UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello, this is my first time posting here. I'm starting (hopefully) to look into Unix or Unix-like OSs.

I have googled a little bit but have not found much. From what I hear you can either get a free Unix like OS like Linux or BSD right?

Then you can also get the commercial Unix?

Is there any advantage in getting the commercial one? If not is Linux then best choice for a Unix like system or are there others? Also which is the best Linux? Does it really matter?

Sorry for asking so many questions, and thanks for your time,
~Kcaz

Yes, examples are AIX, HP-UX, or Tru64. Thing is, most commercial Unices are tied to a certain Iron and not available without it. Also, most are only available with a support contract.

The biggest advantages are probably said support contracts, which can also extend to the hardware. So if you need a certain uptime and don't want to bother with the hardware or certain configuration problems, that's the way to go. Other than that, it largely depends on what you need.

Careful, here be flame-wars. The question on what is the best Unix depends on what you need. If you want to be able to customize/tinker with your system and are content with help from other users, get Linux or FreeBSD/NetBSD. If you want all that and very high security out-of-the-box, I'd suggest OpenBSD. If you want a free (as in speech) system with company support, check with Red Hat or Novell. If you need six sigma availability (or more) and/or real-time processing, go for Tru64. If your company has Solaris, start learning on OpenSolaris.

Ok thanks a lot.

Are Linux, FreeBSD, and NetBSD all very similar?

Thanks,
~kcaz

Some things are similar, others are not. For example, the command line utilities for both conform to the POSIX / SUSv2 standards, but both extend on that functionality, but not in the same way. Desktop environments like KDE or GNOME are available for both, and generally work the same. Disc partitioning is very different (Linux uses DOS-like partitions and the DOS partition label, while BSD uses slices and the associated label), and software management is very different even between different BSD and Linux distributions.

Hmm Ok I think I'll go with Linux because it's more popular. i tried Ubuntu once and a major downside was that it didn't support wireless networks.

Do any Unix's/Linux's support that?

I don't have a machine with wireless, so I can't give you any detailed information, but from what I gathered, Linux supports almost all chipsets out there. If you've got one from a major manufacturer like Intel, 3com, or Huawai it's pretty certain that it's supported. I even saw someone using an USB wireless adapter working out of the box.