What mix of distros to learn with? Please evaluate..
Hi all, Newbie here. I am purchasing a system to learn Linux with by multi-booting. The three distros I'm thinking of having the vendor pre-install are: - Slackware 9.1 - Libranet 2.8.1 (a commercial Debian from Canada) - some RPM approach (which of RH, Suse, or Mandrake would you go with? why?) I want to learn with diverse systems that are easy to modify/reconfigure/ maintain/upgrade after the box arrives. Would you say this a good mix of distros fo initial learning purposes, or would you suggest I consider another mix or approach--and why? Thank you all, Brian __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com
On Saturday 04 October 2003 7:27 am, Brian McLinden wrote:
Hi all,
Newbie here. I am purchasing a system to learn Linux with by multi-booting. The three distros I'm thinking of having the vendor pre-install are:
- Slackware 9.1 - Libranet 2.8.1 (a commercial Debian from Canada) - some RPM approach (which of RH, Suse, or Mandrake would you go with? why?)
I want to learn with diverse systems that are easy to modify/reconfigure/ maintain/upgrade after the box arrives. Would you say this a good mix of distros fo initial learning purposes, or would you suggest I consider another mix or approach--and why?
Hi Brian, I happen to like SuSE Linux. It is an RPM based distribution which comes on 7 CDs and 1 DVD for approx. $75 for the professional edition. It has its own graphical system administration tool called YaST. I find it easy to install and operate. The company is based in Germany and SuSE is a top distribution in that part of the world. Version 9.0 is coming out near the end of October. It occurs to me that having 3 distros installed simultaneously on a computer is a bit unusual. There would have to be alot of disk partitions to support this (a minimum of 7, one shared swap, 3xboot/root). As a newbie, be careful of this, as it is complexity not normally seen. Later, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org
"Brian McLinden" <blm987@yahoo.com> wrote:
Newbie here. I am purchasing a system to learn Linux with by multi-booting. [...]
Brian, To what end? Are you interested on a personal geek-toy level, or do you see this as a career enhancment? Are you most interested in ease-of-use and features for end-users, or as a network/system administrator? Do you want to develop software, or stricly use end-user apps? Each distribution has relative strenghts and weaknesses in each of these areas. If yuo're trying to replace your Windows desktop, you'll have different priorities than if you're trying to learn "Enterprise" systems support.
[...] I want to learn with diverse systems that are easy to modify/reconfigure/ maintain/upgrade after the box arrives. Would you say this a good mix of distros fo initial learning purposes, or would you suggest I consider another mix or approach--and why?
I would second Matt's recommendations to pick one first (few are "bad"), and get familiar with it before going all-out. I started with RedHat as my first serious Linux distribution, then, after I understood why I didn't like some RedHat conventions, had a much better idea of what I really wanted. I finally settled on Debian, but the bulk of the RedHat experience still applied. - Bob
participants (3)
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Andy Stewart -
Bob George -
Brian McLinden