Quote:
Originally Posted by
new214
Heya all Im just reading up on the solaris o/s and unix and i just have the following qustions
1) is the solaris o/s the same as Unix if not how are they different - i.e. are they different operating systems?
Solaris is a type of UNIX made by Sun Microsystems, it's kind of like Windows98 is a type of Windows (but in the case of Unix, several different groups have made their own Unix so my comparison is far from perfect, if you remember the DOS days, think about MSDOS vs PCDOS vs DRDOS)
Within Solaris you have different versions too, the common Solaris versions around right now are 9 and 10 (sometimes known as 2.9 and 2.10, also sometimes known as 5.9 and 5.10 - Sun aren't very good at sticking to a versioning system
).
AIX is another unix supplied by IBM, Linux is sort of Unix but is also different.
Digital Unix (aka Tru64) is supplied by HP (or is it compaq now?), IRIX for SGI's
FreeBSD (and other *BSD's) are generally free UNIX's maintained by the community as a whole with a few ringleaders keeping it organised.
etc etc
You get the idea anyway
Quote:
Originally Posted by new214
2) Can the Unix be loaded from CD without affectin windows o/s just like linux can?
It's just another OS, if you install Linux on a computer with windows, you'll most certainly affect windows but most versions of linux come with some clever tools to allow both OS's to coexist. You can use these tools to put all mannor of OS's on a system and choose what to boot each time you start up (Solaris included)
Quote:
Originally Posted by new214
3) what are the hardware requirements for using UNIX as I have 3.05 GHz and 124 mb of RAM?
If we're talking about Solaris x86 (ie Solaris for PC-style computers), you will probably have issues with RAM unless you go for an older version - I'd pick 2.6 or 2.8 for that machine (but don't know if you can get an x86 version of those). That said, you can limp by with a large swap volume (ie memory on disk) but it won't be quick.
Quote:
Originally Posted by new214
4) Can UNIX be used as a dual boot with windows?
Yes, but it probably won't do that by default. So tread carefully if you are trying to install onto an existing mechine and don't want to fry your installed OS. Solaris in particular is a tad tricky with this.