best Unix OS for.....

[gtb55447work]

The hardware I have is a Duron 600, 256megz RAM, 80gighdd, 3com 10/100 nic, MSI K7Pro-2a...Inwin tower case. I need to piece all this together and set up a server that runs an ftp server, apache, and maybe run ircii (probably not), the user load will be small so... for a beginner to learn what is the best OS in your opinion.... I heard Redhat is lame. Should I use Mandrake, or something?

 

[Menelaos]

A linux box can only be LAME when it is set up to be lame. Use whatever you can get your hands on. Mandrake will do fine.

Menel.

 

[gtb55447work]

you dont think i would need to upgrade the cpu at all... I dont want any lag on the console or the server.

 

[jleon]

Any Linux distributions are made to be better memory managers than win98x/ME. Your 600mhz will be more than enough for the average user. g'luck!

 

[Supergax]

I would say FreeBSD; it is pretty easy to setup. From administering both a Redhat server, a FreeBSD server and an OpenBSD server, I like bsd much better. I would stick with FreeBSD over something like NetBSD or OpenBSD, which are more challenging to bot install and setup programs on because they aren't as mainstream as FreeBSD. Some nice things about FreeBSD:

1.) It has a ports collection which can make installing software easy (even though some ports aren't always up to date).

2.) It has linux compatibility and can run most linux progs also if there isn't a bsd specific version of something.

While FreeBSD books and such aren't as common as Linux boosk, the FreeBSD manual which you can find on freebsd.org or as a big 777 page .pdf is a very good source of information; almost anything you would need to know about bsd you can find in it.

And oh yeah, the bsd daemon is cooler than the goofy linux penguin

 

[MGMorden]

I don't like either. I think Linux (my Unix of choice) should dump Tux and get a cooler mascot. Of course that has almost zero chance of happening (there as a Linux Fox logo back in the mid 90's if I remember correctly, but Tux won over it). Getting off topic here. For server I'd say to go w/ FreeBSD, or you're going w/ Linux get slackware (which is stable and the most BSD-ish of the Linux's).

 

[BOFH]

Don't forget debian if you choose linux. It's stable and apt-get is rather nice if you have bandwith

 

[CollegeGuy]

I prefer RedHat myself, but just about any Linux distro will do you just fine. I have to say, though, as a RedHat user I am jealous of Debian's apt-get

 

[velvtelvis]

Debian is really the heart of the open-source movement, so if you want to be part of that, go there. It takes a bit more tinkering to get set up, but you learn a lot more about the OS in the process. If you're going to be running a server, it's best to know how to set it all up and secure it yourself, rather than trusting somthing out of the box.

If you've got broadband and a burner, just get the iso's off the net and try a few different distros.

SuSE is a good one that's often overlooked as well.

 

[inquis]

now that I have mandrake installed, and I'm learning more and more about linux, there are a few things i would have done differently given the chance.

first of all, i chose mandrake 7.2 as my OS of choice, and it's a great newbie distro. it has led me to enjoy using linux.

HOWEVER, mandrake does some funny stuff that I just don't like messing with. forget about compiling packages from source. mandrake has lots of funny paths where they put all their components, and if you install things in the wrong place unwittingly, you are SCREWED.

also, alot of the solutions that it seems that mandrake has implemented for some of the more hairy problems seem bolted on. take for instance font handling. now i know that font handling in X is a joke anyway, but the way mandrake does it is surreal. it took me DAYS to figure out why my beautiful fonts weren't printing correctly... and by the time i figured out what the hell was going on, i had lost all desire to fix it

in my humble opinion, debian users are better off in the long run. one, they get apt-get. painless system updating. two, in the stable distribution, everything does exactly what you should expect. in drake, one day the mandrake autoupdater just stopped working. I don't know why it did so, but it did. three, they have a large user base. i know drake probably has the largest market share, but you have to remember that debian isn't going to throw you any curve balls like some *other* distros could *cough*REDHAT7.0*cough*.

ah well, i'm done ranting.

let the flaming begin.

-inq