That's how it I chose my first, a friend my "guru" started me off in '01 and with all the distros available, with gentoo.....
it took me 3 weeks to compile a working kernel (I wasn't an astute forum reader then) but after trial an error and learning that reading forums were a good thing, I learned about trust... I would port forward ssh and give my then mentor root access, not surprisingly about 100 instances of firefox opened up displaying goatse.cx.... lesson learned, I then traversed to Yellow Dog for my G3 and the rest is history I actually lean towards Ubuntu these days as I'm less inclined to lean my system, although I have been moving so much the last 4 years I just do what is convenient and will get me up asap. Once I get settled again I'm sure I will get back to the puristic love.... On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 10:58 PM, chris (fool) mccraw <[email protected]>wrote: > my 3/4-baked theory is that many people new to linux use what their > friends suggest, or what they first or most compellingly hear about. > that is, they don't do comparative research between available/relevant > distributions and choose logically. > > certainly that was the case for me in the early days and even now i'm > more a "try it and see" type than a heavy researcher when i experiment with > distros i haven't used before. hmm, then again, i know more of what i > want and need from a distro now, and can judge some things instantly > that i would have not understood when i was getting started, so maybe > the past 16 years has been of some use after all =) > > anyway, what is your take on how people choose distributions, and/or > how did you choose your first? i think newbies are an especially > interesting discussion because we are attracting so many to our ranks > these days and i'm curious as to what trends will shape the future of > the landscape; i believe that the distros that see the most users > fare the best in terms of vitality and usually pace/success of > development, commercial or non (though that is a belief open to > debate in itself). > > personally, i started with slackware because i was unaware anything > else existed and my mentor used slackware, though i understood that > slackware was not linux. the second time (in as many weeks) that i > installed it i downloaded it myself from somewhere that had other > distros mirrored too and i noticed their presence but was not > inquisitive for many months (and many reinstalls). it maybe that > nothing else was as mature and generally awesome and in english at the > time (mid-1994), but i certainly can't vouch for that with any > certainty. > > thoughts? > _______________________________________________ > PLUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug > -- + Part-time Realist + Full-time Geek _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
