An operating system is a means of communicating with a computer; on a VAX the operating system is VMS, on a PC it is DOS, and on a Alpha it is UNIX.

UNIX is one of the most popular operating systems in the World, it runs on more platforms than any other, it is not tied down to any architecture and it has a rich assortment of utilities and commands.

UNIX is available on so many platforms there is no need to learn a new operating system each time you change hardware vendor, it is far cheaper than any other operating system, and it is slowly standardising itself. The problem many new users discover is the fact it was designed by computer specialists for computer specialists, and consequently the syntax of the commands are very user unfriendly. But X Windows has conquered this problem.