Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 12:27:42 -0700 (MST) From: ninjaz@webexpress.com To: "Keyes, Randall" <randall.keyes@jnli.com> Cc: "'questions@FreeBSD.org'" <questions@FreeBSD.org>, "'feedback@linux.com'" <feedback@linux.com> Subject: Re: I need to learn UNIX --- Free BSD or Linux? Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.1010111113550.16982A-100000@webexpress.com> In-Reply-To: <BlueList(Linux)_0.1.130(Alpa_Release_6)_Build_#0002686_979231769_650774@linux.com>
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Randall, Solaris x86 is almost exactly the same as Solaris/sparc in the commandset. The differences I've found are related to the PROM settings that sparc systems allow and that the video card settings are handled by a tool reminiscent of other x86 video card setup tools. If you want to truly get to learn Unix-type operating systems, I think both Linux and FreeBSD are excellent. Since they've got rich user communities, HOWTO's, Guides, websites with articles, and the tools they use tend to have full documentation (which you don't even need a PDF viewer for. ;) The differences between BSD and SysV are fairly small from the admin standpoint. The ones that spring to mind right now are: init scripts (what runs at startup) Linux distributions handle this in a variety of ways, some BSDish, some SysVish and some using the method Red Hat came up with in a moment of twisted humor. System commands - Linux allows you to use either SysV or BSD command-line switches with ps, BSD (as the name would suggest) uses the BSD style, and Solaris has its default ps (in /usr/bin) and a seperate ps in /usr/ucb/ In practice, this is the difference between using ps -ef or ps -aux. To see the system calls a program is making, this varies by OS: Solaris: truss Linux: strace FreeBSD: truss NetBSD: ktruss You'll find that some of the tools the proprietary unix operating systems ship with are a bit nasty. Eg., for a long time Solaris tar would choke on long filenames, and still won't use the 'z' switch to uncompress .tar.gz files on the fly. This is easily fixed by downloading tools from GNU, but whether your manager will allow you to install a bunch of GNU tools varies by environment. Packaging methods: Solaris uses Solaris packages for everything (including core system programs), FreeBSD has core system sets, much like Solaris, but it's not divided out into packages. FreeBSD does use packages for non-core softare, though (and ports, for the source code version of same). Linux varies by distribution. Package formats in Linux include rpm, deb, slp, and tgz. Of course, in any of them you can just compile stuff from source. Anyway, for a free Unix OS I would suggest using either a distribution of Linux which is not primarily aimed at former windows users (Debian at http://www.debian.org/ would fit the bill here) or FreeBSD. Regarding the Windows 2000 machine, I think the biggest hoop to jump through to get another OS going will be resizing its filesystem. There are free tools to resize filesystems for the DOS-based windows systems, but not for the OS/2-based ones (i.e., nt and 2000) You may have to use soemthing like Partition Magic (unless windows 2000 has its own resizer) -pete On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Keyes, Randall wrote: > Greetings! > > I need to learn UNIX for my employer. I intend to do this at home. I have > an 18-gig hard drive that I intend to install Windows 2000 server on as the > primary OS. I would also like to dual boot with either Linux or FreeBSD to > learn UNIX. > > Questions: > 1. In reality, which OS is closer to AIX/Solaris/other System V in > administration commands? > 2. Will your OS dual-boot with W2K Server? > > Thanks! > > > Randy Keyes > Network Services, JNL > randall.keyes@jnli.com > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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