UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello. New to the forum here. I was wondering if I could get some input from those who use Linux/Unix based operating systems exclusively.

I use Solaris 10 here at work, while it was confusing at first (terminal commands and such,) I am quickly adapting to it. At home, I use Windows XP Professional.

I'm ready for a change at home.

I mainly use my computer for general internet use, listening to music and some gaming mixed in here and there.

Should I stick with Solaris 10 or is there something more interesting to play around with? Keep in mind, I'm pretty new to this stuff - so compiling applications is something I've never done before. I like to try new things though, so I'm up for the task.

Any input is appreciated.

Your question is perilously close to violating the "no OS wars" rule, but since you asked for a suggestion related to one particular thing (suitability for general home usage) I'll give an answer.

Solaris 10 is probably not a great choice for home usage. Especially if you are interested in gaming. There is only a tiny fraction of games which will run "out of the box" on Solaris. You'd be compiling from source constantly to get games running. Hardware support is also an issue - if you want to use Solaris you're best off trying to buy/build a machine where all the components meet Sun's Hardware Compatibility List. For a server that isn't too big a deal since you don't have to worry about graphics cards, audio, and lots of other stuff you'll want to use on a home machine.

You might want to try any of the varieties of Linux. Hardware compatibility is better for sure, there are many more options for games, and finding help for home usage online will be easier than for Solaris. Most Solaris information you find will be related to server/business use.

Thank you, I appreciate your input. I'll have to do some digging around to find which Linux variation best suites me, but atleast I'm on the right path.

There's a related article here: Sun's Linux killer shows promise

I've been a Solaris admin for several years, and I've been using Arch Linux on my home Unix machine. It definately isn't geared towards newbies - you need to be willing to learn and read the docs/wiki/forums to figure stuff out. Their philosophy is to provide a basic system and let you configure it exactly how you want. But from your email it sounds like that might be what you are looking for.

If you prefer something more similar to XP that works without as much tweaking you might want to try something like Fedora Core, Suse, or one of the other "major" distributions.

One thing to consider is what your hardware specs are. Since you mention gaming and that you currently run WinXP, I'd assume you have at least the equivalent of a Pentium III, 256-512+ MB of RAM and a decent graphics card.

As it's already been said that gaming is touch and go on Linux and other Unix flavors at best, although some vendors are beginning to distribute Linux binaries of their games, you will probably want to set your machine up to dual boot, keeping WinXP on one partition/drive and putting whatever OS you decide on another.

For me personally, I have a soft spot for Mandriva and Xandros. Everyone else's mileage may vary, but I had very good experiences with them. PC-BSD is also very accessible, and so far I have had to only manually configure one file on my system since installing it. That it includes KDE 3.4 makes the desktop quite accessible to the novice and pro alike.

Hopefully I haven't said anything to start a flamewar. I am merely speaking from my personal experiences in the UNIX world. As I said before, other people's mileage will vary.