Question For The Unix Geeks :)

[mr_fishbulb]

I've been thinking of trying to get to grips with Unix, mainly so it might be some use in a future career.

What's the best to get started with? Linux? I'd like one that reads NTFS so I can get to my existing files. What kind of anti-virus and firewall guff should I be considering?

I've got a second hard drive in my machine which I use for backups. Can I make a 5 gig partition off that and run it from there?

What will I need to do to to boot.ini file to get it dual booting from the 2ndary hard drive? I've dual booted before, but forget how I did it.

Cheers eunuchs people

 

[FragTek]

http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=581&highlight=dual+booting

^^ There's a quick dual booting guide for you mate, if you have a RAID array PV has written a guide for dual booting Linux w/ RAID (a tad more complicated and risky).

 

[mr_fishbulb]

Thank you FragMan. Any tips on which incarnation of Unix to try out? Or are they all very similar?

 

[JN]

Ubuntu / Kubuntu are great starts if you want to get the general feel of the *nix environment without being treated totally like a n00b by the system.

 

[Dav0s]

just dont get used to the GUI, cos if you wanna use that, you may aswell use windows.

i found a guide which taught me the basis of the console, which was very good, ill try and find it for you.

 

[mr_fishbulb]

Cheers Dav0s and XMS.

You got your system working yet?

Also - would it be easier for me to install some virtual machine software and run unix on that, rather than dual booting?

 

[JN]

Cheers Dav0s and XMS.

You got your system working yet?

Also - would it be easier for me to install some virtual machine software and run unix on that, rather than dual booting?

Using a VM will mean the performance of the OS will be significantly reduced, but its certainly a good way to try out a few systems on-the-fly.