UNIX Desktop Questions & Answers

Hello-

I talked to a friend the other day....he said learning Linux is a boon to my Windows Server Support career. I know linux comes from Unix so I am wondering if I should start by learning Unix. I have a MAC with OSX on it that I can use. Will this work for learning line command? My goal is to go into Unix administration involving SANS and NAS's. And security and programming would also be nice as well. Where do I start? I don't have money for school or books.....but I do have a drive and desire. Hell I got my A+ and MCSA without setting foot in a classroom. So where should I start? Is my MAC(older POWER PC) good enough? I can always use a spare PC for a dostro of Linux to run on. What should my options be?

thx
Andy

I would recommend you testing out linux distros, setting them up either using a spare PC or vmware/virtualbox solution.
If OSX is good enough, depends on what your planning to use your *nix skills for, what systems you want to work with etc.
A nice goal is to setup your home network, with fileserver, email server and router using only standar Unix and Linux distros like Opensolaris/Solaris, ubuntu, etc.

Atleast I learn very much from just playing with the systems and testing it, seeing whats differente and setting them up to do what I want.

For Solaris atleast, a good place to start finding documentasion is:
http://docs.sun.com/
And much good info about Solaris security can be found withing the JASS documentasion:
Solaris Security Toolkit