Which OS would you recommend?

B

BSDAppentic3

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I have a USB with 4GB. I want a "pure" system. This means that I want, a system which have the most Unix/Unix-Like pure, I don't know if you got what I mean.
I want it principally for learn. Some of the commands that I used in Linux, I can also use here. I want something alike.
So, what you recommend to me?
 
So, what you recommend to me?

Stick with BSD. There is Oracle Solaris and OpenIndiana, but if you concentrate on learning one thing the probability of learning it well rises.

The is very little difference in the command syntax or directory structure of FreeBSD and OpenBSD. Both have their pros and cons and can trace their roots back to UNIX proper.

I still gravitate toward my FreeBSD boxen for everyday desktop use.
 
Now I'm trying with Ilumos. As the whole system consumes a few of GBs, I prefer to download the minimal installation.
I'll be reporting in a time. Now it's installing.
 
I guess the close you can get of what you want without using old stuff would be IBM AIX, but that come with a price tag. Otherwise any BSD fit in there.

I've read about AIX. The question it's that I mostly use *free* software, such as FBSD, Linux (Debian, Gentoo, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Manjaro, Arch...), etc. Thus, I don't use RHEL nor HP-UX, for example. Not because I have no money, but because I don't want to pay for software. That's why I like Linux and FBSD. Besides, I still have hope in Linux. A time ago, I read that FreeBSD must be dead...but seriously, BSD should be dead from a decade and half approximately...and we're here using it. What a joke.
 
There may be more work prospects on the Linux side ... Debian is a good choice IMO. OpenBSD on the BSD side is simpler to learn IMO, pretty much comes preconfigured. That is of course just opinion. At home we have OpenBSD as a server on a old Celeron single core, Debian for desktops. Handy for learning scripting i.e. what is more portable/common between the two.
 
FreeBSD. It is a direct descendant of ATT UNIX and once contained ATT UNIX code. It's methodology and idiology are the same still if not similar. You can't do better than that without paying for it.

Under no circumstances use Linux. It's heart is not into UNIX and only wishes to be the next Windows on the desktop and is moving farther and farther away from the UNIX philosophy.
 
FreeBSD is not so much lean.

The early UNIX source code was very lean (sorry to say).
The source code is here: The real stuffs: http://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V7

you can compare ls.c from PDP of Dennis (V5 or V7) and ls.c from FreeBSD or Linux.

It looks a bit like busybox, but much better.

Basically it may run small, based on not much:
Code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <dirent.h>
int main()
{
    DIR *dirp;
    struct dirent *dp;
    dirp = opendir( "." );
    while  ((dp = readdir( dirp )) != NULL )
             printf( "%s\n", dp->d_name );
    closedir( dirp );
    return 0;
}

FreeBSD is FreeBSD.
FreeBSD is descendant of UNIX.
 
Perhaps you can get UNIX V7 x86 running on that machine?
http://www.nordier.com/v7x86/

Or, even though it is the (proposed) successor to UNIX by the same guys rather than actual UNIX, you can run Plan 9. In particular the APE layer.
https://9p.io/plan9/index.html

If you don't care about modern, then Solaris 9 / Solaris 10 (pre Oracle) are pretty pure and the following will work with emulators:
https://winworldpc.com/product/aix/ps2-1-3
https://winworldpc.com/product/a-ux/3x
https://winworldpc.com/product/xenix/unixware-7x

Other than that, I find FreeBSD the most UNIX-like (and UNIX-based) OS that you can get running on modern x86 hardware today.
 
Thank y'all for your suggests!
You are making me to remember names that I forgot that I read about those.
 
I think I'll make some videos using the systems that you all had mentioned.
My channel it's intended to be one of the more unusual on the whole YT, so why not upload some videos with systems that aren't or weren't too much known?
 
Plan 9 is closer to the UNIX philosophy than anything else that claims to be a variant today. Everything really is a file. I’d have to look it up, but something like cat /dev/screen > file gives you a screen capture. No fancy program necessary.

There is also Inferno built from Plan 9. It was developed mainly for embedded devices, read IoT, and was ahead of its time. A better VM than the JVM and a good garbage collected language called Limbo.

Also, if you just want to learn then look at A2 Bluebottle which is the latest Oberon by Wirth.

If Oberon and Plan 9 are too exotic then Minix is probably a better choice for learning “UNIX” because of its leanness.
 
If Oberon and Plan 9 are too exotic then Minix is probably a better choice for learning “UNIX” because of its leanness.
Maybe for some...but I'm a exentric person, at least using trying software.
And I have 500 GB here, so why not download them?
 
But before I can continue, I must ask: those systems that comes in .zip or in another file, I need to build them? I need to compile them?
 
In some points of view, the FreeBSD operating system is a bit (very little) a Linux thing.

It runs on modern hardwares. Runs on X86, ARM,... and it involves very evolved bin binaries.
The base system of FreeBSD is designed, contrary to Linux. It has an excellent reliability.
It is complex and works like a swiss watch.

In all cases, FreeBSD is better than Linux and it is closer to Unix than Linux is.

In all cases, probably, minix is cool experience to have, because it is related to both of them.
I really need to run minix again on my PC once I got some time.

Plan 9 is cool, but well, this mouse... who invented the mouse in 80s ? Apple again.
(0:51, 7:55)
 
I asked it because I'm more of the kind of guy who download the .iso and install it directly.
But I am always open to new possibilities.
Edit: Well...after seeing some of the OS that some of you suggested...I think FreeBSD it's not so bad. Or hard to use.
 
You really need to explain what you mean by "Unix-like" and by "pure".

So by "simple" you mean short source code? Minix might be good.

Do you mean the original written by Dennis and Ken? I don't think that source code is available (without a license, and I have no idea where one would get such a license). And even if you managed to get the source, to run it you would probably first have to buy a used PDP, or find a PDP emulator. And the result would be surprisingly boring compared to a modern system.

If you mean "new development, more feature-rich, but done in the philosophy of the original Unix", then it really depends on what you define as the "philosophy" of Unix. Richard Stallman and Rob Pike don't agree on it.

If you want free software (in the sense of being able to inspect the source code), you need to think through why you want that, and what you will do with it. Have you tried reading the source code for a complete Linux distribution? Just reading the kernel source (and learning the programming skills required to understand it) would take you years. If you add the normal user land that is on a standard Fedora or Debian install disk, it would probably take a human centuries to read it. So again, why do you want the source code exactly?

And the idea of using AIX as a particularly Unix-like OS is funny. IBM did a lot of stuff to modify AIX. Here is an example:
Normal Unix: "ls foo" -> "foo: No such file or directory"
AIX: "ls foo" -> "The dataset foo can not be located in the current catalog."

And Plan 9 is nowhere Unix like. It is a vastly expanded descendent. I'm not saying that it is bad, only that it is very different.
 
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