Getting a UNIX account

There's no doubt that UNIX knowledge is a marketable skill. It's also something that's good for computing students to learn about. So, where to go from here? Well, if you're a University of Kent computing student, you can get a UNIX account very simply (in fact, you already have one). To get access, just go to:
http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/systems/newuser/ and follow the instructions. Some students will have done this already, if only to submit certain assessments.

Setting up your own UNIX system

Full instructions are beyond the scope of this web page, but you can easily get hold of CD, or DVD, or even USB stick images for installing various systems. The following will help:

• http://www.freebsd.org will tell you all about FreeBSD; look at the Handbook first (see under SHORTCUTS on the right).
• http://www.linux.org is a good starting point for finding out about Linux.
• One possible Linux distribution you might try is Ubuntu, which can be found at http://www.ubuntu.com.
• http://openindiana.org contains details of the OpenIndiana system. This is an open source development of Solaris, which is what UNIX hosts at Kent (such as raptor and swallow) use.
• http://www.mirrorservice.org contains copies of all the relevant distribution files for virtually every system. It's hosted at the University of Kent, and access is free and fast.

You can also talk to Bob! To contact him on Facebook, go to http://www.facebook.com/eager. Alternatively, click on the Facebook logo at the bottom of the page to go to his discussion group.

Using UNIX

There are lots of good resources for finding out about using UNIX.

• Here is a good set of tutorials: http://manuals.itc.virginia.edu/unixtut/index.html