Newbie looking for a UNIX
boffy_b
migrate myself over to one of the free many Unicies which are around. I
have had GNU/Linux up and running in th form of a Knoppix hdinstall,
although I had constant problems with my modem driver, I was impressed
with th system as a whole, but I figure that most of what I saw as "th
system" was not th OS itself, but th software of top of it (X, KDE, OOo,
etc.), and I therefore figure that most software now compiles on most
Unicies.
One of th main problems I have had was the fear. In windows, I could use
it for simple things without thinking, so I got used to it, I found out
more and more, and eventually knew its ins and outs very well, and can
do pretty much whatever I need to/with it. When I started using
Knoppix(effectively Debian), I found that, whilst a lot of things can be
done through various semi-consistent tacked-on GUIs, and most anything
can be done from th shell, I wanted to just use it as my day-to-day
system first, without having to go into config files and re-start my GUI
just to change th screen resolution.
I need to be able to have it working and just *there*, so that I can
familiarise myself with it through use, and get to know it th same way I
got to know and love th quirky, bloated mess that is Win98se. Yes, I did
grow fond of all th little oddities, I grew to know which options had th
desired effect, which lied, and which did nothing at all, I came to have
a feel for how fresh th install has to be for a BSOD to actually be
recoverable short of going for th power. Windows became a good friend
and my worst nightmare, depending on its mood that day.
Now though, I am weary of having to use elaborate and fragile
workarounds to achieve the express purpose of certain features, and I
feel windows has grown weary of me demanding excessive reliability and
stamina from a 32-bit upgrade to a 16-bit frond-end to an 8-bit OS
written for a 4-bit processor by some 2-bit company which can't stand
one bit of competition. I need out.
I need somewhere to go to, I see UNIX, its power and its glory, its true
freedom, that is where I want to be. I started out this with th
intention of asking people to recommend a free(has to be all free
software, none of your RedHat here) UNIX which can run most free UNIX
software(read: all free software which runs on gnu/linux, I believe
NetBSD is quite good at that?). Pardon th unnecessary lengthiness, I do
talk a lot of billiards sometimes.
Thank you for any suggestions
boffy_b
--
\//_
C ._)
| _| - "It is amazing what you can
| | accomplish if you do not
care who gets the credit." - Anon
Simon Barner
> intention of asking people to recommend a free(has to be all free
> software, none of your RedHat here) UNIX which can run most free UNIX
> software(read: all free software which runs on gnu/linux, I believe
> NetBSD is quite good at that?).
The standard answer to this question is: Have a try and decide on your
own. If you ask for recommendations an excessive X-post, they will
usually look like this:
Since you are asking in the $OS group, we recommend $OS to you, since
it has the following advantages:
#include <advantages_$OS.h>
Simon
Simon Barner
> intention of asking people to recommend a free(has to be all free
> software, none of your RedHat here) UNIX which can run most free UNIX
> software(read: all free software which runs on gnu/linux, I believe
> NetBSD is quite good at that?).
The standard answer to this question is: Have a try and decide on your
own. If you ask for recommendations in an excessive X-post, they will
SpamLover
For peace of mind, add a slave HD to your system to try Unices on, and
learn to nuke / restore the "master boot record" so it goes back to
booting Windows. (Note 1). You can also use the 2nd HD for backing up
data and an image your Windows system partition(s) using Linux or
Unix, which is also a good thing. (Note 2)
MY PERSONAL ASSESSMENT OF VARIOUS ALTERNATIVES I TRIED
IN GROWING ORDER OF COMPLICACY
Lycoris: very easy, light but complete (they choose best-of-kind
applications for user, and reasonably well), works as advertised, cute
eye candy (nicely hacked KDE). Described as an XP clone (less the crap
and the world domination). Normally installs without compliers
(available on 2nd CD). Slick productivity pack. Good multimedia. $40.
New edition (Update 3) just out. If it's like Update 2 it must be
quite mature.
Red Hat: corporate and going to be even more so, said to be solid but
not really in my brief experience. A bit of bloat. Prolly the best
interface around (hacked both KDE and Gnome). $$$ for the corporate
editions. (Fedora, the new development edition is free but said to be
highly experimental). Can be installed from CD images on HD.
Libranet
Debian based and 100% compatible, very nice install and management
tools. More aggressive than standard Debian in selecting newer apps,
yet quite stable. My current favorite. ~$70.
Debian
Not that difficult, rather conservative, a deluge of available
packages, very good net-based install, excellent package management,
perhaps less loved than it deserves. Can be installed from the net.
Supportive and fairly large community. Free.
Vector
Slackware based, very good on old iron (or very fast on newer comps).
Quick install. $30?
Gentoo
You decide what you want in, you compile from sources (if you want).
Can be tough and long winded, and a learning experience too. You get a
system highly optimized for your needs and hardware. Free.
MY NEXT TRIAL: NetBSD.
Really lightweight, fast, equipped to run apps from Linux and all
other BSD's under emulation, excellent memory management, ridiculously
modest minimum hardware requirements, supposedly broad range of
supported HW. But: smallish user base, unsure how hard to imbibe (and
install). Other +ves: it's been around 10 years and it's only at
version 1.6.1 (i.e. very light on bullshit), there's a pretty cool
Live CD for v. 1.6.0.
Both Debian and NetBSD run on a large number of platforms, which is
usually a good sign of solidity.
If I were in your shoes, I'd go for Lycoris first.
I mentioned prices. Almost all the above can be dl'ed and installed
for free and require $ and registration for update services and / or a
degree support.
I strongly recommend paying for software anyway, even if free, as soon
as you can afford it and get something useful out of it.
NOTE 1
Restoring the MBR
- In Linux: you can save the boot record with :
dd if=/dev/hda of=/<path>/<filename> bs=512 count=1
It can then be restored with:
dd if=/<path>/<filename> of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1
If you do not want/need to overwrite the partition table:
dd if=/boot/boot.MBR of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1
as the partition table is kept in the last 66 bytes of the MBR.
It's easier to boot Linux from a floppy disk than to recover an MBR
from DOS.
Use eg tomsrtbt Linux from toms.net.
- In DOS, FDISK /MBR will nuke the MBR and let the PC boot from the
1st partition on the master drive. But backup and recovery is a darn
mess.
NOTE 2
Using Linux to back up Windows
At its simplest (for Win9X) you can copy the whole _content_ of the
system partition on a Linux partition, and copy it back if the s. hits
the fan.
You can also use more sophisticated means and back an image of that
partition onto the other HD or onto CDs:
http://mondorescue.norsklinux.no/
Andrew Ho
Entirely true simon. As you're in this group, I would recommend
GNU/Linux :) - as for which distro, it entirely depends on your
current level of expertise and willingness to learn.
Andrew
Daniel Rudy
listened as boffy_b contributed this to humanity:
> I am a disgruntled Windows user(aren't all windows users?), looking to
> migrate myself over to one of the free many Unicies which are around. I
> have had GNU/Linux up and running in th form of a Knoppix hdinstall,
> although I had constant problems with my modem driver, I was impressed
> with th system as a whole, but I figure that most of what I saw as "th
> system" was not th OS itself, but th software of top of it (X, KDE, OOo,
> etc.), and I therefore figure that most software now compiles on most
> Unicies.
Clarification of a point: Contrary to popular belief, Linux is a
Kernel, not a OS. The OS is the kernel plus all the standard tools,
libraries, and documentation that make a complete system. AFAIK, the
only WinModem driver out there for Linux will only work on modems with
the Lucent chipset. So, if you have a Rockwell/Conextant based
WinModem, then you're out of luck. That's the *ONLY* reason why I run
WinXP on my laptop.
> One of th main problems I have had was the fear. In windows, I could use
> it for simple things without thinking, so I got used to it, I found out
> more and more, and eventually knew its ins and outs very well, and can
> do pretty much whatever I need to/with it. When I started using
> Knoppix(effectively Debian), I found that, whilst a lot of things can be
> done through various semi-consistent tacked-on GUIs, and most anything
> can be done from th shell, I wanted to just use it as my day-to-day
> system first, without having to go into config files and re-start my GUI
> just to change th screen resolution.
Unix is like anything else. There is a learning curve. When I went
from Windows 3.11 to Win98 in Dec 1998, I had to completely relearn
Windows. When I migrated from Win98 to WinXP-Pro, it wasn't much of a
shock, but there are still differences like various UI tweaks, settings
being in different places, etc.
Just install it and play with it. It would help to get a good book on
Unix as well to help out in your introduction to the system. The man
pages are your friend.
> I need to be able to have it working and just *there*, so that I can
> familiarise myself with it through use, and get to know it th same way I
> got to know and love th quirky, bloated mess that is Win98se. Yes, I did
> grow fond of all th little oddities, I grew to know which options had th
> desired effect, which lied, and which did nothing at all, I came to have
> a feel for how fresh th install has to be for a BSOD to actually be
> recoverable short of going for th power. Windows became a good friend
> and my worst nightmare, depending on its mood that day.
Unfortunately, no Unix is going to be "just there" out of the box. The
hardest part about Unix based systems is the initial install and
configuration. Most require tweaking with various config files in order
to get things to work properly. That is a fact of life with Unix based
systems. The big difference between Unix and Windows is that in Unix,
the config information is in a human readable text format with the
config files in /etc and with separate config files for each service.
So, it's a set and forget mechanism. Windows, on the other hand, uses
the Registry which is in a non-readable binary format that is prone to
corruption.
> Now though, I am weary of having to use elaborate and fragile
> workarounds to achieve the express purpose of certain features, and I
> feel windows has grown weary of me demanding excessive reliability and
> stamina from a 32-bit upgrade to a 16-bit frond-end to an 8-bit OS
> written for a 4-bit processor by some 2-bit company which can't stand
> one bit of competition. I need out.
You have come to the right place.
> I need somewhere to go to, I see UNIX, its power and its glory, its true
> freedom, that is where I want to be. I started out this with th
> intention of asking people to recommend a free(has to be all free
> software, none of your RedHat here) UNIX which can run most free UNIX
> software(read: all free software which runs on gnu/linux, I believe
> NetBSD is quite good at that?). Pardon th unnecessary lengthiness, I do
> talk a lot of billiards sometimes.
>
> Thank you for any suggestions
>
> boffy_b
Most Unix distributions cost some money, especially Linux. But, when
you buy a distribution from the local computer store, you are not just
paying for the contents of the box, you are also paying for support and
to help further the development of the software. From what I am told,
there are over 200 different distributions of Linux out there, which the
base system is GNU/Linux. There's more than just Linux though, there
are also the BSDs. Although Linux is technologically superior to BSD is
some aspects, BSD has the stability that is required in a server
environment. So, part of choosing a Unix is what do you want to do with it?
If you are just going to run it on a desktop, then use Linux. BSD can,
will, and does run on the desktop with no problems, but the hardware
support is lacking in some areas.
If you plan on running a server, then one of the BSDs should suffice.
Also, there are even more Unices out there. Solaris, AIX, IRIX, HP-UX
to just name a few. Take your time, evaluate your needs, and make a
decision based on that.
Later.
--
Daniel Rudy
Remove nospam, invalid, and 0123456789 to reply.
Bill Vermillion
Daniel Rudy <dcr...@invalid.pacbell.nospam.net.0123456789> wrote:
>Somewhere around the time of 11/15/2003 07:30, the world stopped and
>listened as boffy_b contributed this to humanity:
[major deletia - wjv]
...
>Most Unix distributions cost some money, especially Linux.
I don't know where you got that idea. When seeing what different
Linux distributions existed I build over 30 Linux variant ISO sets.
All were just boot and install and the only cost was the time
for the dl. But I just did that on an alternate login so it was
totally transparent.
The only tricky one was SuSE which doesn't have regular install
ISO's. It had a boot ISO image and then you build the system
from the RPMS on 3 CD images. The only distribution I ever bought
was a $29 Mandrake at Costo when the all the trade press was
shouting Linux.
I look - and maintain a couple of Linux machines - but most are
BSDs .
Bill
--
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com
SpamLover
They certainly cost, not necessarily to the user.
There is a tiny bit of ambiguity here, but it's part of the game. All
commercial distros charge for shrinkwrapped, some charge for download,
quite a few ask for an after-the-fact pay registration (perhaps
cheaper for the DL option) to grant access to some update system and /
or some forms of support. Nothing wrong with that.
There are commercial distros that are based on free Debian, and add a
bit to it, i.e. they put in an extra installer / mgmgt software, judge
recent packages for acceptable stability before they're officlally
ripe for the stable tree thus proposing their variation of
features/stability compromise etc etc. You can get pretty good,
totally free systems, or pay for a modicum of handholding. More
options than the software co. will give you.
I keep suggesting to everyone to pay as much as they sensibly can
afford for the OSs they like and use. Either a price or a donation.
If you can't build & scrub the codebase, help in some other way. This
very much applies of the BSDs as well.
In the grand scheme of things, after adding up hardware, time value,
connectivity charges and even power, what most co's ask for isn't too
much of a %age of TCO.
Sybren Stüvel
> Most Unix distributions cost some money, especially Linux.
Que? I've downloaded all the Linux distributions I have tried for free.
Legally.
Sybren
--
(o_ Q: God, root, what is difference?
//\ A: God can change the byte order on the CPU, root can't.
V_/_
david mcdade
SLACKWARE
;-)
"boffy_b" <bo...@boffy.tk> wrote in message
news:bp854n$2oqf$1...@news.wplus.net...
Us
"david mcdade" <d.mcd...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> one word...
>
> SLACKWARE
>
> ;-)
1. stop top posting
2. he wrote unix not lunix...
And the answer is FreeBSD (as if you couldn't expect it in this
newsgroup)...
--
Us - http://www.sweet-sorrow.com
-----
All trespassers will be shot,
survivers will be shot again.
Remove the bizzare part of address to reply by e-mail.
David Magda
> On Wed, 3 Dec 2003 14:37:59 -0000
> "david mcdade" <d.mcd...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> > one word...
> >
> > SLACKWARE
> >
> > ;-)
>
> 1. stop top posting
> 2. he wrote unix not lunix...
>
> And the answer is FreeBSD (as if you couldn't expect it in this
> newsgroup)...
The OP posted to many newsgroup if you had bothered to check the
headers. Basically to all the BSD.misc ones and some Linux ones.
Linux and BSDs are available without spending any cash. The best
thing to do is try them and pick which ever you like best. Or if you
have a friend who's into Unix pick whatever he's using. That way if
you need help / advice you have someone to call on.
--
David Magda <dmagda at ee.ryerson.ca>, http://www.magda.ca/
Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under
the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well
under the new. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, _The Prince_, Chapter VI
Us
David Magda <dmagda+tr...@ee.ryerson.ca> wrote:
>
> The OP posted to many newsgroup if you had bothered to check the
> headers. Basically to all the BSD.misc ones and some Linux ones.
>
> Linux and BSDs are available without spending any cash. The best
> thing to do is try them and pick which ever you like best. Or if you
> have a friend who's into Unix pick whatever he's using. That way if
> you need help / advice you have someone to call on.
>
> --
> David Magda <dmagda at ee.ryerson.ca>, http://www.magda.ca/
> Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well
> under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do
> well under the new. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, _The Prince_, Chapter VI
That is actually one of the most relevant arguments in a OS choice. Who
to call with all the annoying newbie questions. I don't know about Linux
but whenever and whoever from the FreeBSD community I asked for an
advice, I always got a speedy and accurate answer. And to be quite
honest this is one of the best things about FreeBSD. I would also like
to point out that this kind of response made me trying to become such a
"helper" and friendly towards newbies.