Best linux to D/L?

Question

as per my previous questions I do not want idiots answering questions just for "two points"

so serious IT and IS people:

would like to know your toughts on best LINUX OS to use?

{no stupid answers please.......don't spoil a fantastic forum}

Answer 1

Which is best (by any particular standard) varies with each release of the various distros.



The big ones (Red Hat (Fedora), SuSE, Mandriva, Debian, ...) eventually pick up on the good things the others have done, so after a few releases good approaches/software/methods spread out. These have the staff to patrol and look for things. Some tend to be more bleeding edge than others. And Debian is slower to release new versions than the others. Of these, I prefer SuSE, but any will be good, if you're willing to study a bit. None is good for the beginner in that there's just so much software included with them.



Smaller distros are less fully staffed and so move rather slower. But they are mostly special purpose and so don't absolutely need to move as quickly. Among these, Xandros and Ubuntu have good reputations for being especially easy to install and use. Ubuntu is particularly good on the 'not drowning the newcomer in tons of options' (eg, 18 different editors, 7 different drawing programs, 6 database packages, ...). Ubuntu tries to reduce this for users. Of course, if Ubuntu make the wrong choice, you'll have to get and install the yourself. Good practice that, but perhaps not as one of the first things you undertake.



But I'd start with Knoppix. It won't touch your hard drive unless you tell it to, and it's got a pretty full load of software aboard. Good practice. A very good way to get your feet wet, and just incidentally a good way to test whether you have some unsupported hardware in your computer. Not all hardware makers develop and release drivers for Linux with their hardware. Linux folks have to reverse engineer the hardware and put together a driver. Good practice for them, but maddening for the rest of us, since it would be much easier and faster if the manufacturers would make available the specifications of their hardware to help. The Linux Hardware Compatibility List (see Linux.org and chase links from there. Or maybe the LDP site) has all the equipment that's been made to work with Linux. If it's not on the List, you might have some trouble finding a driver. Do some searching on the Web before you decide your computer system is well suited to Linux.



There is more documentation about Linux that any other operating system in history. Lots of it is on the Linux documentation Project site. Including the System Adminstrator's Guide and the Network Administrator's Guide, both excellent books. Mat Welsh's Running Linux is a good beginner's book. See also the RUTE Guide, by Paul Sheer. It's a soup to nuts introduction and very professionally done. Freely downloadable, though not from the LDP site, last I looked. .. The Linux Cookbook is a regular book, but has lots of small exercises (like a cookbook, yah!) that are worthwhile. It's mostly command line oriented stuff, but that's Linux too. Linux is really a two-headed thing, since not all its software is point and click stuff. Good to know that side as well. Especially as most Linux system adminstration is done using those tools. The GUI approaches are merely a front end for them, and usually pretty simplified as well to fit into the GUI approach.



A local Linux user group is very likely to be helpful, especially at installation time for your first version of Linux. Don't feel that, as you're not an expert, you're not welcome. Mostly, these folks remember what it was like and will give as much time and effort as they can.





That should get you started.

Answer 2

I prefer the Fedora Core, mostly because I've been using Red Hat since 5.1. I also like the package management and the fact that there is a lot of technical support out there for Red Hat and a large user base. You can even get Red Hat Certification (RHCE), which means lots of documentation.



To play devil's advocate, Ubuntu seems very user friendly if you haven't used Linux before. And my husband likes Debian because it offers more support for open source software.



I guess it comes down to what it is you're looking for in a distro since there really aren't huge differences. If you're a beginner I'd recommend Red Hat or Ubuntu. Both are easy to install and easy to use and have active, enthusiastic user communities who are happy to help newbies. If you're looking for something that will help you gain job skills, I'd go with Red Hat because it's the one most used in the corporate environment in my experience (this may depend upon your geographic location though) and you could try for the RHCE certification.

Answer 3

You might try out this distro available at www.puppy.com this one looks like fun to use and can be used on earlier machines without much ram. Also there seems to be a lot of help in the forum that is available too.

Answer 4

I've used Redhat for 9 years but I've recently switched to CentOS. It is the community version of Redhat Enterprise and probably the most stable version I've ever used.