Hi,

I am a big fan of unix followed by linux. I've tried all flavors of BSDs and they are great. But I am curious to try a real commercial Unix OS just for kicks.

Does anyone know the cheapest commercial unix OS a consumer can buy?

With the commercial ones, its the size of the machine that dictates license cost.
Try a 2nd hand box from eg EBay.
Main options are AIX (IBM), Solaris (formerly SUN, now Oracle), HP-UX (Hewlett-Packard sic).
Of course there's always MAC OS/X, which has a *nix kernel & cli under the MAC Gui ...

I know the commercial unix OS are aim mostly for businesses. I did once purchase Sun OS version 8 in the past.

Thanks chrism01 for the reply

I've always heard that AIX stands for "Ain't UnIX".

AIX does a LOT of things that are VERY different from most of the *nix systems out there. HP/UX has some differences too, though not as many. You can get Solaris for free these days, and there is no difference between the free version and the pay-for version (except, of course, support). And it'll run on an X86 based platform too. I'd start there.

I have to think about sun OS from Oracle. Oracle has a reputation of being two-faced with linux. But it is the least expensive and I have some experience using the sun OS.

Thanks for the reply

Well, Solaris isn't Linux, and Oracle has played nicely with Linux for years. Solaris 11 is pretty nice, and it's the same on a virtual machine on x86, as it would be on a big SPARC system in an enterprise. It's a good way to get going.

Yes, I know Sun OS isn't linux, what I meant to say I didn't want to use a product from Oracle because of their history on linux projects. Anyway, I'm going to do some research on Oracle Sun OS and see what happens

Linux and Unix rocks !!!

Pretty sure you can use Solaris for a limited time. There was the openindianna project also. Some other variations of Solaris out there too.

Yeah I know. But I want to use a real Sun OS and not a fork of it. I don't mind paying for a single license. I did once paid for Sun OS version 8 way, way back when Sun still had its name

Why? The one advantage with Linux (and to a lesser extent, FreeBSD) is that you have a community that you can tap into for supporting your systems. When you take that away, you're left with whoever you know who's used it and whatever commercial support you can get. Is there a feature on a non-Linux system that isn't supported on Linux that you're looking for?

If you do want to go a more Unix route, you're left with AIX, SCO OpenServer, Solaris, and HP/UX. None of them are cheap and all require a support contract to get updates. Some aren't going to support standard off-the-shelf hardware either.
Solaris 11 starts at $1000 per socket. Oracle radically jacked up the price after they bought Sun. You're better off getting a RHEL license if you want to spend that much.

I guess I have to think about it then. I remembered when I purchased Sun OS ver 8 for $129 single license for a x86 machine. :/

Maybe I give openindiana a try. BTW, I will still continue on using linux as it is my main OS for everyday use.

I went to oracle's web site to see the price of Oracle Solaris 11 and to my surprise there was no price. In fact I've downloaded it for FREE and my only cost was my time to create an account with no obligation to buy anything.

You didn't read the agreement. As I recall it went from the Sun license to an evaluation trial for some 180 days or such. I doubt the Oracle police will get you if you do use it longer or for commercial uses.

@ jefro

If it has a trial period that's fine. My main purpose of this OS for for personal/educational use only and not for commercial.

The base OS is free, but the updates are not, hence you need the support contract. You still haven't stated why you need a non-Linux solution.