This is my first time in this forum so, Hello to all!!!

I have been supporting windows based machines for a few years now and I have been writing batch files to do certain tasks for what seems like an age.

I've recently started a new job (as it support) and my new colleagues have said, "forget dos/batch, learn shell scripting instead. It's much more useful"

after watching one of them write some simple code to sort some files, I've decided I'd like to get in to this more.

After having spent most of yesterday and today on the internet I'm left feeling somewhat confused...

Could someone please explain to me the different terms that keep cropping up. like Unix, Linux, Sun, Perl, bash...

also, I'd like to run a virtual machine that I could use at home. What is the OS called (Unix??) if so are there serval different types? whats the most recent? where could i get a copy from and how much?

I know there’s alot of questions in this but I'm hoping that you guys will be able to help.

cheers.

start with linux (e.g. ubuntu) or sun solaris (for x86) to run a virtual machine. if you use vmware, there are vmware images from sun that you can use...
Solaris

for the rest: read and learn! the forum is a good starting place...

Perhaps freebsd as a first os in POSIX world is too difficult to them.

You can have a try fedora which is easy than ubuntu because the administration taks is simplfiy with some program such as chkconfig.

For isntance, when u restart a program, in fedora u only need to do chkconfig programneme restart

If in UNIX, u need to do kill -s HUP process id.

I hope this help.