Unix 101

[Daeval]

I used to be assistant admin for a solaris server for an ISP, but it's been years since I played with anything even remotely unix-like. Well, I finally put together enough spare pc parts to build a little server to play around on, and I want to install some flavor of ?-nix on it to re-learn what I used to know (and learn the stuff I never knew).

 

So now, I'm looking for a place to start. Primarily, I'm looking for learning resources and recommendations on which flavor of unix/linux/whatever to play with. The machine's primary role will be a webserver, LAN fileserver (other machines are WinXP), and general host to various internet and network services. I'm hearing a lot about unbuntu, but it sounds kind of "user-friendly" and I want to make sure I'm not missing anything. ;P

 

Any suggestions?

[ken_cinder]

Well if you admin'd a Solaris Server, it probably wasn't run on x86 hardware........though it could have been, it's just most common to see Solaris run on SPARC hardware.

 

If you really want to get your hands dirty....... http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

 

In general, all of the major Linux distros are "user friendly" now, some are just less so than others. If you're looking for one of the lesser go with Debian or Gentoo, but I would suggest checking through the Distro listing on http://www.linux.org/ to find what you would like based on just how much bullshit you want to have to handle.

[Daeval]

Yeah, the machine Solaris was on was a SPARC box, but the OS didn't seem TOO far from it's unix roots.

 

I ended up trying to decide between Debian and FreeBSD. FreeBSD won by a coin toss, though I still have both sets of ISOs in case I decide to switch. Now I get to try and configure everything, starting with the *cue dramatic music* wireless NIC. It recognized it at least, I just have to figure out how to get it to play nice with my router.

 

Thanks for the tips!