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Getting Started

Introduction

As illumos is the core of an operating system but not a distribution itself, the easiest way to get started with illumos is to download a distro and start playing.

Manual pages

As with most Unix-like operating systems, illumos ships with an extensive set of manual pages that describe how the system works. You can view the manual pages on an illumos system using the man command; e.g.,

$ man ls

You can also browse (and link to) the illumos manual pages online; e.g., ls(1).

Books

We provide a number of books relating to illumos technologies. The books are open source, and can be edited in the illumos-docbooks repository.

If your goal is to work on illumos itself, the Developer's Guide or the Building illumos page are good places to get started.