to experiment on (usually running NetBSD<--link), unless you are looking at web or mail serving it has pretty much no real place in the home to be honest. In terms of usability, pretty much zero outside of certain rigidly defined deliniations. What it does it does mindblowingly well though, my firewall project was a stripped down freeBSD install, uptime of around 3 years. If you are serious about learning more then NetBSD is one of the better ones (in my opinion at least), and certainly relatively user friendly. Download it and see how you go.

Going to have to ask Daz, are you now looking at expanding into the realms of hosting your collection? That's pretty much the only reason I can think of that you'd want a box like that online
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I'm immortal. Well, so far.

[EuropeanNC30R...]

Slightly OT, but has anyone here managed to get the x86 version of OSX working on a pc? I've been meaning to try it but for various reasons my downloads keep fucking up.

[Suzuki]

[shorty]