Re: New to UNIX and would like advice

Paco wrote:
Greetings,

I am somewhat new to UNIX and would like some direction on where to go
to learn more. I have worked along side UNIX admins and have "toyed"
with Linux and UNIX in the past, so I am not 100% new.


School is great, if somewhat expensive. If you can get your employer to pay for it, Sun Educational Services offers:
Introduction to Solaris
Solaris System Administration I & II
plus a bunch of courses in programming, etc, etc.

I've had the introduction (CAI), and System Administration I (classroom). Both were good though I found a bunch of errors in the CAI course (and complained).

The book stores generally have Unix for Dummies, System Administration for Complete Idiots and that sort of thing.

If you are not in a hurry, buy yourself a cheap Sun box (Ultra 10 workstations with "Creator 3-D" graphics can be had on e-Bay for less than $100 US). You may need to buy and install an IDE disk drive (127 GB is the largest drive that you can use, thanks to a hardware limitation in Sun's IDE controllers.)

A Solaris 10 DVD Media Kit can be had for $40 (or sometimes free depending on the policy of the week). You'll need to replace the CD drive in the Ultra 10 with a DVD drive (any EIDE drive should work). Or, you can download CD images and burn your own CDs. Burning your own sometimes works and sometimes not (the drives are fussy about what they will and will not read); try recording at the LOWEST available speed.

Other Sun hardware is also available on e-Bay. "Blade 100, 150, 1000, 2000" workstations are also available (I believe the disks are fiber SCSI). They are faster and cost more money. You'll need an absolute minimum of 128 MB of RAM (more is better). Also Ultra 30, 60 & 80 (also faster and more money (SCSI disks))

I should also mention that docs.sun.com is a good resource. You can download manuals for both software and hardware. It might be a good idea to download the manuals for any hardware you are thinking of buying.

Well posed questions posted here usually get good anwsers. YMMV!

.

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