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Linux ???

C

CaptianScooby

Member
I am running Windows XP Pro on my current pc and am wondering what type of Linux is best suited to learn about the operating system? I hopefully will set up a Unix/Linux based network sometime in the near future and I am wondering on the best books and software to get myself off to a good start. Thanks
 
Mandrake or Red Hat are the best for begginers IMO, orrrrrr if you feel like spending alot of time learning then I would reccomend Slackware, Gentoo or Debian.
 
I learned about linux using Mandrake. Its a breeze to install. I have since gone to Red Hat, which, in my opinion, is a better overall distro.
 
It depends. Most of the Red Hat-ish distors (RH, Mandrake, SuSe) are going to have heavily modified packages. When you're running one of those you're not just running "Linux" anymore, you're running "Red Hat Linux", or "Mandrake Linux", etc. You can tweak them to get all the packages to default/normal but not if you're a beginner. If you start out w/ Slackware, Debian, Gentoo, etc., then you start with a much plainer system that you can work from. In essence if you take the same person (who knows what they're doing) and have them run a plainer Linux system for 3 months, then all the stuff is going to start looking the same across the board as they solidify their setup (not identical, but close). Run Mandrake for 3 months and it's still Mandrake (unless you've spent some SERIOUS time gutting out the system, but if you're going to do that it doesn't make sense to go w/ Mandrake in the first place). In closing, I'd personally say to stay away from the easier distros, and go ahead to a cleaner one. I personally prefer Slackware, but Debian is supposed to be equally as good (slightly different philosophies). Don't expect to learn everything right away though. I've used Linux for 3-4 years now personally, and I'm currently taking a Systems Administration class on Red Hat and Solaris, and I'm still learning things all the time.
 
When you're running one of those you're not just running "Linux" anymore, you're running "Red Hat Linux", or "Mandrake Linux", etc. You can tweak them to get all the packages to default/normal but not if you're a beginner.
Click to expand...

Why would you want to? One of the main reasons for running a distribution is to get the 'value added' by it's developers, and one of the biggest ones is taking a handfull of individual software packages and making them work as a single coherent system. It's probably the best reason I prefer Debian, it feels like a complete system whereas distros like RedHat just feel like a collection of packages thrown togeteher.

I'd personally say to stay away from the easier distros, and go ahead to a cleaner one.
Click to expand...

Why? The easier ones are a lot easier to get started with, that's their point. You have a much better chance of sticking with Linux if you can install it and browse the Internet in 20 minutes instead of spending 2 days trying to figure out which module you need to load for your NIC to work or writing a ppp chat script to dialup to your ISP.

I started with RedHat 5.2 and I fought my way through it because I had a lot of free time, but why would I ask anyone else to do that if they don't have to? If they really want to learn how to use Linux and all the power hidden beneath KDE they will, but getting them to install Slackware and then be presented with a nice 'localhost#' prompt with no idea where to go is just scarey and will have most people deleting the partition in a few hours. Infact that happened here, some guy installed Slackware at the advice of a coworker and had deleted the partition and ran back to Windows in 3.5 hours.

And what is "unclean" about RedHat or Mandrake?
 
Also, does anyone know any good books for learning about Linux. They dont have to be all picture color books but a few good turtorials would be nice 4 a newbie to linux.
 
Why would you want to? One of the main reasons for running a distribution is to get the 'value added' by it's developers, and one of the biggest ones is taking a handfull of individual software packages and making them work as a single coherent system. It's probably the best reason I prefer Debian, it feels like a complete system whereas distros like RedHat just feel like a collection of packages thrown togeteher.
Click to expand...

I don't see any of the crap thing like Mandrake throws in as "value added". To me a distribution is simple a starting point so that I don't have to recompile everything myself (I keep up w/ major things like KDE and Xfree86, but command line utilities and such are too numerous to keep up to date on a single user workstation). Every 6 months or so a new version comes out and poof. I've got a fairly up to date system again.

Why? The easier ones are a lot easier to get started with, that's their point. You have a much better chance of sticking with Linux if you can install it and browse the Internet in 20 minutes instead of spending 2 days trying to figure out which module you need to load for your NIC to work or writing a ppp chat script to dialup to your ISP.

I started with RedHat 5.2 and I fought my way through it because I had a lot of free time, but why would I ask anyone else to do that if they don't have to? If they really want to learn how to use Linux and all the power hidden beneath KDE they will, but getting them to install Slackware and then be presented with a nice 'localhost#' prompt with no idea where to go is just scarey and will have most people deleting the partition in a few hours. Infact that happened here, some guy installed Slackware at the advice of a coworker and had deleted the partition and ran back to Windows in 3.5 hours.

And what is "unclean" about RedHat or Mandrake?
Click to expand...

They are unclean because these distros modify the basic structure of things much more so than the plainer distros. Don't get me wrong, they're great if you plan on always sticking with the same distro, but you're learning a particular flavor of Linux, not Linux in general.

 
Originally posted by: MGMorden
Why would you want to? One of the main reasons for running a distribution is to get the 'value added' by it's developers, and one of the biggest ones is taking a handfull of individual software packages and making them work as a single coherent system. It's probably the best reason I prefer Debian, it feels like a complete system whereas distros like RedHat just feel like a collection of packages thrown togeteher.
Click to expand...

I don't see any of the crap thing like Mandrake throws in as "value added". To me a distribution is simple a starting point so that I don't have to recompile everything myself (I keep up w/ major things like KDE and Xfree86, but command line utilities and such are too numerous to keep up to date on a single user workstation). Every 6 months or so a new version comes out and poof. I've got a fairly up to date system again.

Why? The easier ones are a lot easier to get started with, that's their point. You have a much better chance of sticking with Linux if you can install it and browse the Internet in 20 minutes instead of spending 2 days trying to figure out which module you need to load for your NIC to work or writing a ppp chat script to dialup to your ISP.

I started with RedHat 5.2 and I fought my way through it because I had a lot of free time, but why would I ask anyone else to do that if they don't have to? If they really want to learn how to use Linux and all the power hidden beneath KDE they will, but getting them to install Slackware and then be presented with a nice 'localhost#' prompt with no idea where to go is just scarey and will have most people deleting the partition in a few hours. Infact that happened here, some guy installed Slackware at the advice of a coworker and had deleted the partition and ran back to Windows in 3.5 hours.

And what is "unclean" about RedHat or Mandrake?
Click to expand...

They are unclean because these distros modify the basic structure of things much more so than the plainer distros. Don't get me wrong, they're great if you plan on always sticking with the same distro, but you're learning a particular flavor of Linux, not Linux in general.
Click to expand...

Well with my LIMITED experience you are talking out of your ass here.

Mandrake is Linux. Every command that you can run in slackware you can run in Mandrake. Any program written with debian in mind can be compiled for Mandrake. If the distros are uses the same kernal then they ARE the same OS with different things customized.

That is like saying that my Windows XP machine is different from my friends because he radically changed the GUI and added a while bunch of third party utilities.

My machine is the same as his. They are just customized differently.

Same thing with Linux. Suse, Mandrake, and Red Hat ADD things to make Linux life easier. That doesn't mean the under lying beast is any different. It is just more customized by the developers in a way they think will help out the users.

 
Well with my LIMITED experience you are talking out of your ass here.

Mandrake is Linux. Every command that you can run in slackware you can run in Mandrake. Any program written with debian in mind can be compiled for Mandrake. If the distros are uses the same kernal then they ARE the same OS with different things customized.

That is like saying that my Windows XP machine is different from my friends because he radically changed the GUI and added a while bunch of third party utilities.

My machine is the same as his. They are just customized differently.

Same thing with Linux. Suse, Mandrake, and Red Hat ADD things to make Linux life easier. That doesn't mean the under lying beast is any different. It is just more customized by the developers in a way they think will help out the users.
Click to expand...

So the fact that each one of them uses a DIFFERENT program for autodetecting hardware isn't significant? The fact that each one has their own seperate, and completely unique setup utils for setting up printers, samba shares, reconfiguring the system (the settings files of this operation can be stored in radically different places). The fact that they release their own versions of the kernel (sometimes with their own code in it), and that if you want to compile your own you either have to configure it just like they did theirs OR go in and change the system so that it starts correctly isn't an issue? We'll not even start with what Redhat has done to KDE, or the whole issue of RPM's (I don't know of anybody who doesn't tell it to ignore the dependencies; I don't know of anybody experienced who even uses them). Don't give me commands as a similarity. Pretty much every command that works on Slackware or Mandrake or Redhat ALSO works on *BSD, Solaris, HP-UX, QNX, AIX, IRIX, SCO, etc. That's what makes then Unices, not Linux (because none of the ones in the 2nd list are Linux).

 
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