What is Unix. Why ask that? Unix is a general term and refers to several different operating systems that share many features and the same style. Since its creation in 1969, Unix has been built on and branched off dozens of times. When 'learning unix', you must qualify what you mean by that term. Are you learning the general ins and outs that all Unix flavors share? Or are you learning the intracacies of a specific flavor like Linux or Solaris? Knowing 'unix' in general will prepare you for working with most flavors of unix. As you progress in learning the systems, you will begin to notice differences in each flavor. These will range from proprietary utilities designed to make administration more manageable, to location of files and directories, to additional utilities for day to day use. Unix is a powerful tool and is found in almost every large company today. Because of the power and flexibility of Unix, combined with serveral free versions, Unix is rapidly finding itself running as company web and mail servers. Knowing Unix will be a valuable job skill, and a great way to learn computers more in depth. The following lessons should be read in order as each one builds on the previous. It is encouraged that as you read each one, you have access to a Unix system somewhere so that you may try each command and play. That is the only way you will truly learn this material. As you move from lesson to lesson, be sure you completely comprehend the information before moving on. These lessons build on each other and assume you are familiar with aspects of the unix system.