Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 12:01:29 -0800 (PST) From: Charlie Roots <osiris2002@yahoo.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: My Story With Unix Message-ID: <19971221200129.5070.rocketmail@send1a.yahoomail.com>
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My Story With Unix
------------------
DISCLAIMER:
-----------
I hereby disclaim any resposibility for any damage to your system
caused by following
or applying the contents of this document, this document is considered
as a personal
experience of the author, and by no means should the document be
considered a guideline
or a professional help in unix, internet or anything else, read and
implement at your
own risk. The author should never be held responsible for any errors
found in this
document or for any consequences that may happen to anyone by
applying, interpreting
or misinterpreting this document.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Document Header:
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Author: Charlie Roots.
Age: 34 yrs.
Email: osiris2002@yahoo.com
Last modified: 1997-DEC, 21
Status: Persons, Events & Dates in this story are REAL.
Version: 0.0.1
Category: Long Essay
Header Style: Verbose
Spell checker: None
Key words: Computing, Internet, Essay, Autobiography,
Unix, Networks
Operating Systems, System Administration,
Story, Charlie Roots.
News groups: sci.*, comp.*, society.*
Serial no.: 1997.11.25.001.MSWU (for document reference)
Chapters: 12
Format: US-ascii
Expected Responses: Flames, hate-mail, fan-mail, usenet, E-mail(s).
Jargon: +5 (assuming 10 degrees scale)
Readability: +16 yrs. (assuming good IQ)
Rating: Child and Family-friendly.
Editor: Unix Cockpit Built-in Editor.
Display: Formatted on 80 characters-wide display.
Copyright Status: None, just don't claim you wrote it.
Dedication: To THE INTERNET COMMUNITY.
Purpose: Helping people going form DOS to UNIX,
Education,
Sharing Experinces, Autobiography.
Published Via: Network News.
Handling: Distribute Freely.
Size: 36 KB
N0. of Lines: 605
_______________________________________________________________________________________
I- Chapter One: Its Never Too Late.
-----------------------------------------------
I-1. Introduction:
------------------
Starting my first internet connection was my real start of learning
new things that I
could not find in books, libraries, school, university, or even on the
streets.
My story with Unix operating system started from the net, and to the
net I must
give back, credit, help, and this story.
I was the first among my friends to start the ultimate step in having
a connection
with the net, not so long ago, me and one of my friends got a trial
account in one
of the commercial services in the US, and man was that great fun. We
started then in
1993 to feel the thrill of being online, with places and people
physically so far away
from us, located at the other end of the world, and we began enjoying
the feeling of
installing a newly downloaded file, and how sometimes the experience
is a pleasure, and
how other times its pure pain.
When you are downloading a 5 MB zip at 2400 kbps, you really get a
pain in the neck,
and may be in other places too, but most surprisingly, we often did
that, and
waited and waited ages for the file to come, praynig that the DAEMONS
don't curse that
file on its way to our pieceful corner of the world, and praying that
the, not so remote,
possibility of a power failure, or a system CRASH, would have a
permanent finger print
on our head-hair.
But to be honest with you, the NEW ERA, then, of being online was
un-beatably forcing
us on daily basis, to hook up the phone line over 5 hours, with GIGA
phone bills in the
end, and being online became a real obsession.
The kind of services available these days were kind of simple, I mean
no fancy
GUI interface, just plain old BBS style text menus, that you select
from by entering
a character or a digit on your keyboard. But you know just like
Shamoon and Bumpa
told Simba, "slimy yet satisfying" [from the masterpiece Lion King].
I mean then we
were in the dark ages, AOL has not been started yet, or was just
gearing up, but the
Masters of these days were compuserve. These guys really knew what
they were doing.
Few months later they even were, I think, the first online service to
provide internet
gateway. GENIE on the other hand was more geared up, not for the
average user, but if
you were a specialist in some kind of administrative, business, or
even medical fields,
you would surely select them as your service provider. Later, Genie
introduced E-mail gateway to the internet, thus opening the window a
little more
for its people to have a look, even remotely, over the BEAST.
The most amazing thing is that all today's top ranking services on the
net had their
equivalents in these dark ages, MUDs for example, were there. You
download a piece of
software to you local machine, and then install it, run it, and Hoopla
, you connect to
the server, and TRY to play in a multiplayer atmosphere, with players,
physically
separated by hundreds or thousands of miles, (1 mile = 1.6 Km I think).
The real problem then was the ugly bandwidth, if you were caught
red-handed with a
modem faster than 9600, you may have been assasinated by envious eyes,
but not that only,
these old fashioned now services, would NOT connect you with speeds
higher than 9600,
they even dedicated special dialup lines with different phone numbers
than the rest
of the 'VOLKS', and charged these FAT CATS at higher rates.
Sometime later, some genius started a GUI front end for that BBS style
menu system,
and man it worked, with some glitches though, but it was great fun.
The things we were
downloading these days were mostly MICROSOFTies, like windows 3.1
utilities, VB 3.0
VBXes, which helped me alot in a Project under Visual Basic, called
The Nutrition Assist
that I was doing for commercial use. So the fun was more than ever
with introduction
of the GUI, later on all online services introduced thier own GUIs and
everyone was
happy.
I am not an expert in the internet, and I can't tell you at that time
what was the
internet bussy doing, but it was there and every single service
online, was introducing
different kinds of internet gateways, some full access like
compuserve, and later on the
GIANT AOL which started as a GIANT baby or a BABY giant, some like
GEnie started
putting up survays on their network for their users to tell them is it
TIME-MONEY
worth it to get a full access service or they prefer to stick with the
email gateway
only. Apparently our Free trial account had expired before we know
the results of this
survay, but even though, I can tell you with confidence that it was a
big YES to the
full access.
I-2. Something Went Right:
------------------------------
We were back in our cell, with no window on the modern world. Then we
realized that
something was wrong, but the fact was we were cut off. Each of me and
my friend went
to our business, I went to my Master Degree, not in computers, and he
to his job.
We were hooked then with Micorosoft, that was really taking us slowly,
but surely,
forwards. Windows 3.11 for Workgroups was just released, and we were
introduced to
few trivial now, concepts of networking, workgroups, postoffices, etc.
The good thing is when Microsoft Office 6.0 was released, me and my
friend were
gathered again for the digging into the new suite, and we discoverd
some very interesting
tricks, and we did a nice job on office applications, and I learned
Microsoft Word
at the same time that I was writing my Master Degree essay, being one
of the MILLION
users that shifted from Word Perfect to Word when word 6.0 was
released. Now the fun
was back again, with great difference though. One day I was entering
my friends' office
and here he was customizing the colors of word in 256 color mode,
selecting certain
blue color instead of the ugly grey, and yes we were flying again in
adventure.
The integration of the MS apps was good, I grabbed some DDE code from
here and there,
understood what was all that about, and bingo, implement in my NOW
GIANT project,
Nutrition Assist. It was great, I mean programming it was great, I
would never give
that openion of a project I personally wrote myself. The project
implemented DDE
within its basic file operations, Connected to its native MS Access
database, and many
other features, and the customers really liked it.
On my way of learning, I some times open some old books in my library
that were never
read before, although I bought some years ago, and may not have had
the time or the
brains to read. One of these OLD GOLDIES was a really old book, The
Design Of Unix
operating System. I was never before a Unix guy, but the story of
buying that specific
book deserves mentioning. One day I was travelling by train, and
enjoyed one little nap,
of these I dore in trains, and the moment I woke up and openend my
eyes, there was a man
passing by me, and there it was in his hand, I rapidly grabbed the
name from an attractive
looking white cover, with blue text, and I don't know why I felt that
this book will play
some role in my life. Then I decided to buy it, and I did. But it
remained for years
over that shelf, covered up with dust, as was my brain I think.
To tell you the truth, the circumstances were against this kind of
adventure. First of
all I am a practical guy, how would I read, understand, and implement
something I am
supposed to learn by reading an operating system design book, with out
practicing it
on a unix machine, how would I get a unix on a pc, in these days.
So what I really needed is a power machine with a power commercial
unix, but frankly
this is way too far from my financial bandwidth.
In the following years, we have witnessed a MAJOR advancement in high
tech. and we have
watched some numbers fly like this;
[modem speed] 2400 --> 9600 --> 14400 --> 28800 --> 33600 --> ??
[cpu power] XT --> 286 AT --> 386-33 --> 386-40 amd --> 486 --> 486x2
--> 486x4 -->
P5-75 --> 90 --> 133 --> 166 --> 200 --> P6-200 --> ????
while our brains kept flying like this ;
[ram] 4 --> 8 --> 16 --> 32 --> 64 --> 128 --> ???
and our attic grew wider like this;
[hd] 10 --> 40 --> 100 --> 170 --> 250 --> 300 --> 500 --> 1 GB --> 2
GB --> 3 --> 4 --> ?
That was the right thing that happened, old hardware was the real
handicap. My friend
started few months earlier, not so long ago by the way, with an XT, I
followed few months
later ,in early summer 1990 with an AT-286, no HD, 512 kb mem, CGA
video card,
and no mouse. PERIOD.
How do you achive an ambition on systems like this, how would you run
unix on this junk.
But good old DOS ,3.3 then, helped us figuring out what was the
iron-maden things
called COMPUTERS.
When I look back in the past few years, I know now that this stage was
needed to let us
know how to resttle an angry machine, or install a software way below
its minimum
hardware requirements, these years made us a little bit more robust,
and helped to
emphasize one concept,that is, things won't just always be favourable,
in fact they
may never be, yet we have to fight our way though the misty way to
reach our final
destination. A lesson in life that these manifactuerers taught us
with out intention.
When the things became ok in hardware, the greedy software just asked
for more, and
when windows 95 was released a hardware upgrade was inevitable. In
fact MS did us a
favour by obligating us to get rid of our old rusty 386 and 486 junk
before its too late.
By doing so we now have power machines at home standby to really do
some beasty stuff
when needed.
A special thanks here would go to PC MAGAZINE for excellent reviews,
and guidance.
I-3. The Ultimate Connection:
--------------------------------
All that time our previous experience with online services has always
been in our minds
and the thrill was deeply missed. 1996 was the GOLDEN YEAR, we simply
did it finally,
and had the ultimate connection with the internet.
Few months earlier, we baught a satellite receiver system at home, and
as a NEWS LOVER,
I watched CNN and NBC all the time, and there it was, as expected to
be, a milestone of
modern civilization, TV programmes about the net, or TV audiance
sharing in programmes
from all over the world by E-mail LIVE, the temptations and the
propaganda were really
at thier highest, I just could not resist anymore.
Being aware of the implications, economical and social I decided to
put one thing
in my consideration, I will get connected, if it was the last thing I
do.
When anyone gets an internet connection, usually nothing in his life
would all of you say
will change, but to me it created a MAJOR attraction and successfully
distracted me
away from anything else, and I mean anything, I am an internet addict.
I feel that I can't live a day without emailing, usenetting,
downloading, browsing
(I hate the word surfing as it implies a superficial attitude in the
way of seeing things,
right, otherwise you would really be DIVING).
II- Chapter Two: Please Help.
------------------------------------
II-1. Kissing Windows Goodbye:
--------------------------------
When I first got my password ,(I wont tell it though, but it may help
you crack it
if I tell you its 8 characters), form my ISP I knew nothing about the
net, in essence,
I have heard alot, saw alot about it, but never experienced it.
The IP, DNS, and other native internet terms were really new to me,
remember I am an
amateur, learning a little bit by a litle bit as needed, so it took me
a couple of days
to understand how that stuff really worked, windows 95 helped alot
making it an easy
job to connect with out brain storming, especially for the newbie that
came alive
again.
As I told you before, I like learning on my own like many of you, and
I usually buy
a couple of books, to take me by hand from the crawling stage to the
UP and RUNNING stage.
I asked my ISP for a tip, and he was a real gentleman, he recommended
what will be one
of the most resourceful and nicely written books I have ever read.
Internet Secrets
by Jhon R. Levine & Carl Baroudi and many other authors, published by
IDG Books, and
INFOWORLD in 1994, here's some words from the back cover, and they are
FOR REAL.
NB: I am not advertizing the book here, I am not connected to these
authors, or publishers.
"Here's your key to becoming a power internet user, Internet Secrets
is powered with
expert tips from the hottest inet authors....."
The book covers litterally every thing to get you started whatever
your platfrom
and whatever you operating system, tips for windows, mac, unix, and os2.
Pointers to client software you will need to be a power user, and
pointers to server
software and documentation that you may need to start serving yourself
for the net, and
may one day become an ISP yourself. The book gradually transfers you
from the NEWBIE state
to the NEWBIE GURU state, with no pain, at least you nowk know where
your steps are going,
and whose neck is under your feet (most probably yours !!).
The book says it is targeted for intermediate to advanced users, but
if your IQ is ok
you will find over 90 % of the book is easy to digest.
After digging for some time in the 980 pages book, I can now see
things much better, and
interact with inet much more efficiently, grabbing every now and then
some of the software
pointed at in the book, be warned that some pointers may change, for
example a file with
the name ircd-104.zip may now have become ircd105.arj or something
more or less close to
the name pointed at, but mostly the file is on the server, may be in
another directory
or another compression format, don't worry, if you can't find it do a
search on it, if
it is still manufactured, and or supported by the
author/vendor/programmer you will
find it. I also found a lot of user/administrator information on unix
in this masterpiece.
One of the first things that I downloaded over the net was Netscape
Navigator, it is a
piece of fine art software that will make your life as a user a lot
more fun and easy.
All the time I was browsing over the net the 4-charaters word ending
with x kept popping
up from everywhere, soon enough I discovered that internet is
backboned by 'unix' and
so inside out. I got curious more than ever due to the following;
(PRIORITY ORDERED)
1. Now I have better hardware (makes you confident of the ability to
get what you want)
2. I heard rumers of pc-oriented unix (don't forget that unix was
never a pc OS when invented)
3. I heared rumers of a Free unix (don't forget that commerical
versions really cost)
4. I heared that it is on the NET (remember that I like downloads ?)
5. I needed a new adventure in hands. (Don't we all ?)
6. Windows 95 seemed a little challenge, and I got fed up with the
[CLOSE] [IGNORE] trap
which actually ignores your clicks on the [IGNORE] button, and
Closes the system into
a system crash when you click [CLOSE] button, or when you don't.
(once you are there, you are OUT).
finally the white-covered (train) book came to surface again.
II-2. The Hunt:
-----------------
One lucky evening while the hungry LION is searching for the DEAR, I
entered the following
in YAHOO search, "Free Unix", and I end up with a list of hits on the
word Free,
and hits on the word Unix, after a few clicks, I got the strangely
written word,
FreeBSD.
As a Microsoftian I have never heard about the three magic letters BSD
before in my life,
yet, Free, was serious enough to encourage a mouse click in that
direction. What
actually went that evening is that I have just put my hands on a link
that will change many
things, and will make other things never to look like they were
before. What really
happened is that I found my MEAL, the long lost+found one.
Starting at http://www.freebsd.org was easy enough to find my way to
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org and I found myself downloading, and downloading
forever, hundreds
of small files about 250,000 KB each from different directories, and
although the download
was long, the Idea of me getting a unix on my machine was stunning,
although no
confirmation that this software will run or even install on my machine
was available.
As a completely new thing, I broke one of my habbits with software,
which is, dig in
and find everything a little bit at a time yourself, and by trial and
error, then
consult documentation only when you are really stuck, or if you want
extra features
later. Although many of you may consider it a bad habit, but I like
doing things the
hard-way most of the time, I find pleasure in understanding the stuff
on my own without
the documentation baby-sitting me, and most of the time this technique
works for me.
But I do not recommend it for anyone except the really adventurous,
because what you
may find by resttling with the software for few hours, days, weeks,
you may find in
the first few lines of documentation, then you'll know what a real
GOOFY you were.
Understanding that I am getting ready to learn Chinese for the first
time, I decided
to act as polite as the first grade pupil, yet they do not come so
polite these days
anymore. I started reading some documentation, some *.txt and *.html
and here it was
a confirmation that this OS will behave good on my machine, and I was
relieved.
II-3. The Dark Room:
----------------------
For an absolute newbie in UNIX, I was watching very well where my
steps are going,
and avoided skipping sections in docs, my habit, or being hassled by
the desire to
get up and running quickly, I took some time to understand how in the
world am I
supposed to install on a single hard disk, that already contained
data, which were
not expendible in any way, and I can't afford to loose Un-backed few
years' work.
[NO MONEY MAN.. NO MONEY, aka, NO HONEY.]
The docs repeatedly insisted on BAKCUP EVERYTHING before procedding,
but actually
I was not ready for 2.1 GB backup then, since I had no CDROM then, or
a BACKUP DRIVE.
I just kept my eyes open, walking carefully enough to avoid
unrecoverable disaster.
A note here worths menioning, that I became so close to the point of
disaster on
several occasions, and this technique is potentially very harmful.
The first real magic piece of software was a tiny utility called
fips.exe which
helped me to section my exsisting hard disk into 2 separate partitions
without
hurting the exsisting data, then I was ready for the installation.
The installation was fairly a straight forewards one, with the
exception of that part
the asks for the hard disk geometry, which if given wrong will yield
the installation
un-usable, I did it wrong 3 times, and re-installed the entire system
3 times until
I found out what was wrong, and gave it the right numbers, and BINGO,
we were on the
right direction. From reading the FAQs I found out that this
particular problem
was giving many people a hard time, and I am not alone, this really
helped since I
started to feel for a moment that I did not have the minimum IQ figure
for running or
even installing unix, and I should keep on bieng a Miscrosoftian.
Once this UGLY
problem was solved, the rest of setup is kind of interesting, because
it reminded me
with good old DOS programs the enter low resolution graphics mode, and
give you
a false GUI look and feel. This gave me some confidence that I am not
entering
another galaxy, in fact, we are still home.
Once the installation was done, and I rebooted into the FreeBSD, I
mean Unix partition,
I felt like someone has closed my eyes, or like I have entered a DARK
ROOM.
Suddenly the Power user I used to be has vanished into thin air, and I
found my self
completely disoriented, and lost. I could not see Floppy Dirves,
Printer, the other
partition, even the files or directories, I did not know even how to
reboot the
system safely, in fact I was COMPLETELY BLIND.
II-3. Dilating The IRIS:
--------------------------
I decided to QUIT unix for some time and get serious help, I payed my
ISP a visit,
to pay the monthly fees, and gently asked for another tip. The man
was an angel, and
he liked my attitude of digging into something like this on my own, so
he most
generously gave me the only copy he's got of his own DEC-OSF1 system
manual , that was
really driving our network, with strong confirmations from my side the
it will be a very
short borrow, and I'll take very good care of it.
I went home, and started eating the papers of that manual, and took a
few notes,
I now know how to ls to dir, and how to pwd to cd. Simple commands
frequently
short-hand style, but gives you what you want. Two days later, I gave
the man his
manual with all the required thanks, and apreciation.
I started practicing the new commands, but now I know it needed more
than this to really
see things the way they were. I decided to grab some html education
on the net,
and here it was lying for the hungry, and I downloaded a lot of very
helpfull docs
over the net, and did some home work, suddenly my eyes were opened,
and the IRIS has
dilated.
To Microsoftians, Unix is kind of strange, when you boot DOS-WINDOZ
systems, you never
worry about the basic system components being detected or not, because
unless you do
some rational stuff, the OS will most probably identify, you
computer's components,
and even things like CDROMS, printers, scanners, sound cards, are
easily installed,
as they come with disks labelled as DOS-DRIVERS, WINDOWS3.1 DRIVERS,
WIN 95 DRIVERS,
and WINDOWS NT DRIVERS. In Unix, especially these Net-Distributed
Types, there's
nothing labelled UNIX DRIVERS, and even your floppy drives will be in
NON-OPERATIONAL
mode when you boot a freshly installed system, this will definitely
confuse previous
Micrsoftians like me, and you may sometimes think that unix is stupid,
because you can't
even access a simple floppy, despite the system identified it at boot
time and gave
you a clear message that the harware was found and identified in a
most verbose manner,
a way you are not used to, giving the type, vendor name, irqs and
everything about the
hardware device, things you even never knew before although the same
device was sitting
for years in your room.
It took me sometime to find out that UNIX mounts this kind of devices,
using the mount
command, and you have to read the manual page for mount to get the
exact command correct,
then you are supposed to know how to invoke the manual page using the
man command.
Now I figured out the spirit of unix, small pieces here and there to
get a monster,
just like a building formed of small bricks, the entire system is
linked together.
The amazing thing that I found later, is that you don't have to
manually remount every
single media device you have everytime you boot, but instead there is
a file called
fstab in the /etc directory that can do that job for you every boot.
The implications of this simple finding were so great and un-believable.
So unix is a completely automated system, and can do much much more
than just
automating the process of mounting media at boot time, infact an
advanced user
on unix can let the system run and administer itself for quite a long
time with out
baby-sitting, and with utmost efficiency. The second most amazing
thing is that unix
can mount entire drives as READ-ONLY or READ-WRITE as required, and it
shows you the
mounted partitions as ordinary directories, a thing WIN-DOS users find
most strange.
Another very serious implication of the /etc/fstab, was that I then
knew that I could
damage the system, or put in un-bootable, or un-usable state, not with
a single line
and not with a single word, but with only one very wrong character, in
the very wrong
position or the very wrong file will do the system, aka, make its REAL
day, a final
very bezzare implication of this was that the whole system is
maintained and configured
via plain TEXT files, and you can edit any and change any, even with
the system running,
without any complaints by the system, that this file is in use or
being locked.
Later on, I discovered that the Freely available Unix types come with
the FULL source
code for the entire system, and if you have the knowledge to do so,
you can modify the
system itself, or even make a new unix out of it, even the KERNEL,
that actually boots
the DEAD METAL into an intelligent operating system, is available as a
bunch of files,
that you will for sure one day edit and recompile the kernel to
identify new hardware,
or other hardware not enabled by default kernel.
The great thing is that unix is a very robust system, and does not
break easily,
its just you may not have the enough knowledge or tools needed to
recover from a
real disaster, or even a small glitch, so if get stuck, ask an expert
before doing
a re-install especially if you have unsaved data that you will loses
if you choose to
re-install. I kept the unix system free of DATA for over six months,
and all I had
on the Unix partition was the unix programs that I've already saved in
compressed format
on the DOS partition, but this has changed after I had more knowledge
of the system, and
now being stable for over another six months, with all kinds of data
safely sitting.
This has further changed since I got my new CDROM, and backing up all
data and compressed
files on CDROMs with the help of a friend having a re-writable CD.
II-4. Confused ? Have Some More:
----------------------------------
You will stay in a state of confusion for sometime when you make your
BIG MOVE from
WIN-DOS to Unix, and you will find many things completely new to you.
/dev for
example was one of the first things that attracted my attention as a
unix newbie,
the strange thing is that this particular directory contains a lot of
files that
are ZERO BYTE, ie empty in MS world and can safely be deleted. But,
if you do that
most probably you will live to regret it. These zero byte files are
NOT files,
and they are NOT directories too, they are DEVICE SPECIAL FILES, that
the system uses
to deal with I/O from and to all system devices, for example, tty,
cuaa, are serial
devices, and without these, no mouse, no modem, no dial in, no dial
out, more
side effects, and programs complaining, and system crashing, etc.
The concept of manually removing a file that seems un-important should
be abandond in
unix world, which many of us previous Microsoftians heavily
implemented in DOS world
as many stupid, or intelligent, programs leave uncleaned swap and temp
files, and since
we try to be clean all the time, we are used to del *.*, FORGET THIS
command if you ever
want to live piecefully with your new neighbour.
More confusion comes from the unix deals with partitions and
harddisks. In a typical
unix installation, the system creates BASIC FOUR partitions;
/ root partition
/usr usr partition
/var var partition
swap swap partition
/ , /usr, and /var appear as ordinary directories, but if you really
want to see some
action issue the df command and see what is really going on at boot
time, you will
find many of the strange looking things in /dev mount as partitions,
and the partitions
looking like ordinary directories, and if you want more confusion
issue the following
command, and read, man ccd. ccd is the concatenated disk driver, that
can make more
than one partition or more than one disk to appear as a single
partition, which also
will look infact like any other directory on the system.
What power these geniuses have provided in unix, and what a waste of
time dealing
with WIN-DOS for the past seven years.
II-5. Piping, Echoing, Moring amd More Similarities:
------------------------------------------------------
>From time to time you will encounter a similarity in name and function
between unix
and WIN-DOS programs and concepts. The truth is that most of these
things originated in
the unix world far back in history before DOS even existed, and this
helps the newcommer
to feel less strange in the new world.
Unix counterparts are by definition more robust, more secure, more
efficient, faster, and
more powerful than their dos siblings. In fact since the original
unix developed in
the late 1960s, it was made of small utilities that combined together
produced a robust
and powerful system, this should not be over-emphasized here, just
take a look at any
unix shell script and try to do some man page study, to understand the
script, and you
will get the picture.
II-6. Inside your Egg Shell:
------------------------------
Shells
unix shells available
similarities with dos concept of shell
III- GMC, HONDA, FERRARI, ROYCE, and BENZ, lets all make one car:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
III-1. Satisfaction or Your Money BACK:
----------------------------------------
One of the first things that strike you when you get into the unix
world is the absolute
diversity of the flavours that is called unix. Many vendors, both
commercial and
non-profit do nothing in life but produce these beasts. And you start
wondering what
is that behind all this, why not simply uniting in some conference or
convetion and put
a standard once and for all. But by saying this you have really done
two things, and
may be more.
first, you forgot that even DOS came initially from different vendors,
remember IBM-DOS (PC-DOS), DR-DOS, MS-DOS, and even Norton tried once
to put his NDOS.
Second, this will be exactly as if you say, GMC, HONDA, FERRARI,
ROYCE, and BENZ,
lets all make one car. But this by all means is impossible, since
each vendor is making
his own car or OS and making money from being different than the
others in a way or another
and the user or the consumer loves and gets hooked on one of these,
and it is very difficult
to make him shift. Its PURE MONEY that is driving different vendors
to implement things
in different ways, that is from his openion better than the rest,
otherwise he will be
stupid not to implement as the others did.
Even a newbie like me finds it an annoying idea to shift from FreeBSD
to Linux, and other
peolple on the linux side see it as a bad idea to shift to FreeBSD.
This is true even
more within the commercial world, as an ISP is really hooked on his
vendor to supply
patches and upgrades, for more than one reason, trust, security,
discounts, you name it.
Another factor is many of the commercial vendors, especially SUN
Microsystems, HP and
Digital Equipements Corp., tailor their unix implementation to
specific HARDAWARE that
they produce, and simply won't run at ease on other platforms of
hardware.
III-2. DO I Have BBS Brakes in MY CAR:
---------------------------------------
Missing files, and programs in some systems
Dependancies make compilation fail, or programs crippled, or bad looking
III-3. Lets Get Married:
-------------------------
Inter-OS support
FreeBSD compatibiity layer with linux -very good user/devel
FreeBSD Compatibility Layer with DOS -emu 8088
FreeBSD Compatibility Layer with Windows 3.1 , 95 -wine
Unix running under WIN-DOS from the original vendors AT&T -uwin
IV- Peter Sellers in After The Fox:
---------------------------------------
Unix Security.
COPS
SATAN
TCP_Wrappers
Firewalls
Passwords <------------------------weakest point
Password Crackers
Brute Force Attacks
File and Directory Access Mode
BigBrother
Cryptography
Trojan Horses, Viruses, Worms, (and Fungus)
V- Peter Sellers in The Party:
-----------------------------------
Little Indian / Big Indian
Unix is a developer Platform.
Compiling Source Code For the system
Compiling Source Code for the applications and Daemons.
VI- Make Sure you Learn JAVA :
---------------------------------
VI-1. Cross platform languages for universal projects:
--------------------------------------------------------
One of the most successful language of the late 90s and the future to
come is JAVA.
I figured this out when I ported my HTML docs from Windows 95 World to
Unix World,
and I want to tell you that the code that was written in JAVA worked
exactly the same
on both sides right out of the box, with no modifications what so ever.
If you are seriuos about the Internet and the future, make sure you
learn java. Another
extremely efficient and powerful language is perl, which can run
seemlessly in both worlds.
If you are a real GUI fan have a very close look at TCL/TK package
which will shock you
with the quality, speed, and beauty of applications developed with it.
VII- The Daemons Curse, and The Curses:
------------------------------------------
Servers on typical unix
More Servers From inet
Unix Libraries
Where are Unix DLLs -------> loadable kernel modules, and shared
libraries
VIII- DOOM, BOOM, and All That JAZZ:
--------------------------------------
Games for unix
Simple yet intelligent (Fortune)
Advanced , Multimedia, joystick, Mouse, X-window Games (Doom, Quake)
MUDs
IX- Multiuser, MuliTasking by Default:
------------------------------------------
ps
w
who
talk
irc
login:
X- The X-Window:
---------------------
The Concept of a Window Manager
What Window Managers Are There
The KDE is The BEST
Grabbing Motif
Connecting over X-window
Font Server
Xdm and Xwindow security
XI- Databases:
------------------
XII- Applications Make you Productive - GRAB THESE:
------------------------------------------------------
The BEST unix application by category - that compile nicely on FreeBSD
Pointers to their location on the net
ports/packages collection
RedHat Linux RPM
Applications Won't compile on FreeBSD and are needed.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Table Of Contents:
------------------
I- Chapter One: Its Never Too Late
1. Introduction
2. Something Went Right
3. The Ultimate Connection
II- Chapter Two: Please Help
1. Kissing Windows Goodbye
2. The Hunt
3. The Dark Room
4. Confused ? Have Some More
5. Piping, Echoing, Moring amd More Similarities
6. Inside your Egg Shell
III- GMC, HONDA, FERRARI, ROYCE, and BENZ, lets all make one car
1. Satisfaction or Your Money BACK
2. DO I Have BBS Brakes in MY CAR
3. Lets Get Married
IV- Peter Sellers in After The Fox
V- Peter Sellers in The Party
VI- Make Sure you Learn JAVA
1. Cross platform languages for universal projects
VII- The Daemons Curse, and The Curses
VIII- DOOM, BOOM, and All That JAZZ
IX- Multiuser, MuliTasking by Default
X- The X-Window
XI- Databases
XII- Applications Make you Productive - GRAB THESE
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Index Of Copyrights, and Trademarks:
-------------------------------------
MS: Microsoft Inc.
IBM: International Business Machines
ZD: Ziff Davis
Pentium: Intel
AMD:
DOS, Windows 3.1, 3.11 WFW, 95, NT: MS
AIX: IBM
DEC: Digital Equipment Corp.
Unix AT&T
PC MAGAZINE ZD
CNN: Cable News Network
NBC:
YAHOO:
Microsoftians: An Alien Race that started to
appear sometime
between DOS-3.1 and
Windows-3.1 D.C.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FINAL NOTE:
If you like this doc, if you hate it, send me mail, and say hello.
Any criticism, comments, corrections, and advice are most welcome,
and try to be nice.
==
MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU.
_________________________________________________________
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