linuxiso.org has been around for a long time. I'm glad you found it useful; it really is a "Linux supermarket", isn't it?

In terms of which distro- that's always a personal preference. Also, because the distros are always maturing and improving, what was the "best" distro last year may not be today. I prefer the Sys V-based distros (RH, SuSE, Mandrake, etc.) as opposed to the BSD-ish ones such as Slackware, but that's just me.

OpenBSD, NetBSD, and FreeBSD are all UNIX, Open-Source, and FREE. (The Open Group actually owns the "UNIX" trademark, but HP-UX, Solaris, et al are all unices for the sake of argument...)

http://www.openbsd.org
http://www.netbsd.org
http://www.freebsd.org

unix: not free, few systems run it anymore, not as big as a community as before
linux: gpl signing edit away, free, highly supported, highly customizable

i suggest debian or slackware, debian is for new users butis very powerful, slackware is for more experianced or the fearless with lots of time on their hands

so, generally, Linux is a freeware branch of unix??? am i correct?

xlulux: Do your homework, Bub. There *are* some flavors of UNIX that are free (see my last post in this thread) and widely used.

As far as hardware support, NetBSD runs on pretty much anything, and I've got FreeBSD to work on hardware that Linux didn't have support for.

Linux is NOT a freeware branch of UNIX. It's a completely seperate operating system that was derived from MINIX.

Before making another arbitrary derogatory comment about a particular operating system, I highly suggest doing some research on the subject first to learn at least *some* facts about it so you at least sound like you have a clue about what you're talking about.

Solaris is also a decent price last time I looked a month or so ago the full solaris media kit (books, install, oracle, extra software) cost $89, if you wanted to save money you can just download the ISO's for $20. Solaris is Unix, it is very powerful and fairly easy as unix variants go, however, it is poorly supported on x86 platforms you have to have specific hardware, on the other hand solaris 10 is coming out really soon and that has much better hardware support.

I only mention it to show that not all unix variants are over priced, in reality for a new user I would recommend freebsd or linux, in terms of linux distributions, I like gentoo but that is a more advanced distro for a new user I always recommend suse simple easy to use and very powerful, once you are familiar you can always change distros to something more advanced, slackware, debian (debian isn't for new users, debian is mostly aimed at more advanced users), gentoo (in my opinion the best since everything can be compiled from source allowing you to size every possible optimisation from your system).

HTH

Ben

So, Ogre- who weedled in your Corn Flakes this morning? http://www.stevewolfonline.com/Downl...suals/eek3.gif

My, my... are'nt we a bit grumpy...


I was asking for clarification because I wanted myself corrected if ever i misunderstood the discussion... and yes, I did misunderstand... :!: