What is Unix? Is FreeBSD and OpenBSD the same thing?

What is Unix? Is Unix the same thing as FeeBSD and OpenBSD? Is FreeBSD is the samething as OpenBS? How many .iso images do i need to download for OpenBSD? Do you have an link to download either some type of Unix or OpenBSD? Where can i get instructions on how to set up a mutiple dual boot using windows XP, OpenBSD and Redhat Linux 8.0?

There are many flavors of Linux such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Redhat Linux, Debian Linux and so on. All of these operating systems are based on the same thing... Linux. They just add their personal touches to the core Linux operating system.

I am not sure how many ISO images you need to download. Usually when you find the download site you will see disc1.iso, disc2.iso and so on. Simply download how many there are for the current version. I will look for a link to download OpenBSD. I already have a link in the Redhat Forum if you wish to download that flavor of Linux.

As far as setting up a multiple boot, you need to make multiple partition on your hard drive. I would setup Windows XP first and leave enough unused space so that you can later create two more partitions for the other Linux O/S that you want to use. As far as a tutorial I am sure there are plenty out there on how to do it.

Here are a ton of places you can get OpenBSD

http://www.openbsd.org/ftp.html

Here is a tutorial on how to setup a dual booting system:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linu ... lboot.html

It might be somewhat different depending on what version of Linux you are installing, but still the basics are the same. You must create multiple partitions, or use more than one hard drive to install the software, and then you will have some kind of boot loader installed so you can select which O/S boots by default and also so you can select during boot time which one you want to load if other than the default.

if you are only evaluating however, i would suggest you installed them on some kind of a vm, will be less work, and depending on resources you might be able to run them all simulteneously. down side, i dont believe there are any free source pc emulators for windows BTW OpenBSD is great.

Unix is similar but costs $$$

I was shocked to read that someone answered his question, yet did not answer it correctly. Linux and BSD are different codebases. *BSD is based on the original UNIX code, while Linux is its own codebase.

To some extent it can be said that Free/Net/Open BSD are UNIX, although they do not own the UNIX patents (because they are free OSes) as SUN does for Solaris, (which is based on BSD), or as Apple does with Darwin/OSX, (based on FreeBSD) or as SGI does with IRIX, etc...

BSD also doesn't really have distros. Experimentation is done in the kernel rather than the userland. Each BSD is a different OS. However, they are very compatable because massive code sharing takes place.

Examples of BSD are: FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, TrustedBSD, Darwin, DragonFly BSD, and many more.

Linux does have distros, they experiment in the userland rather than the kernel. Examples of Linux are: Redhat, Slackware, Debian, Mandrake, Gentoo, Crux, and many more.

I hope this post ends up in the same thread, I'm not sure if I understand this web interface.

Anyway, if you have any more questions, please ask me and I will happy to help you out!

Regards,
Tim