I am a newbie. I started using linux this past summer. I am an IT audit manager at a company located at the Montgomery Park building. Our company runs RHEL on servers that run our ERP and a few other servers. Having struggled to audit our Linux servers, I decided to take a class from Red Hat (their entry-level Linux Essentials class). I really enjoyed the class and was surprised by all that Linux offered in the way of features (e.g. kernel-level firewall, KVM, etc.) and security (e.g. SE Linux). That class fueled an even greater interest in Linux. One of our Linux admins gave me an Ubuntu cd, but I didn't want to learn a distro that was different that what our company uses. I discovered CentOS. I obtained an old desktop computer from our IT department to use as a sandbox and loaded CentOS on it. I purchased Negus's "CentOS Bible" and Membrey's "The Definitive Guide to CentOS". Later, I purchased Sobell's"A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming". After some study, I decided to convert my home laptops to Linux. For my home PCs, I tried CentOS, but later changed to Fedora (in an effort to not overwhelm myself by staying with one distribution family). I have successfully converted my home PCs and my family didn't realize they were not using Windows until I told them. By the way, getting my somewhat older home laptops to run Fedora successfully has been no easy task. I've spent countless hours troubleshooting wireless, video, sound, etc - posting on CentOS and Fedora forums, filing bug reports, and googling like crazy. I've found this frustrating at times, but I've taken satisfaction in all that I've learned. Early on, I made the goal to obtain a RHCE certification. This is still a goal, but as I learn more I realize I still have long way to go. I've created over a hundred flash cards to help me memorize commands, the file system, key configuration files, etc. In short, I chose CentOS/Fedora because that is what my company uses and I want job relevance. From this pursuit, I realize that Linux as a desktop is more buggy, supports less hardware, and is less user friendly than Windows (although I like it better - go figure on that one). I understand that Linux has come a long way in this area and I think they'll get there in a few years. Sorry for the Ramble, Mike
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
