Different PC unices have different levels of hardware support. Is your machine exotic or very old, or very new top-of-the-line? Try live CDs from -- unimaginatively rattling off the ones I personally use -- Ubuntu, Fedora, and Knoppix. Linux, of course, is not "real Unix" by any definition; FreeBSD or some other BSD variant might be preferable if you are strict on that.
Hard to help with the man pages without more information. You can find the manual pages on the web as well, if you have trouble bringing them up on your local machine. Try the "man" and "intro" manual pages for a start. Quick googling turned up
Solaris 10 Reference Manual Collection