I dont know much about the available unix/linux OSs and there are so many that it is hard to research very many. I know this is a loaded question with so many devotees to particular OSs but I just need a good (free) OS that would work well for someone who learned some basic scripting in Mac OS X. Any help would be appreciated.
Also low system requirements would be a plus, (planning to boot from a drive on a variate of computers) but not essential.
Sorry one more thing, how much do I have to worry about viruses/malware/etc... when downloading and using free OSs
Be aware that any OS and software base unfamiliar to you has a learning curve, potentially a steep one. They're not Windows and won't be instantly familiar, you may need to change how you do a lot of things. If you install Linux expecting WindowsXPButFreeAndCooler��� you will be disappointed.
I am of the opinion that if two equally clever people were given access to two computers where neither of them have ever used a computer before, one given a computer installed with a Desktop orientated Linux distribution, and the other a Windows computer, then the one given access to the Linux computer would arguably be working efficiently in a shorter space of time.
I wonder whether it would be possible to conduct a study somewhere to test this...
In any case to the OP: Try Ubuntu Linux, if for no other reason than because it is popular. Its being popular means that you get easy access to a large base of software / programs and a huge community of people whom you can fall back on in case you get stuck.
Also: Trying to dual-boot an unfamiliar OS is a good recipe for disaster; if anything goes wrong, you'll have ruined two operating systems. Better to do it clean, if you can, maybe on a spare/throwaway computer.
Ubuntu's resource requirements are almost as ridiculous as Windows'. It's also the worst offender for overzealous autoconfig, which also makes learning difficult. I don't reccomend it.
On the other hand, if you are truly willing to learn and understand the tool - a computer and its OS is a tool, after all - you are using, you might be in for an amazing discovery which could well last a life. From washing machines to mainframes, from data base server to WLAN router, there is nothing you can't do. Yes, desktop PCs too - nothing special.
Windows is like a pre-built house. Move in instantly, but if you don't like the rooms layout, that's tough luck. Unix - every Unix and Linux - is more like a load of bricks plus some mortar. Build whatever suits you, but you have to DO it. There is a pre-built house included like in Windows - the distributions -, but what really sets it apart is the possibility to add, scratch and (re-)build rooms as you want until you reach your personal definition of "palace".
You will find an awful lot of things already built in other OSes lack, but you will have to learn how to use them, how to configure them and how to make them work together with other parts of the system. All this means you have to DO something to GET something. Still, the effort is both very rewarding and very satisfying to exert.
I work with Unix systems both professionally and for private use 25 years now - i couldn't say that i know everything worth knowing and still learn new things every day. And my curiosity still isn't satisfied. Not even by a wide margin.
Sorry I forgot to mention this in the original question. What I am looking for is something that I can continue to write UNIX compatible scripts on, I write alot of small simple scripts at work in terminal (Mac OS X 10.5 etc.) but run Win 7 at home. I dont really need much in the way of GUI (it would be convenient but unnecessary)
I really appreciate all the help, and really good insights.
Hmm. If you keep in mind its limits, Cygwin can work fairly well. It's not really UNIX, but it lets you install a BASH shell in Windows, run things mostly the same way you would in UNIX and so forth. There's some corners. mkfifo almost never works right because windows doesn't actually have that kind of fifo.
Ubuntu doesn't come with the BASH shell, just the far more limited DASH one, so maybe Fedora? You could also try installing an OS in a virtual machine.
I don't use it, but last I heard (a few years ago), while Ubuntu switched to dash for its bootscripts, bash remains the default interactive shell. Did they subsequently drop bash altogether?
Regards,
Alister
---------- Post updated at 04:24 PM ---------- Previous update was at 04:22 PM ----------
About Ubuntu: bash is the default interactive shell. dash was chosen as the default system shell (/bin/sh) mainly because it is significantly faster than bash and so Ubuntu starts up signifcantly faster. DashAsBinSh - Ubuntu Wiki
Also, the memory requirements really are a lot lower than Windows: Ubuntu vs. Windows memory, and a backup solution | Developer World - InfoWorld
The OP likes to write scripts that should run on multiples platforms, so than it is good to have POSIX-only compliant dash around for testing, since scripts that work in dash, will likely work in other POSIX compliant shells too..
I think that you will find you answer in one of the following OS , UNIX FreeBSD, Linux Fedora , and Linux Centos , all of them are free ,light , and you can do some magic with them.
I've compiled entire distributions in amounts of memory that had Ubuntu's cd installer staggering and spitting OOM-killer messages. It should not take several hundred megs of RAM to sit there and copy files while you show a static image on the screen. Its memory requirements are ridiculous straight out of the gate.
The OP should try several of the flavors on LiveCD and see which one appeals to them. I personally like Mint because of its ease of installation, its easy GUI and it runs well on all the varied hardware that I've installed it on.
That may be, but overall I don't think Ubuntu's memory usage can be called excessive. If there is a situation with limited memory, one may need to look for something more compact.
A common situation is for a new user to install Ubuntu on a crummy old computer, and proceed 5 minutes into install, before the Ubuntu installer throws its toys out of the pram, filling the screen with cryptic messages and leaving the computer unbootable. User decides "linux sucks" and sticks the XP cd back in to reformat. I don't blame them -- it's not unreasonable to expect a Linux distribution to be able to run on a computer that could run Windows XP.
It's not about limited memory, it's about the assumption of unlimited memory. An installer built to run in 32 megs can run in 1024 megs, but not vice versa.