nexusxox

I am interested in knowing what platform or version should i start at to be able to work in the industry.

shuuhen

Um... I'm a little confused about what you want from the thread. The title "Why Unix?" is fairly vague.

For the other question: Pick a version of Linux/*BSD/Solaris/Mac OS X/other Unix-like. All of the operating systems I listed are Unix-likes. They all have advantages. If you're interested in using Unix-like operating systems to enhance your resume, I recommend using one(s) that require using the command line.

Graphical administration is great to some people, but the more comfortable you are with the command line for Unix-like operating systems, the more comfortable you should be moving to a Unix-like platform you haven't used before.

Recommended Linux distros:
- Gentoo
- Arch
- Debian (NOT a derivative of it)
- CentOS
- Slackware
~ Linux From Scratch (LFS) - start using one of the above distros first if you're interested in this one. Gentoo would probably be an especially good one to pair with LFS.

Recommended *BSD's
- FreeBSD (could consider the Gentoo FreeBSD setup - see Gentoo site for details)
- OpenBSD
- Other BSD's are probably great too, but I haven't used them or had serious discussion of their advantages with anyone.

Solaris - I think technically this one's a System V Release 4 descendant. Probably both Solaris and the various OpenSolaris distributions would be good. I haven't had time to use them yet, but from various discussions with network engineers/system admins/etc it is commonly run on servers. Also ZFS is supposed to be an amazing file system.

nexusxox

I intentionally left it vague, thanks for the information. I am looking for a good starting point to have the ablity to learn Unix. In the past i did some administration on Unix SCO but with all the different versions and GUI i want to know where to start on a fresh slate so i can go into the job market.

shuuhen

If you list the specs of the machine you intend to use for the new operating system(s), I can try give you a slightly better recommendation.

What I'd recommend at this point is use something like Gentoo or Arch for your workstation use. Both have a more in depth install, but you learn more about the system you'll be using. Then on separate or virtualized machines you could try to set up various servers, network them, handle upgrades, VPNs, etc. Plenty of guides are available on sites like BSD Guides, HowTo Forge, tldp.org, etc.

Pretty much any of the operating systems I listed should be good experience, but for server use you might do one of the *BSDs and either CentOS or Debian. If you have plenty of extra time on top of that, consider Solaris.

You could do a lot with only one or two machines if they can handle virtualizing some operating systems. You don't need all of them on at the same time, but it saves on physical hardware/space and energy. I haven't used Xen yet for virtualization, but I plan to since it looks like a powerful option for the OS's that support it. Virtual Box is free and fairly easy, but doesn't support 64-bit (last I checked anyway). VMware's products have worked fairly well for me - Server and ESXi are free. Of the two, I've only used Server, but it has helped me with both personal and work projects before. For Macs there are some additional options that cost a little, but work pretty well.

acd0

start with the best - FreeBSD.org