Hello all! I'm the new guy in these parts. I'm a part time college student/part time Java Intern. I've seen that during my days at work having a basic knowledge and understanding for Unix is a great benefit for us developers. I've got a dual boot on my main workstation at home of Win2K Pro and RedHat 7.1. I have a "development environment" I can use for Unix now. Does Unix work like Linux does, distro wise? If so, what are some of the more popular flavors of Unix? Thanks for any replies and I look forward to getting to know some of you guys.

Chris

No. Linux versions all share the kernel as their common ties. Commercial Unix (or just "other" Unices) are usually quite different in the guts of things (like the kernel - an HP-UX kernel wouldn't work on a Solaris system, for example), but their interface may be very very similar.

For a huge list of Unix variants, check out:
http://www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/show?ugu.flavors

The most common, though, (IMO) are Solaris, BSD, Linux, AIX, SCO (now Caldera), HP-UX, and possibly Digital... But like the list above shows, there are / have been plenty to choose from.

Oh ok, well I downloaded FreeBSD overnight lastnight. I'd also like to get my hands on Solaris. Do you know where I can download it from? I've checked Sun but can't seem to find it.

Keep looking... Sun's site has a page that you can order their software but they will not be supporting it anymore beyond the current version.

Also it costs about $80. However, they do have it on their site, but you may have to settle for it being shipped to you. I do believe that you can download the source files for free. Follow the links below for more info.

I believe that both of these are download sites for free. http://www.sun.com/download/

http://sunfreeware.com/

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