Solve : How does one "get" UNIX??

1.	Solve : How does one "get" UNIX??
Answer» Greetings, I have been busy looking for a NEW place of employment LATELY (in the IT field), and quite a few job descriptions say that knowledge of UNIX is either a plus or a requirement. I took one UNIX course in college two years ago; basically we just telnetted into a UNIX server and INTERACTED with it via a command line interface. Are there any edition of UNIX that have a GUI as opposed to just a boring CLI? So where could I download a copy of the UNIX OS so I can practice with it? Would that be free or do I need to buy it from SCO now? Can I set a dual-boot configuration with Windows XP so I can choose which OS to load at boot up? Lastly, can anyone recommend some good books that will really help get my feet wet with using UNIX? Because apparently UNIX is still a popular serve OS, even though Windows Server has gained popularity. Thanks a lot! Quote Are there any edition of UNIX that have a GUI as opposed to just a boring CLI? X Windows is the main GUI that people run on Unix or Unix-like systems (it has been ported to Linux, BSD, etc). Representations of X vary a LOT, due to the fact there are so many different window managers that can be used with X. X provides the client-server system for drawing windows; window managers prettify X. Then on top of that you get collections of applications that together form a system very akin to MS Windows. On Linux, Gnome and KDE are the big 2, both of which provide far more functionality than Win9x. Quote So where could I download a copy of the UNIX OS so I can practice with it? Would that be free or do I need to buy it from SCO now? Well if you really want Unix, you can now freely download Solaris from Sun, since they realised everyone was moving over to Linux... Tick the boxes on that download page, and be ready to burn lots of CDs... Alternatively, if you have a modest spec PC to install the system on, you might be better off downloading Linux. Ubuntu is one of my favourite distributions at the moment, although you have to ensure you read as much of the DOCUMENTATION as you can in order to get the most out of it. Quote Can I set a dual-boot configuration with Windows XP so I can choose which OS to load at boot up? Certainly. Split your hard drive into (e.g.) two partitions, and put XP on the first (bootable) partition. Then install Ubuntu (to the second partition). Quote Lastly, can anyone recommend some good books that will really help get my feet wet with using UNIX? You don't really need any books, to be honest. Read the documentation that comes with your system, and lean heavily on Google. There are a LOT of resources out there, and so many different topics that it's impossible to recommend just one book. If you decide to go with Linux, then head over to the Linux Documentation PROJECT, an excellent starting point.PCBSD is a quick way to get a usable unix system for free as well, if you just want to learn. It is based on FreeBSD which is a sturdy one as well. Lots of documentation on their site. http://www.pcbsd.org/ http://www.freebsd.org/Yeah I agree - BSD-ish systems are good choices too, although they aren't quite Unix.Thanks for those ideas. I will definitely try out PCBSD and Cygwin looks interesting too. Can anyone recommend some helpful UNIX books? Perhaps something from Amazon? http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=s_b_rs/102-7586768-3616956?page=1&url=ix%3Dstripbooks%26rank%3D%252Brelevancerank%26fqp%3Drelevance%2501281000-%2502keywords%2501UNIX%26nsp%3Dscore%2501proj-unit-sales%2502bin-fields%2501none%2502post-process%2501docid-ve%2502dym%25010%2502search-type%2501ss%26sz%3D10%26pg%3D1&fpn=1&rank=%2Bsalesrank&x=15&y=11 The book I used in my course was Unix Shell Programming...talk about boring!Like I said, there's lots available at the Linux Documentation Project, if you don't mind reading stuff online.

Answer»

Greetings,

I have been busy looking for a NEW place of employment LATELY (in the IT field), and quite a few job descriptions say that knowledge of UNIX is either a plus or a requirement.

I took one UNIX course in college two years ago; basically we just telnetted into a UNIX server and INTERACTED with it via a command line interface. Are there any edition of UNIX that have a GUI as opposed to just a boring CLI?

So where could I download a copy of the UNIX OS so I can practice with it? Would that be free or do I need to buy it from SCO now?

Can I set a dual-boot configuration with Windows XP so I can choose which OS to load at boot up?

Lastly, can anyone recommend some good books that will really help get my feet wet with using UNIX? Because apparently UNIX is still a popular serve OS, even though Windows Server has gained popularity. Thanks a lot!

Quote

Are there any edition of UNIX that have a GUI as opposed to just a boring CLI?

X Windows is the main GUI that people run on Unix or Unix-like systems (it has been ported to Linux, BSD, etc). Representations of X vary a LOT, due to the fact there are so many different window managers that can be used with X. X provides the client-server system for drawing windows; window managers prettify X. Then on top of that you get collections of applications that together form a system very akin to MS Windows. On Linux, Gnome and KDE are the big 2, both of which provide far more functionality than Win9x.

Quote

So where could I download a copy of the UNIX OS so I can practice with it? Would that be free or do I need to buy it from SCO now?

Well if you really want Unix, you can now freely download Solaris from Sun, since they realised everyone was moving over to Linux... Tick the boxes on that download page, and be ready to burn lots of CDs...

Alternatively, if you have a modest spec PC to install the system on, you might be better off downloading Linux. Ubuntu is one of my favourite distributions at the moment, although you have to ensure you read as much of the DOCUMENTATION as you can in order to get the most out of it.

Quote

Can I set a dual-boot configuration with Windows XP so I can choose which OS to load at boot up?

Certainly. Split your hard drive into (e.g.) two partitions, and put XP on the first (bootable) partition. Then install Ubuntu (to the second partition).

Quote

Lastly, can anyone recommend some good books that will really help get my feet wet with using UNIX?

You don't really need any books, to be honest. Read the documentation that comes with your system, and lean heavily on Google. There are a LOT of resources out there, and so many different topics that it's impossible to recommend just one book. If you decide to go with Linux, then head over to the Linux Documentation PROJECT, an excellent starting point.PCBSD is a quick way to get a usable unix system for free as well, if you just want to learn. It is based on FreeBSD which is a sturdy one as well. Lots of documentation on their site.

http://www.pcbsd.org/

http://www.freebsd.org/Yeah I agree - BSD-ish systems are good choices too, although they aren't quite Unix.Thanks for those ideas. I will definitely try out PCBSD and Cygwin looks interesting too.

Can anyone recommend some helpful UNIX books? Perhaps something from Amazon?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=s_b_rs/102-7586768-3616956?page=1&url=ix%3Dstripbooks%26rank%3D%252Brelevancerank%26fqp%3Drelevance%2501281000-%2502keywords%2501UNIX%26nsp%3Dscore%2501proj-unit-sales%2502bin-fields%2501none%2502post-process%2501docid-ve%2502dym%25010%2502search-type%2501ss%26sz%3D10%26pg%3D1&fpn=1&rank=%2Bsalesrank&x=15&y=11

The book I used in my course was Unix Shell Programming...talk about boring!Like I said, there's lots available at the Linux Documentation Project, if you don't mind reading stuff online.

Solve : How does one "get" UNIX??

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