Fink or Darwin?

You could look on the Fink (http://fink.sourceforge.net/) and Darwin (http://developer.apple.com/opensource/index.html) websites to see what they are.

I suspect you actually mean Fink and Darwinports (http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/), both of which are port systems for installing open source software on OS X. Both are intended to simplify the download - configure - compile cycle involved with installing new unix software on OS X.

Thanks. I have read some of the information, but because I am so new to this I was not sure what they actually did, so thanks for the summary jbc.

Rereading this in earnest as I would like to work more in unix on my laptop as I do at work.

www.google.com , huge FAQ's and documentation's on their sites

You may also find this Unix FAQ (http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=40648) useful.