Start with Freebsd or OpenSolaris

[DKing0]

I'd like to learn and use a unix like OS. I'm already familiar with CentOS and Debian/Ubuntu and would like to start with something that's easy and "beginner" friendly. With the aforementioned in mind does it make more sense to start with FreeBsd or OpenSolaris? Thanks.

[MikeTbob]

To be honest, I don't think Solaris, FreeBSD or any BSD is "something that's easy and "beginner" friendly". Ubuntu is just about the easiest thing out there.

[DKing0]

To be honest, I don't think Solaris, FreeBSD or any BSD is "something that's easy and "beginner" friendly". Ubuntu is just about the easiest thing out there.

I understand your point and agree that Ubuntu is the easiest *nix distro available; however, I'm interested in which (open source) Unix distro is the easiest to start with. When I wrote "beginner" friendly I was referring to experience with unix not *nix in general; I'm already familiar with Ubuntu, Fedora, and CentOS.

[oz]

I'm interested in which (open source) Unix distro is the easiest to start with. When I wrote "beginner" friendly I was referring to experience with unix not *nix in general

If you've decided you are ready for something different, I'd recommend going ahead and trying one or more of the BSDs that are available.

They aren't really all that hard to handle, but they are different in a number of ways from Linux. They do have their own learning curve, but once you are familiar with them you should do fine. I've been thinking about playing around with a few of the BSDs again myself.

Do let us know how it goes.

[MikeTbob]

I understand your point and agree that Ubuntu is the easiest *nix distro available; however, I'm interested in which (open source) Unix distro is the easiest to start with. When I wrote "beginner" friendly I was referring to experience with unix not *nix in general; I'm already familiar with Ubuntu, Fedora, and CentOS.

Right. I'm with you now. Didn't they discontinue Solaris awhile back?

[meton_magis]

Right. I'm with you now. Didn't they discontinue Solaris awhile back?

they Oracalized it (made the "open" part of it mean nothing.)

they now have a trial version of their Solaris software.

Unless you need a testbed specifically for Solaris, I'd avoid it like the plague.

but that's just my 2c

[MikeTbob]

they Oracalized it (made the "open" part of it mean nothing.)

Oracalized. That's funny! Thanks for the info.

[super-biscuit]

I've tried the recent Solaris Express trial version. You need to have hardware with support on the install disk. This means factory default only. The machine I attempted the install on was a Sun Blade 1000, and it bunked. I'm running OpenBSD on that machine now.

Ubuntu is the most popular Linux/GNU distribution at the moment but, such a statement does not mean it is the most friendly. I've set up Fedora and Debian to be easier for other people.

Support for BSD systems is located at:
The FreeBSD official forums and at Daemonforums. I'm not allowed to post the URLs here; so, you have to use Google or some other search engine.
There are also mailing lists, web logs, and howto's located within different forums for various Linux distributions.

[whych]

Last time I tried, I think freebsd supplied a live distro that you could play with.
@DKingO
If you are reasonably familiar with linux, the bsd's shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Just one caveat though - they don't have the extras you get with linux and are generally used for stable server environments.

[rhyous]

Well, I was introduced to Red Hat, then Gentoo, then FreeBSD and I stayed with FreeBSD.

Sure as a Desktop environment Ubuntu is easier, though it isn't much easier than PC-BSD. But Ubuntu is not easier as a Server. FreeBSD is much quicker to use to set up a web server.

Especially when you need Apache configured in a non-default way. On Linux you install Apache and then you realize you need something that wasn't in the RPM and you have to compile it yourself. Now where do you get the tarball? Were there changes made to the tarball for your system that you are now losing? You are at a loss.

Whereas on FreeBSD, the ports system includes the process of asking you what you want in the Apache build when you compile. You don't have to know where to get the tarball or what commands to pass to it, it just works. How do you get Apache compiled with that option?

To me FreeBSD and the ports system make more sense. Others disagree.