Recommended Unix/Linux OS

[leoric1928]

Good day to all, I am just new with Unix/Linux OS. I would just like to ask what is the recommended OS for me to study as a begginer? and what certification should I take?
I am hoping the certification should be the most marketable one.

Any site or URL that compares different certification would be help me a lot. Thank you

[choasforages]

err, for marketablilty, go for certified solarise admin, just remember to read all the books and play with many different kinds of unix

[Siplus]

eh, i don't put much faith in certs, but as a beginner, i think that redhat is a very good distro to startout with. i tried slackware once, but i had problems (it being my first distro w/o gui...made it difficult)

gl

[choasforages]

buts that really not aimed at a begginer, play with redhat linux for a while, and also with netbsd. if you can configure netbsd and use it like im doing right now, it wouldn't take much more unix certs

[leoric1928]

Tnx for your response, I would like to know what is the Unix version of solarise and if it is free?

I don't like certification either but I think this is the only proof for companies to get you hired or to have your salary raised, so I need certification badly. Tnx

[Doctor V]

IMHO, the best choice would be Red Hat Linux.

Reasons:

Red Hat is probably the most widely used Linux distro as a server.  If you want to be marketable, you have to know how to use the distro that the businesses are using.  Many other distro's are based on Red Hat.  If you learn Red Hat, many of these distro's would be like childs play to learn.  While Mandrake, Lycrosis, and some other distro's might be a bit easier than Red Hat to use as a desktop, Red Hat is certainly not overly difficult, just that there are a few more things you might have to learn how to do manually (which you should learn anyways).  The words Red Hat would look a hell of a lot better than Mandrake on a resume.

Solaris is the most widely used Unix.  However the trend seems to be that UNIX servers are getting replaced by Linux.  Red Hat offers certification.  Much of what you learn with Red Hat can be applied to UNIX as well (I imagine in RHCE a heck of a lot of time is spent learning about apache).  Another point is that you have to pay for UNIX, but most LInux distro'S including Red Hat can be downloaded for free: choose your mirror.  And another thing, Red Hat 8.0 ROCKS!!!

[voidmain]

I would work for another company if the cert is what gets you the raise. It's actually "Solaris" that I believe you are asking about. Solaris is Sun's operating system primarily for running on their Sparc/UltraSparc processors and hardware.

They do have an x86 version of Solaris (they stopped porting for a while but I think they are again now). For a while you could download the Solaris x86 version for free. Now I think you have to pay a nominal fee. But  I personally like Linux 100 times better than Solaris as long as the apps I need to run aren't Solaris specific.

You should be able to find all the info you need from this page (the x86 version of Solaris 9):

http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/index.html

[choasforages]

to a user, all unice's are the same
to a admin, all unice's are somewhat different
to a programmer, NO unice's are similar

[leoric1928]

Thanks to all you, Now It is clear for me that I should start studying Red Hat Linux and hopefully past it's certification Exam. Tnx again

[Calum]

quote:Originally posted by choasforages:
buts that really not aimed at a begginer, play with redhat linux for a while, and also with netbsd. if you can configure netbsd and use it like im doing right now, it wouldn't take much more unix certs

actually that's not quite true.

i recently read through some of the slackware.com site and they continually state that their OS is designed to be as easy to use and logical as possible. to me that sounds like it should appeal to beginners.

The impression i often get from people on forums is that unless you know a shitload about *nix, you should steer well clear of slackware, and from what little experience i have had, the complete opposite is the case.
so long as you can get good readmes and so on then you will find it very easy to use slackware and you will learn a lot in the process, in my opinion.

I speak out of turn a bit though, as i say i have had limited experience with it, but i do think that saying new users should not try slackware is a little bit out of place. if they really want to learn, i don't think slackware will cause them any problems. for people who say they want an alternative to windows, i'd say don't use slackware, but not for people who want a good grounding in unix based systems. in fact in at least a few ways slackware would be better than the prepackaged tailor made versions of linux i think.