UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

i am a total newbie...and want to learn unix....firstly...how do i get unix....if it is available on the internet then where is it?...and how do i get this to work then.....plz plz help asap...really desperate now thanx in advance

chaitanyamanot, first up, the rules. No posting your email address in your posts. Secondly, use proper english. No cyberchat style posts.
I have removed the email address from your post. See the rules for more.

Before downloading/installing, find out more about unix/Linux from the internet. You can search on google. There are also several distributions of Linux that are freely available for download.
Ubuntu, Debian, Suse, Redhat Fedora.

You can go to these sites and see what Linux is all about.

If you are interested in 'unix', go for
OpenSolaris, FreeBSD.

Remember, google is your best source for all information. If you face any specific problems while installing/working with Linux/unix, you can post those questions on these forums (fora!).

Also, the various operating systems here are not the only ones available. There are many more...

Sorry about the email id.

I did however take your suggestion and looked all morning over the internetfor a way to somehow get unix on my home computer.
I searched using google and yahoo, but with no avail , as either my inexperiance regarding even the slightest of technical terms or the fact that i got bumped back into an array of tutorials (for free by the way) got me further tangled up.

As i have literally no one to talk to about this subject, accompanied by my desperation to somehow learn unix, (for college,which has not begun) i ask again ; how must i get this to work.

[do i need linux to work on unix ? i have a software called ubuntu, but prefer windows.
ok-this might seem weird-but i had seen someone using unix (every line starts with a dollar) and he worked using telnet.(dont know what that is)

Please let me know how to get this to work, or where exactly do i download this (if it is downloadable) and that how do other people use this os.

Thanx.

Actually, the Ubuntu that you have, is actually a GNU/Linux based operating system. I am using that right now as I am writing this post! That is probably the closest that you can get to actual Unix servers (atleast for now).
Start using the ubuntu that you have. Once you get into Ubuntu, look for an application that says 'Terminal' or something to that effect. This will take you to what is known as the command line. You will find that the lines all start with #, $ or %. That is the prompt. Thiat's where you do a large amount of your work with unix or Linux.

Another thing, get a good tutorial from the FAQs for an introduction to unix shell. And get another for shell programming. That is how you can start. You can think about C programming and systems administration later.

UNIX is an operating system the same way a conceptual drawing is an airplane. You're going to have a hard time installing UNIX the same way you'd have a hard time flying a conceptual drawing. There are many, many OSes built to this design. Some are free, some are not, some are very close to the standard, some are not.

If you wanna start fast and right get "UNIX Essentials and UNIX Core" DVD
you can get one from unixacademy.com or from Amazon

Well, hold up, what about NetBSD (netbsd.org), FreeBSD (freebsd.org), and OpenBSD (openbsd.org), they're unix, not linux and of course, free and easy to get.