Arch Linux

redden0t8

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Registered: 2011-01-27

Posts: 42

Re: Linux Compared To UNIX

Nobody yet has mentioned Darwin.  It's the open source POSIX (ie Unix) core of MacOS X without all the Mac "weirdness".  Because of the relationship with MacOS, there is actually a decent level of open source software working for it, notably through the "MacPorts" (formerly DarwinPorts, don't let the name throw you) and "fink" package managers.

I don't know if Darwin or its derivatives are really suitable for day-to-day use, but if you're looking for a fully POSIX-compliant OS to play with it's definitely a choice.

ChojinDSL

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2010-11-30

Posts: 64

Website

Re: Linux Compared To UNIX

Personally I've always found the the most interesting Developments in the *nix world happen in Linux.  (Just my opinion.)

Carlwill

Member

From: Orlando, FL

Registered: 2008-10-06

Posts: 560

Website

Re: Linux Compared To UNIX

Just curious why everyone says Solaris is dead? I've talked to Oracle and they told me that's all non sense and that they're going to release Solaris 11 soon. From the sounds of it, it looks like they're picking up steam.

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Leonid.I

Member

From: Aethyr

Registered: 2009-03-22

Posts: 999

Re: Linux Compared To UNIX

Just curious why everyone says Solaris is dead? I've talked to Oracle and they told me that's all non sense and that they're going to release Solaris 11 soon. From the sounds of it, it looks like they're picking up steam.

I think they meant OpenSolaris...

Anyways, what about plan 9/inferno?

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Arch Linux is more than just GNU/Linux -- it's an adventure
pkill -9 systemd

ataraxia

Member

From: Pittsburgh

Registered: 2007-05-06

Posts: 1,553

Re: Linux Compared To UNIX

Just curious why everyone says Solaris is dead? I've talked to Oracle and they told me that's all non sense and that they're going to release Solaris 11 soon. From the sounds of it, it looks like they're picking up steam.

It's dead in the sense that it's losing popularity. That was already starting to be true with Solaris 10. Basically, what I'm saying is that learning Solaris isn't going to help you (much) in terms of employment and real-world skills.

Of course this is just my impression based on people I talk to, random blogs, etc - mostly this kind of informal source shows leanings toward Linux.

tallship

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From: Super Sunny Southen California

Registered: 2011-03-27

Posts: 3

Website

Re: Linux Compared To UNIX

I had no idea Sun Solaris was dead too. That's sad to hear.

I think that's a bit of a case of having the funeral before finding the body.

As your first [other] flavor of UNIX I would recommend Solaris 10, which is by virtue of Sun's last license, Free. I have the actual set of disks and purchased it from Sun. Little did I know that it would become Oracle.

We can say Solaris is dead, but it's not. And EllisonCo is indeed ramping up for "Oracle Solaris 11" - what ev. But yes, you can get a full blown Solaris 10 for free and it would be great experience for you to run it.

Minor differences such as the ps command, and invoking the package system is kind of backwards to what you would find in Slackware, for example.

There are enterprise considerations that put Solaris far over the top of any other UNIX - including Linux, and in choosing Linux, you have chosen one 'flavor' of UNIX, Linux being broken down into sub groups of 'distros'.

We generally refer to each distinctly different BSD as a separate flavor of UNIX too. NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFly, and FreeBSD, and about two others.

FreeBSD is a great UNIX to start playing with too.

Here's the main difference between a UNIX-like UNIX and a UNIX-Like Linux, if you will. Linux is just a kernel. Period. The various distros are GNU/Linux (The GNU Tools, supposedly destined for HURD, which is still not complete after what? 20+ years?)

UNIX is a complete operating system built specifically around a particular kernel. Or so the literature goes OSX is  NOT UNIX (no GNU pun intended), but the underlying system is FreeBSD with a Mach kernel... So even the first sentance in this paragraph has huge exceptions to the general rule of thumb.

But to venture out and see just how little difference there really is? I'd say try Solaris or FreeBSD.

On the other hand huge differences do indeed exist. When I'm asked to implement an enterprise grade firewalling system people naturally assume I'm going to use a Linux host. I don't usually. I use pfSense.

When asked for a VPN Server, I typically reach for OpenBSD.

For dedicated DHCP and DNS I often use FreeBSD instead of Linux, but not always.
When I need NAS and NFS, I typically go to DragonFly or Solaris (HammerFS and ZFS).

In today's world of choices. It really doesn't come down to any particular Operating system as being better, it comes down to the idiosyncrasies  that give you some particular feature (aside from stability, they're all rock solid at the core) that is *convenient* - at least that's how I make my choices.

And another exception to the rule in the last paragraph is wYNd0zE - it just goes w/o saying that it sucks for just about everything by comparison.

I think you'll be surprised at how comfortable you are in whatever UNIX you decide to play with; worst case scenario being about as difficult to overcome as your past experience in hopping between Linux distros.

For some adventure, if you want to try something different, why not take a look at OpenVMS?

I hope that helps

Kindest regards,

Bradley D. Thornton
Manager Network Services
http://NorthTech.US

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Registered Linux User #190795

- "Ask Bill why the string in [MS-DOS] function 9 is terminated by a dollar sign. Ask him, because he can't answer. Only I know that." - Dr. Gary Kildall.

swathe

Member

From: au

Registered: 2010-10-01

Posts: 147

Re: Linux Compared To UNIX

Oracle have Solaris Express now, which is free for non-production environments afaik.

akephalos

Member

From: Romania

Registered: 2009-04-22

Posts: 114

Re: Linux Compared To UNIX

Here's the main difference between a UNIX-like UNIX and a UNIX-Like Linux, if you will. Linux is just a kernel. Period. The various distros are GNU/Linux (The GNU Tools, supposedly destined for HURD, which is still not complete after what? 20+ years?)

Yeah I think confusing "Linux" with "Linux distribution" is the cause.
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In the Linux ecosystem, each piece is independent and you put them together as you see fit, a good approach. On the other hand, BSDs have generally a different view: they appear more interested in principles and correctness (than "what works"), therefore they can't have their fully-functional system dependent on third party developers so much, IMO. Another good approach but incompatible with the former.

Not sure about other unices (Solaris, Darwin, Minix, etc). GNU (+ Hurd) seems to aim towards integration as well, but it's more about licenses and providing functionality than unitary design.

atm

Member

From: Mumbai

Registered: 2011-04-03

Posts: 37

Re: Linux Compared To UNIX

Anyways, what about plan 9/inferno?

I downloaded Plan 9 for educational purposed (Reading the programs for utilities like cat), but it doesn't look like a production level system. Even porting a window system on it is a pain in the ass.

There is a desktop environment for it, but I am not sure how stable/feature-rich it is.

F

Member

Registered: 2006-10-09

Posts: 322

Re: Linux Compared To UNIX

Anyways, what about plan 9/inferno?

I downloaded Plan 9 for educational purposed (Reading the programs for utilities like cat), but it doesn't look like a production level system. Even porting a window system on it is a pain in the ass.

There is a desktop environment for it, but I am not sure how stable/feature-rich it is.

Inferno is a production-level system.
http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno/