On 12/27/2015 11:50 PM, Joseph wrote: > Thanks for all your recommendations! > > Let's see them in detail: > > 1. Live CDs (I refer to LiveUSBs and DVDs as live CDs as well, later on) > > @mike (without capitalization) recommended Frenzy which might be totally OK > for my purposes, it is just happened to be discontinued for many years and I > prefer - if possible - current themes, for just the heck of it, why not? In > the Linux world it's quite easy to have live CDs, almost everything Linux > comes as a live CD these days. Strangely, it's almost the opposite with BSD > Unix. I dug the net and the mailing list archives and was not able to find > any current, widely used, accepted, and respected live variant of any of the > 3 major BSDs. A live system might come as a handy tool. > > @Joachim recommended the Jibbed live CD, which actually looks good, except in > a few year old, but still most recent topic on it in this very list it was > not really recommended, actually for a very similar, learning situation. Even > the NetBSD site does not link to it, does not mention it as at least being > tolerated. I could use it without problem, nonetheless; just sayin' > > So, why no (official) love for live CDs from the BSDs? > > In searching for Unix-like live CDs (not necessarily a BSD, let's try > different flavors as I'm learning Unix, why not?), I came across OpenIndiana, > which comes as a live CD by default, but I was unable to make a bootable > media from Windows (never had such problems with any Linux live CD). > > I also found Minix, which might be interesting later on, as an OS designed > for learning, serious learning, but I'm not there yet. It also dropped the > live CD option from the latest version for security purposes, though I also > tried to make bootable media from the earlier version, without success. > > @Clark: Thank you for the best recommendation, the SDF Public Access UNIX > System - I didn't know about it! As I am lazy, and given the situation with > the live CDs described above, I probably will just use the SDF for the time > being. > > Extra thanks for the Unix Haters handbook download link and recommendation; > this looks like a fun read for winter evenings. > > @Marina: all the guys 'got' my question, with respect, you may totally > misread my original question, by both of your answers. > > In your 1st mail you recommended me to > a) install BSD > b) as a virtual system. > > I may assume, you may made some assumptions but did not put them in writing, > hence I'm not getting your point. > > a) We (the list, altogether) concluded before (see my 1st mail in the thread) > that at this point I may not want to install anything, just run a Unix OS (as > the NetBSD manual starts with, it's not for newbies to start from scratch) > > b) Virtual system? It depends: > - If you have one, very powerful machine, then yes, you may consider > installing something virtual on it > - On the other hand, if you have, say, three, medium or less powerful > machines spare, why install any OS as a virtual machine, why not just install > any OS natively on one of your boxes? >
Well - if you have a machine that is not even powerful enough to run linux - say an old 386 that you found in a basement, you can run NetBSD on it and start learning. > I'd go for the second version as noted author of two BSD books (except for > NetBSD), Michael Lucas also suggests a native install as well - and most > importantly, I agree with him! He says virtualization might cause problems > not present with software run natively, why even start with that, if you > don't have to? > > Your 2st answer: you recommending me reading OS code in C - again, I think > you made some assumptions of my level of C knowledge (it's absolutely zero at > this point; but it's not required to just run the OS, as per my original > question, right?). Jumping from zero knowledge to reading OS source code > might not be the most effective 'introduction to C 101 course,' I guess. > Sorry about the assumptions - the BSD crowd used have an assumption about code as literature. BSD C code is perhaps the most readable c code around. ...Though plan9 code is similar. Back in the day reading a bit of code was part of learning an OS. The BSD's have a long history so it is sometimes easy to forget that it is not the 80's here. Wow, how did i get to be 50. --- Marina > Thanks for your contribution, though. > > Merry Christmas to all! >
