what distro of linux should i use

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Brentx
For a beginner I would recommend SimplyMEPIS 3.3 or Ubuntu. Both distro's usually work great right out of the box. Myself, I am a big fan of Ubuntu and other Debian based distrobutions because of Apt-Get, and it's GUI counterpart Synaptic. Ubuntu and Mepis both have awesome package management systems. I have tried Fedora Core before, and other RPM based distros, but I don't like Yum as much as apt-get. However people have started to use yum extender, which seems to be almost good as synaptic. The only Distro I would stay away from is Gentoo if you are a beginner, because you have to compile everything from scratch.

You really have to play around with whatever distrobution you like the best. Burn maybe Fedora Core 4, SuSe, Ubuntu, and Mepis onto some CD's and take some time to try out each one. That's the best way to learn how Linux works.

Not true. You can do a binary install of most things 😛

 

[Brentx]

Gentoo is a great Distro, don't get me wrong, but it isn't exactley forgiving for beginners. I have installed Gentoo 3 times, and I got it going great each and every time. Emerge is pretty cool, and is sometimes better from apt and yum. The documentation for gentoo is awesome thought... I do have to give them credit for that. Though all of this is coming from a debian fan so it is of course biased 😛

 

[jediphx]

Simply Mepis is very nice and easy to use. also Xandros Desktop 3.0 is very nice becuase it is built to resemble windows

 

[JohnBennett]

I goof around with Xandros on a dual-boot setup. Xandros made partitioning my hard drive and getting up and running very easy.

The Open Circulation Edition is free and will get you up and running fast...

http://www.xandros.com/products/home/desktopoc/dsk_oc_download.html

It's Debian based, so you can start messing with apt-get right away.

 

[Nothinman]

Not true. You can do a binary install of most things

And even if it was true, typing 'emerge blah' and watching gcc output scroll for days won't teach you anything anyway.