Linux and Unix - are they the same OS?

[divina11]

Are Linux and Unix the same OS? If not which one is used more widely in the software industry today.

Thank you

[diSangro]

Are Linux and Unix the same OS?

No , they are not the same ...Unix was developed before.
Later many others Unix systems have been developed by different organizations/companies , like HP , Sun , IBM etc.

However Linux is Unix based , meaning that normally Linux OS were developed startin from Unix kernel, but adding new features like improved GUIs , additional development environments and other applications.
Morely, there are many Linux distributions which are open source , then no licensing ias required and all the source code is available. Some distrib. are not fully open source but their license is very cheap compared to other systems.

If not which one is used more widely in the software industry today.
Thank you

Depends on the applications, suppose you need to use a DB like Oracle 10 then Sun Solaris 10 has many advantages since Oracle & Sun had a partnership during their developments with improved performance:

"The enhancements in Solaris 10 further expand the opportunity to combine Oracle's grid technology with a high-performance Solaris platform,"
Bronwyn Hastings ( Oracle ).

[divina11]

Ok thank you, you really made things very clear.

If I wanted to install Linux on my Laptop which has 15 GB left and 256 RAM, will I be ok to run Linux. Currently I'm running Windows 2000 NT.

Can you recommend a software which would easily partition my 30 GB HD so I can install Linux.

Thank you

[drhowarddrfine]

15GB is plenty for Linux. 256Mb works too but you may struggle with the windowed environment, such as Gnome or KDE. Just like Windows, they use a lot of ram.

I don't use Linux (use FreeBSD) but I would assume it has its own partition software built in to the installer.

Linux was written with one eye looking at Minix, a university, Unix like, teaching tool. FreeBSD, btw, is a direct descendent of BSD4.4 which is descended from Unix itself.

[divina11]

There are so many types of Linix/Unix based OS such as GNOME, FEDORA, SUSE, BSD etc.

Do these all use 'Shell Scripting/commands' to do adminstrative tasks?

[drhowarddrfine]

Gnome is not an OS. It's a desktop/windowing environment.
Yes, you can do administrative tasks with the command line.

[Nepomuk]

1256Mb works too but you may struggle with the windowed environment, such as Gnome or KDE. Just like Windows, they use a lot of ram.

There are desktop environments, which use less RAM, like Xfce or FluxBox. I have my PC running with about 256MB of RAM and Xfce and it works fine.

Most distributions also have a partitioning method in the installation routine (e.g. Ubuntu does), but if you're unsure, you can partition it before with a live cd like Knoppix.

Also, if you choose to you can search for Distributions for old/slow systems (e.g. "Damn small Linux"), but for quite a while I had a reduced Version of Debian Drapper running on an old Laptop with only 16MB (without a desktop environment) and it worked just fine!

Greetings,
Nepomuk

[drhowarddrfine]

There are desktop environments, which use less RAM, like Xfce or FluxBox. I have my PC running with about 256MB of RAM and Xfce and it works fine.

Yes. I use just plain ol' twm. :)

[divina11]

drhowarddrfine,

If gnome is not a O/S but a windows environment, can I do my unix/cgi programming?

Will I need to install gnome and unix?

Thank you guys.

Divina

[Nepomuk]

drhowarddrfine,

If gnome is not a O/S but a windows environment, can I do my unix/cgi programming?

Will I need to install gnome and unix?

Thank you guys.

Divina

I think, there might be a little misunderstanding here - gnome isn't a windows environment, but a window (or graphical or desktop) environment. It has nothing much to do with Microsoft Windows.

Most Unixes and Linuxes come with a preinstalled Desktop Environment such as Gnome, KDE, Xfce, FluxBox, IceWM, ... The most popular, but quite memory intense, Environment is Gnome, KDE (even more memory intense) is second (I know, some of you may have a different opinion, but I read it just a week ago!) and the others come somewhere later. You'll only have to install such an environment manually, if you don't get a system with the environment of your choice preinstalled.

And sure, you should be able to program in any language (well, any but a few very exotic ones maybe) with any distribution and any desktop environment - Xfce for example can even run any IDE (or other graphical program) which runs with KDE or Gnome.

Greetings,
Nepomuk

[divina11]

Thank you guy's for all your feedback, I've decided to install Linix (with XFCE environment). I've also just upgraded my RAM too 512mb, any way:

Can you give me the direct link (URL) which would also partition the drive and install linix too (included in the installation).

Many many thanks.

D xxx

[Nepomuk]

Thank you guy's for all your feedback, I've decided to install Linix (with XFCE environment). I've also just upgraded my RAM too 512mb, any way:

Can you give me the direct link (URL) which would also partition the drive and install linix too (included in the installation).

Many many thanks.

D xxx

Is Linix a Distribution or do you mean Linux?

If you want Xubuntu (Ubuntu Linux with preinstalled Xfce), here's a link:
http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/ubuntu-iso...sktop-i386.iso
It will offer a partition option - what size is your harddrive? We can decide, which partition sizes will be best for you.

Greetings,
Nepomuk

[prn]

I'm not sure if the OP needs this warning, but I was just looking over this thread and noticed that the OP said he has a "30 GB hard drive" and that he has "15 GB left" and wants to install Linux.

Note that in general it's not safe to simply chop off 15 GB and assume that you didn't disturb something that's already there. There are products, e.g., Partition Magic, that claim to be able to repartition a HD that is already in use, but, personally I would never just trust anything to do that safely. If you don't have a backup, don't mess around with your HD. (Actually, if you don't have a backup, the first thing you should do even if you aren't going to mess around with your HD is back it up, but that's another story.)

Am I paranoid? Probably. Am I paranoid enough? Probably not.

Expect that your windows 2k will be destroyed by reformatting your HD. If you don't really care about what's there now, then no problem. If you do care about it, back it up first because you may need to reinstall. You usually need to reinstall windows periodically anyway, so this may just be a good opportunity to do that. :-/

Best Regards,
Paul