Does anyone offer free email/ssh provisions?

Question

I wish to learn the UNIX SHELL can someone provide me with services such as these? SSH/POP etc?

Answer 1

Have you had a look around this list?

Answer 2

There are a number of public/open access Unix systems (e.g. SDF) that offer free accounts which are usually quite restrictive (paid accounts provide more "rights", disk space, bandwidth, and access to more services). It's probably better to grab a free distribution of a Unix or Unix-like operation system and install it on your own computer. That way, you can play "administrator" and get your hands dirty.

Answer 3

To expand on Zach's reply, I recommend getting a Live Distro that you can run from a CD/etc without installing to hard-drive. Perfect for playing about without affecting your existing OS.

Pick one from www.livecdlist.com - ordered by votes, so probably best to go for one near the top. :)

Answer 4

If you have a Windows PC and you can install software on it, try Cygwin This gives you a Unix environment and a bash shell.

Answer 5

If you want to play around with the Unix environment without destroying your current install, you could try using virtualization. A program called VirtualBox can let you run x86 operating systems in a contained environment, and if things go wrong, just delete the virtual machine and reinstall.

Or if you want just a shell, you could try Rootshell, which will give you an OpenBSD based shell. For a Linux based shell, Polarhome, can do that, as well as give you some other operating systems to play around with.

In my personal opinion though, I would try VirtualBox, because if you are just learning the shell, a GUI will be helpful when you need to fix or check on something that you might not know how to do in the shell.