[The_NS]

hey,
i'm thinking of putting a second os on my system (once i get it working properly that is),
i am currently runing on xp but don't know which i should go for what's the general concensis Unix or Linux?

i will be hopping to use it for programing too if that makes a difference.

i'm clueless so go easy on me guys with the terminoligy

[starcab]

I suggest you go with Linux.There are many distributions available to choose from,and you can find easily support on the internet.

[saikee]

If you start from Windows XP you will find Unix is at the opposite end and Linux is at the middle. It is possible to navigate in Unix once you have some basic knowledge in Linux. Going directly without the middle man can be "challenging".

[Omega_Shadow]

Challangeing would not even begin to discribe it!
Go with a linux distro, one that is easy on newbies like Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS. Then from there you can learn about the more advanced types of distros and later more advanced types of Unix based OS's like BSD.

[saikee]

I didn't find the BSD system (FreeBSD, PCBSD, NetBSD, Dragonfly, DesktopBSD) advance. It is just foreign to a Windows user same as Linux. In fact there are many times more developers in Linux than BSD and so Linux in general is better put together than a BSD in term of attention to details and user-friendliness.

BSD excels in sticking faithfully with Unix and enjoys its stability (its security is possibly the advance feature of the distro) whereas the main stream Linux is trying to be as compatible with PC as possible and sees it as the permanent home. The bottom line is if a Windows user installs a Linux most of his/her data (MP3, photos, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets.....) will be instantly usable in a Linux environment. A BSD is a lot less friendly in that aspect.

[The_NS]

Thanks guys i think i'll prob go with linux
but what does BSD mean and where is the best place to download this and how do i go about doing this exactly?

[saikee]

Distrowatch.com

You can get everything there. 99.9% are free. If it isn't you will have no link to download.

For BSD definition best to get it directly from the horse mouth ---> Google it.

[fenderfreek]

In a nutshell, BSD is a more UNIX-like operating sytem than Linux. It's far more stable, but slightly less user-friendly. Not something I'd run on my desktop at home, but definitely on a server.

[AGCurry]

Originally Posted by The_NS

but what does BSD mean and where is the best place to download this and how do i go about doing this exactly?

BSD: Berkeley Standard Distribution.

Unix began at Bell Laboratories around 1970, but in the early eighties two different lineages developed - AT&T and BSD. To the user there was not a whole lot of difference, but internally things were implemented differently. I remember developing applications on a "dual-universe" computer made by Sequent around 1989; this box was interesting in that it not only had different shells you could use, but you could also choose which "universe" (BSD or AT&T) you wanted to work in.

Linus Pauling and his disciples developed Linux by reverse engineering, i.e., they looked at Unix and its common tools and set about writing code which would work just like the originals.

[saikee]

I could be speaking out of my mind but Unix retains many original features. It uses the PC but disregards of other systems in term of compatibility.

Linux has gone one step further. It is intended to co-exist with the other systems in a PC, especially the MS systems. It has commands supporting MS partitions and its desktop can manipulate the standard MS office and other data directly off a Windows partition.

Seems to me Linux is trying to conform to the PC standard. A logical partition is the same logical partition in Windows but Unix system uses something different. Thus a Unix system can have issues in co-existing with other PC systems. It is true that it can co-exist with others but there are restrictions. Linux does not have such a shortcoming.

[AGCurry]

Originally Posted by saikee

I could be speaking out of my mind but Unix retains many original features. It uses the PC but disregard of other systems in term of compatibility.

Linux has gone one step further. It is intended to co-exist the systems in a PC, especially the MS systems. It has commands supporting MS partitions and its desktop can manipulate the standard MS office and other data directly off a Windows partition.

Seems to me Linux is trying to conform to the PC standard. A logical partition is the same logical partition in Windows but Unix system uses something different. Thus a Unix system can have issues in co-existing with other PC systems. It is true that it can co-exist with others but there are restrictions. Linux does have such a shortcoming.

I'm sure English is spoken in Newcastle, but it must be a little different...

Anyway... the idea of Linux was a Unix-like system native to the Intel platform. Any Unix system which is compiled for a Intel architecture and has features to deal with a Microsoft file system will be able to coexist with Windows just fine. As I think you're suggesting, you get that with Linux right out of the box.

As a lover of, and long-time user of Unix, I would suggest that it is the most capable of all existing operating systems of being modified for many and diverse needs. Linux, as an OS which is free, open-source, and native to PC platforms, has already had MANY common applications written for it by those who are interested in such things.

[saikee]

English is not my mother tongue and I do rush things a bit.

To many users Linux originates from Unix or is a loose variant of it. As I know it Unix was a mini computer system also was used in some main frame computers and so it is a "real" operating system, not one started life with a cheap 8086 16-bit CPU on a budget personal computer with a 8-bit bus. If there is anything I wrote bad about Unix it is only the compatibility of it in the PC platform. I think the modern PCs are many times more powerful than the mainframes computer as existed in the 1970s. Even without the popularity the PC based operating systems are now "respectable" with the massive hardware and software development over the last 30 years.

Unix isn't Unix if it changes radically to suit a new platform. May be that is the reason development has been few and far in between, relatively to Linux.

It appears Linux has started life from day one as a system free to the public. It saw its future in PC and never looks back. Unix only joined in at a later date and correspondingly lags behind in developement. Architecturally wise it is never meant to be based on one computer and wouldn't care much about the compatibility with the others. Think one of the BSD, possibly NetBSD, claims itself to be the system available in the largest different types of computers.

[The_NS]

Definitely looks like linux is running away with it!

[AGCurry]

Originally Posted by saikee

It appears Linux has started life from day one as a system free to the public. It saw its future in PC and never looks back. Unix only joined in at a later date and correspondingly lags behind in developement. Architecturally wise it is never meant to be based on one computer and wouldn't care much about the compatibility with the others.

Well... I installed and used a true Unix OS on 386 and 486 PCs in 1993, and there were several to choose from at that time, although none was free. It's true that Linux development has been easier and faster at least partially because it's meant to run on ONE hardware platform.

[fenderfreek]

Meant to run on one platform? There is a linux distribution for almost every major PC architecture and countless dozens of integrated systems and hardware. I'd say the reason for Linux's mass success is mostly due to its increased ubiquity in the market versus Unix, which has a more limited market and user base.