On Friday 04 October 2002 10:50 am, Peter Jay Salzman wrote: > i'm finding myself disagreeing with rod. a dangerous pursuit. :)
That's OK. My wife does that too. ;-) > if you're new to gnu/linux... if you're kind of new to unix... > > i would _definitely_ without a doubt stay away from debian and gentoo. > cut your teeth elsewhere. install redhat, mandrake or suse. no doubt > in my mind whatsoever. Consider the objective. Red Hat and Mandrake will give you an easy experience and a working system, but if your goal is to learn about Linux and friends, you won't be very far along. For the newbie who really wants to learn, I'd suggest Slackware and a couple of good books as a starting point. *Then* try Debian or Gentoo. ;-) > as for getting distro, despite what other people say, buying the distro > has some distinct advantages: > > 1. you're supporting a company. if nobody bought linux, most of the > distributions would shrivel up and die. and where would that leave us? > mandrake nearly declared bankruptcy this year, and they're one of the > most popular distros! these companies have employees to pay, business > expenditures to pay. no matter how much i make fun of redhat and > mandrake, i would just die if they folded. lokisoftware going under > cast a dark cloud over me for months when they called quits.... I guess this doesn't worry me as much as it does you. Red Hat and other for-profit companies do contribute to open source projects, but they are not the core. Ultimately they are just trying to make a buck, and if they fail it's only their fault and the foundation will remain. I would be disappointed, but it's not our job to prop them up. -- Rod http://www.sunsetsystems.com/ _______________________________________________ vox-tech mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
