UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I have 6 extra hard drives and want to install them in my boxes and run UNIX, LINUX andyes M$ Winblows. How do I make it so i have the choice of which HD to boot from? Also, which UNIX distribution should i run to get aquainted with it, and wheres the best place to get it? Thank you very much if you replied. Can't wait to learn it.



r1sk

Asking which Unix (should I learn / use / buy ) is a bit like asking which car is the best: Everyone has their own opinion, and none of them are really right.

Most "free" distributions of Unix (Linux, BSD, etc...) have some sort of multi-boot loader avalable with them. Linux has several that work pretty well, once you get the config just right.

If you really want 3 different OS's, MY opinion would be Linux, FreeBSD, and Windows.

"Unix" as a product died years ago - now it's generally acceptable to call a Unix-like OS Unix, so technically Linux and FreeBSD are both Unix.

Have fun!

LivinFree is exactly right.. the options are endless, but just about any brand of Linux you buy today will come with a boot loader (LILO/GRUB) which will be installed with the OS... It should recognize your other OSes on the other drives and do the work for you..

Personally, I don't know why you'd want two different brands of Unix (Linux=Unix as LivinFree stated) so I'd personally just stick with a version of windows and maybe Mandrake or Red Hat or even FreeBSD.

That's just my opinons.

we'll ive got this configuration on one machine, just to try things out:

Solaris 8 (www.sun.com/solaris)
FreeBSD 4.4 (www.freebsd.org)
Slackware 8 (www.slackware.org)
Win 2k

It works just fine, i installed it on 4 different partitions of one drive, after that i installed a freeware boot-loader and it worked out just fine.

The taste of *nix you want is like said above, it's like a car. Personally i don't like windows, it's like driving in a brand new ferrari with a fiat motor. So a nix version is beter in my case.....

if you wan't to learn a unix taste e.g. freebsd there are a lot of books which can help you, or www.google.com

regards

For multi-booting you can use LILO (with Linux), NT Loader (with NT) or a third party utility.

I have used SystemCommander in the past with great success.

Example:

A friend gave me a 2 gig SCSI drive with a 2940UW/W controller. I put it into my machine and booted. SystemCommander automatically recognized that the new drive had UnixWare and automatically setup a boot icon in the selection menu. I was quite happy with the results.

These days, I just use removable IDE trays on my machines. I can get them at the Saturday Sale in Dallas for $10 for tray and 5 1/2 inch bay. I just swap the HDs and reboot.

It also helps when somebody else brings over a HD that I need to retrieve data from. I put it into a tray and reboot and can access data.

Most excellent!

Thanks guys, I'll get right to work! Onward to information!