UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I want to go and learn unix, I order to achieve this task I need to install unix on my machine. I am currently using a Dell Inspiron 6000, which is about a year and a half old. Currently I have 20GB of free space. It has been recommended to me that I simply partition my hard drive allocating at 10GB to unix.

During a discussion with another non-unix person, it was suggested that it may be possible to install unix on an external hard disk, and when I am starting up the Dell machine, change the system settings and specify that I wish to boot up from the external hard disk.

I would appreciate it if anyone could give me any advice regarding the external hard disk option or any further options. Unfortunately I do not have the resources to purchase a seperate machine of unix.

Mike55.

I'd have to test a few things for that situation. For example, what sort of external drive are you talking about? Most likely it's a USB drive. Your BIOS would have to support booting from a USB device. I've heard some newer machines have that capability. If yours is one, that's the first hurdle.

Next is whether the unix you decide to use will also recognize a USB device as something you could install to. Then that it's booting from a USB device.

I don't think it's impossible, but maybe not something a new unix user would want to tackle.

As for repartitioning your drive, I think that's a better solution. You'd have to either rebuild your Windows box or get a repartitioning software package like Partition Magic. With that, you can shrink your Windows volume down by the 10Gig you want to use and then you could use pretty much any Linux distro to install to the new partition. There are numerous HOWTO's on how to install Linux and manage it properly in Windows.

Carl

I agree with Carl, a few days ago I installed Linux on my old Dell Inspiron 2650 which came with Windows XP.

From my experience it is better to have at least 512 MB of memory.

We used a software called System Commander to partition the hard disk, and I think there's a component of Linux called Grub which allows one to easily switch between Windows or Linux at start up.

The Linux installation comes with a lot of options and plenty of network configuration. It definitely helps to have a manual/tutorial handy while installing it.

I have been looking at the boot options for my machine, it appears that you can boot from a usb key/hard drive as it picks up the device when the machine starts up.

In the two replies that I received, both BOFH and thoughts both refered to installing LINUX. I was under the impression that LINUX had a large number of differences from UNIX, and that the acronym LINUX stood for "LINUX Is Not UNIX". If both are the same, then I could use Fedora, which can apparently be installed on a usb drive.

Appologies for the lack of knowledge regarding UNIX and LINUX, only being introduced to the key ideas & benefits behind it lately.

Mike55.

Ok

I have just been told by someone that it is not possible to get a version of UNIX that is suitable for desktops & laptops. And that I should instead focus on setting up UNIX. Furthermore, it was also mentioned to me that UNIX is not Free, or not Open Source while LINUX is.

I would appreciate it if someone could either confirm or deny this information.

Mike55.

Well Sun has been releasing its software as free and there are several open solaris projects including gnu/solaris (http://www.gnusolaris.org) which runs on top of the opensolaris kernel (http://www.opensolaris.org).

Certainly the source code to Solaris is "open". It's all there for you to see and peruse. I'd have to check out the license though to see what the license allows.

But I'm just defending Solaris since it's my main focus. Personally I'd use Linux for a full on desktop environment due to the many available applications. I do use my Solaris box as a desktop but mainly as a portal for working on other servers. I have a web browser running on it for data lookups.

And as to your other message, Linux doesn't stand for anything in particular. It's a merging of Linus' name and Unix based off of Minix which was a teaching kernel and not free. GNU however stands for "GNU's not Unix". Maybe that's where your non-unix person got mixed up

I only mention Linux because it's easier to get information on it and it's more likely to work on your hardware. The commands are the same as Solaris (and AIX/Irix/HP-UX/...) for the most part and in many cases, the GNU commands have many more features. Solaris was created to work on Sun hardware, just as AIX works best on IBM hardware, Irix on SGI's and HP-UX on HP hardware. For x86 hardware, I'd go with Linux or some form of BSD (like FreeBSD, which OS X is based off of).

Carl

Grub, or "the GRand Unified Bootloader" is actually not a part of linux, it's an independent program to help you choose which OS to load when your computer boots. Which linux? There's not one, there's thousands.

I'd reccomend Linux over Solaris for a consumer PC, it can better accomadate finicky not-quite-compliant hardware. Solaris just plain wouldn't install on my old PC at home, Linux took a bit of tuning but worked.