Links to Unix

General Unix Information

Unix Guru Universe
Unix Reference Desk

Don't miss the Free Unix Giveaway List. Unix users who have spare CDs sign up to give them away for the cost of postage. It's a good way to try out Unix for very low cost, although the versions offered are usually somewhat old. Still, I have received both Linux and FreeBSD distributions from this list. It's worth a look.

Linux

Information

Linux.org
Linux.com
LinuxWorld
LinuxPower

News

Linux Today (sure, I know that Slashdot is better known. It used to be the Linux news source. Not any more. Linux Today simply has more content.)
Linux Gazette -- online magazine

Linux Distributions

Caldera's OpenLinux -- a good distribution for beginners
Red Hat -- a very popular distribution
Mandrake -- another good distribution for beginners
Debian and Slackware -- distributions for more advanced computer users

Cheap Linux

Linux System Labs
Linux Central

FreeBSD

General Information and News

The FreeBSD Project
FreeBSD 'zine -- online magazine
Daemon News -- another online magazine

Getting FreeBSD

FreeBSD doesn't come in the variety of distributions you find in Linux. Instead, you can find an official 4-CD set at Walnut Creek, or a get cheap 1-CD version at Linux System Labs. Recently FreeBSD has been showing up at CompUSA and Borders Books in the form of The Complete FreeBSD and FreeBSD Power Pak. If you want to use FreeBSD, I highly recommend one or the other of these. The book is a great help on many subjects and is the only easily available FreeBSD book in print in English.

Solaris

You can find a "free" version (you pay for the cost of media and shipping) of Solaris 7 at Sun Microsystems. My copy ended up costing around $18.

SCO Products

SCO OpenServer and UnixWare 7 are available from SCO's web site here. They too are available for the cost of media and shipping, which works out to more than $50 for OpenServer and $20 (without manuals) or $49 (with manuals) for UnixWare 7. My personal opinion is that you're better off with Linux or FreeBSD than with Solaris or SCO, but these are available if you want to try something different.

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