anyone an expert on Unix?

[DespizdNRejectd]

I use a Mac mainly and keep an old PC around for web testing, but I'm curious about Linux or other Unix flavors. Advantages, disadvantages, paid, free... any info would be helpful.

[tessreis]

Just a suggestion but maybe PM Nobody... he is the resident computer guy... knows a thing or two about Linux etc... Its worth a shot...

[DespizdNRejectd]

Thanks... but I don't think I can PM anybody yet. I'll have to find something to yak about till I have enough posts.

[Nobody]

A simple explanation.

Since you are running a mac, as long as its OSX based, you already use Unix.

Leopard is an Open Brand UNIX 03 Registered Product, conforming to the SUSv3 and POSIX 1003.1 specifications for the C API, Shell Utilities, and Threads. Since Leopard can compile and run all your existing UNIX code, you can deploy it in environments that demand full conformance — complete with hooks to maintain compatibility with existing software.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/unix.html

Much background info about Linux can be found here by following the links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

Linux is a kernel written by Linus Torvalds, currently the kernel runs the GNU operating system which was a complete package missing the kernel to make it work - giving GNU/Linux.

GNU/Linux has three major distributions from which almost all others are derived. Slackware is the oldest distribution, but is no longer one of the most popular distributions. Fedora (formerly Red Hat) and Debian are the basis of most major distributions.

Slackware uses .tgz, Fedora uses .rpm packages and Debian uses .deb packages, (While a wrong comparison because of the technicals, you can think of them as similar to apples .dmg disk images)

Next there is the GUI of the distribution. The major GUIs are GNOME or KDE. Again wrong comparison because of technicals, but you could compare GNOME to the OSX GUI and KDE to Windows. Most distributions offer GNOME and KDE, but one is installed by default. Ubuntu is GNOME, Kubuntu is KDE.

As for the advantages and disadvantages, all you have to do is compare windows to OSX for many of those answers. Unix was designed as a multi-user operating system operating on some form of network. Unix was developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs so its approaching its 40th year of fixing the bugs and patching the security holes.

Windows started from a completely different philosophy where there was a single user and networks were not even an afterthought. Today, almost everyone is on the internet placing you on the largest network in the world. Unix was designed to be scalable, thus the major advantage of Unix is security. Just read a tech site and the millions of windows computers infected with malware (virus, trojan, backdoor etc) or turned into zombie servers to know this benefit.

As for disadvantages, Mac is also a useful starting point. Linux is very secure, but if you are a gamer its not for you. Just as OSX has the ability to play games so does Linux, but game selection is extremely limited because of the simple numbers game. Linux has maybe 1% of the market and there are hundreds of distributions so if you sold one copy to 10% of all TurboLinux users (a very unlikely prospect) you made $X, but if you sold one copy to 1/2 of 1% of windows users, you made $Y with $Y being larger by many factors.

WineHQ (Wine is not an emulator) has the ability to run some of the older windows games (No it wont run Crysis) windows software and is open source.

http://appdb.winehq.org/

WineHQ can be difficult to configure, thus there is also CodeWeavers Standard, Professional and Games for Linux and Mac. It must be purchased, but there is a trial version and you can get it for free if you become an advocate for them which amounts to reading the advocate forms and beta testing each proposed release and testing your advocated program and rating how the software works it.

http://www.codeweavers.com

Speaking of open source, it is the major difference between Linux and OSX. GNU/Linux is based on open source which believes in freedom. There is free as in pizza and free as in speech. GNU is concerned that software always be free as in speech, free as in pizza is not the issue.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Since GNU is to be free as in speech, its covered by the copyleft. In a nutshell, it allows anyone who receives a copy of a work permission to reproduce, adapt or distribute the work as long as it always is covered by the same copyleft.

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/

The free as in speech of open source is important to know because at the moment there are two competing philosophies in the Linux communities. Some people are essentially Linux purists where nothing should ever be used unless its open source and covered by copyleft. Others just want Linux to just work.

Most Linux distributions include repositories holding software for the distribution. Ubuntu is Debian based so it uses "sudo apt-get" to access this repository. Ubuntu also has the "Synaptic Package Manager" which allows for point and click installation of any software in the repository. Rarely will a typical user have to go outside the distributions repository for additional software. This makes it easy to avoid rogue software applications thus adds to security.

Currently, Ubuntu is the most used distribution, but its also the most controversial. Ubuntu tries to straddle this divide of free vs. just work. Some would say its done well others would say it undermines the entire purpose of GNU/Linux.

As for trying out Linux visit distrowatch and download a Live-CD. Knoppix made the Live-CD popular where you have a fully functioning operating system that runs from CD. Today, most distributions include a Live-CD so you can try it to see if it will work and how it works before getting into the issues of re-partitioning and installing.

http://distrowatch.com/

In general, if you keep in mind that there is a tension between open source and just works, you can quickly find a Linux distribution for you. The most popular are most popular for a reason.

Page Hit Ranking
1 Ubuntu 2223>
2 openSUSE 1715>
3 Mint 1519<
4 Fedora 1312>
5 Debian 1154>
6 PCLinuxOS 1019<
7 Mandriva 1019>
8 CentOS 612<
9 Puppy 593>

If you have any specific questions, ask away, maybe I have an answer.

[DespizdNRejectd]

Wow, thanks Nobody! That's a lot of info.

I knew the Mac OS is Unix-based, and I've done some basic things with Terminal such as get Apache/php/mySQL running (except right now phpMyAdmin won't let me have "add database" privileges even though I can see and verify that the root has the proper password in Terminal). But I was thinking sometime of trying to get a junk PC and installing a Unix OS on it, just to play with it. Not particularly into gaming so that won't be an issue.

Thanks again for all that info! Now to get the junk pc... (of course, us Mac users think they're all junk...)

[pistache]

get Nob started on ubuntu or linux and he'll never shut up....

[Robert]

Well, at least it isn't nutella :D

[Nobody]

Wow, thanks Nobody! That's a lot of info.

I knew the Mac OS is Unix-based, and I've done some basic things with Terminal such as get Apache/php/mySQL running (except right now phpMyAdmin won't let me have "add database" privileges even though I can see and verify that the root has the proper password in Terminal). But I was thinking sometime of trying to get a junk PC and installing a Unix OS on it, just to play with it. Not particularly into gaming so that won't be an issue.

Thanks again for all that info! Now to get the junk pc... (of course, us Mac users think they're all junk...)

If the "junk pc" is fairly modern as in at least 700 MHz CPU and 384 MB of ram, I would recommend Ubuntu since it has a passing resemblance to OSX - menus at the top of the page etc.

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

If the "junk pc" isn't modern but is at least 300 MHz CPU 256 MB of ram then Xubuntu is good.

http://www.xubuntu.org/get

If the system is ancient, say a Pentium-166 with 128 meg ram there is puppy linux which is one of the few non-slackware/fedora/debian based distributions and it was build for old systems.

http://www.puppylinux.org/

I keep a puppy cd on hand since it will read/write NTFS and linux file system and boots fast. Vista wont let you delete that file, boot puppy, delete. Menu.lst got overwritten in your boot/grub directory because its customized and now you computer only boots into windows - puppy to the rescue.

get Nob started on ubuntu or linux and he'll never shut up....

[Robert]

It's okay Nob. pistache is still in shock over the "nutella: yes we can" pics.

[DespizdNRejectd]

If the "junk pc" is fairly modern as in at least 700 MHz CPU and 384 MB of ram, I would recommend Ubuntu since it has a passing resemblance to OSX - menus at the top of the page etc.

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

If the "junk pc" isn't modern but is at least 300 MHz CPU 256 MB of ram then Xubuntu is good.

http://www.xubuntu.org/get

If the system is ancient, say a Pentium-166 with 128 meg ram there is puppy linux which is one of the few non-slackware/fedora/debian based distributions and it was build for old systems.

http://www.puppylinux.org/

I keep a puppy cd on hand since it will read/write NTFS and linux file system and boots fast. Vista wont let you delete that file, boot puppy, delete. Menu.lst got overwritten in your boot/grub directory because its customized and now you computer only boots into windows - puppy to the rescue.

Thanks, rules of thumb like that are always very helpful.

And of course, you can't go wrong with puppies!