Re: Curious Question.

[glhenni@cs.sandia.gov (Gary L. Hennigan)]

Lawrence Walton <lawrence@otak-k.com> writes:
| I am not sure that's always true; try looking at addgroup in redhat and
| addgroup in debian. Or the different choices UID's, or file placement.
| Enough that I rather dislike distro hopping.
| 
| /Blatant Debian plug/
| Also I almost alway agree with Debian's file placement.
| On 15 Feb 1999, Gary L. Hennigan wrote:
| 
| > Dan Willard <dan@macrosys.com> writes:
| > |  Just how closely does Linux match with Unix?  If I know Linux
| > | and sitdown 
| > | in front of a Unix terminal am I just going to notice a few
| > | differences (ie 
| > | file locations and a couple of commands) or am I going to be
| > | lost?  I think 
| > | I already know the answer but would like confirmation. Thanks.
| > 
| > Almost without exception Unix is Unix at the user level, especially
| > basic commands and tools, e.g., ls, df, du, awk, grep, etc. Things can
| > vary more at sys admin level though. For example, even among Linux
| > distributions there's the variation in "init", with some distros using
| > SYSV and others using BSD style init schemes. Even at this level
| > though there's usually a root commonality. For example I don't think
| > I've ever run across a Unix system that didn't use /etc/passwd.
| > 
| > Even with this variation at the sys admin level, once you've learned
| > one flavor of Unix it's much easier to become familiar with a
| > different flavor.

Of course all the things you mention are sys admin type issues, and as 
I stated, such things do vary between different Unix variants and even 
between Linux distributions. I stand by my statement that, from a user 
perspective, Unix is pretty much Unix. I've had experience with Linux, 
HP-UX, IRIX, SunOS, Solaris, DEC OSF, Paragon OSF, QNX, AIX, BSD and
probably some I've missed and never had any problem going from one to
the other as a user. As a sys admin some of them gave me HUGE
headaches they were so different, but not as a user. Still, learning
admin issues on a new variant was much easier once I learned my first
Unix system.

Gary