"Some people, you know right away it won't it won't work out, some
you want to get to know a little better and so on" -> but they're all women at the end of the day ;)
-j-
Marcel Lecker wrote:
Right on Jon,
As I've said before, I see the whole distro choice thing as similar to dating. Some people, you know right away it won't it won't work out, some you want to get to know a little better and so on. If you have broadband and a burner, go to Linuxiso.org and go nuts. Get a second hard drive (and a set of drive caddies) or cheap second box and drink deep! explore! take chances!
It's the best way to get a sense of the options. Who cares if you're reinstalling a new distro every week!
After a while you'll find one you like better than the others (who cares
why). That may be the one to explore in greater depth and really get to
know.
Marcel
-----Original Message----- From: Jon Copeland [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 12:48 AM To: CLUG General Subject: Re: [clug-talk] OT::What are the main Linux Distros
Oh wow, I couldn't agree with you more. I eventually got to a stage, in my 'quest for linux', where I needed to try out as many distro's as possible to strike gold upon which flavour I prefer. And since linux is all about freedom of movement and choice, I chose Gentoo. It allows me to completely customise the software to my needs, no longer will I have to deal with the applications that come bundled with the bigger distros that inevitably go unused and waste diskspace.
Rock on Gentoo!
-j-
Andrew J. Kopciuch wrote:
On Tuesday 02 March 2004 23:13, Kevin Anderson wrote:
If you have Gentoo, why bother with the rest... :)
I'd say Suse, Debian and (unfortunately, Red Hat/Fedora).
round out the
list.
First off ... it is not unfortunate that Fedora / Red Hat
is a major
distribution. I was using Red Hat when Mandrake became a
distibution and
when the first SuSE distribution was released. I believe
that the early
success of distributions like Red Hat made it possible for
the acceptance of
others. They are a major distribution, and rightfully so.
(I guess Alan Cox
likes to work for an "unfortunate company")
I'd give the nod to Fedora as a best first install, because it's the
easiest to find dead tree documentation for. (book stores,
etc) It's also
the most supported for closed source apps.
I would think that any distribution is a good starting
point. You may have
some problems with your first choice, and you may not.
It's hard to say. It
all depends on a persons individual level of competance,
and understanding.
It depends on what someone is looking to get out of the
deal. Choosing a
linux distro is like an ice cream shop. Pick a flavour.
You like the green
one ... then go green. You say you've never had green before?
Some people may be expecting lime sherbert, and it turns
out to be avacado ice
cream. Well ... pick the chocolate one next time! ;-)
<after the fact>
I just read through the rest of this thread, and someone
else mentioned the
ice cream analogy too. Is there something about ice cream
and linux I
missed?
hmmmmmmm ... Baskin Robbins 9.0 </>
And whichever choice is made ... there is a plethera of
documentation
available for any installation. On the web, in books,
magazines, word of
mouth. OpenBSD has installation instructions on the CD
liner notes for
example. Docs are very easy to find for installations.
SuSE would be my recommendation for a second install,
because the sooner
you're off Red Hat, the better. SuSE is a close second for
docs and Closed
source app support, and with Novell promoting it, I expect
this gap will
close fast. Install isn't quite as easy as RH, but once
it's working, it's
easy too.
I disagree ... I had a horrid time with SuSE. I support
their cause, and I
support their distribution as a choice. I recommend using
SuSE to several
people actually. I however have not had good experiences
with it, and I
prefer to use Fedora. I could say the same for Debian. I
am not about to
start a which distro is king war. I know several others
disagree with me ...
and that's fine. That's fantastic actually. I have the
choice ... and so
does everyone else.
I admin servers with other colleagues. Some like SuSE, or
Mandrake. If I was
installing the machine it would not be my choice. Do I
really have a bone to
pick if SuSe, or Mandrake is installed ... well no.
They'd all run a linux kernel right? They'd all have the
same software
available (like apache, postfix, PHP, postgres, bind, CVS,
etc.) right?
Actually Aaron and I both use a RH6.2 box, as CVS and DNS.
Is it a big
deal? ... not to me. He mentioned upgrading the box an
installing SuSE on
it. Again not a big deal. It's granny smith vs. golden
delicious. Both
still apples.
Debian is popular, and well documented on-line, but it's a
PITA to install.
It's worth knowing a bit about simply because it's a common
reference
platform, though this is waning fast.
Gentoo is where you should go after Suse. It's faster than
any of the
others, it's lighter, and I find it much easier to
maintain. It's not
nearly as hard to install as Debian, but it's certainly not
as easy as Suse
or Fedora. Gentoo is also used for some interesting
projects (Hardened
Gentoo, for example). The only thing it doesn't have going
for it is (and
Personally, I don't care, but others do, I know...) LSB compliance.
I think the bottom line is that there is no correct path to
take. The distro
debate will go on forever. There is no right answer, and I
would be
discouraged to see people choose SuSE, or Fedora, Gentoo, Mandrake, Slackware, Debian or any other operating system just
because someone else,
somewhere, said so. I am all for every choice available, I
also support
people making up their own minds as to the choices.
Expand your knowledge everyone. Learn some history, learn
some present, and
make informed choices.
Andy
P.S. Although I've never used it .... I do hear really good
things about
Gentoo. Just thought I'd throw that out there. :-)
A~
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