Favourite Linux distro

[cleverhandle]

Ok, lets say your a LiNuX newbie (as myself), and want a good version to learn off of. Which one do you recommend? So far, (off other websites) I have heard more RedHat recommendations then anything. Also, what literature do you recommend to go about learning LiNuX? Any information would be helpful, Thanks gang!

The usual, very reasonable, suggestion is RedHat or Mandrake first, and then move on to Slackware or Debian next (maybe Gentoo or LFS if you're feeling adventurous). For literature, besides man pages and LDP HowTo's, Running Linux (published by O'Reilly) is the bible of many around these parts.

 

[TheWart]

Hands down: Gentoo. I learned more linux installing/running that distro in about a week than I learned from using slack/redhat for over a year combined. Also, it is BLAZINGly fast, and it comes out with packages AS SOON as they are released. (i.e., it has had KDE 3.0.1 for over a day now.

 

[n0cmonkey]

The difference to me is Debian feels like a whole system while distros like RedHat merely feel like a collection of packages.

That is why I liked Debian! And to an extent Slackware gave me a similar feel. I like slack more than Debian, but only because I have not had the chance to spend much time with Debian. But I definitely liked apt/dselect.

The feeling quoted above is one of the big reasons I stick with OpenBSD (or any BSD for that matter). It is an OS, not just a kernel with a bunch of random packages thrown in. Its got its good points and bad points.

 

[jcmkk]

I agree with The Wart about Gentoo being a great distro to learn on. I learned so much by installing Gentoo even though it took me a solid week just to get X running. Now I'm getting tired of all the compiling times, and the bugs in the ebuilds. That is why I'm going to try out Debian. Debian seems like it is much more polished than Gentoo, but has a lot of the advantages. I really like to pick and choose what software I want to run. I'm also planning to experiment with a BSD distro.

 

[Maverick7241]

I voted Mandrake because thats what is on my box right now, but I'm not sure if I have a favorite. I like SuSe, Red Hat, Mandrake, and Slackware (the ones i've tried). They're good distros. I really don't care much about the distro as I do about learning Linux. I love messin' around and just learning more and more about the OS.

I guess I will say Mandrake though because thats what I started off with. I do plan to start my own LFS system real soon though.

 

[Chooco]

MANDRAKE! as long as you choose to boot in console that is. Mandrake is the only one which can use my D-Link ethernet card.

 

[TheOmegaCode]

Originally posted by: Chooco
MANDRAKE! as long as you choose to boot in console that is. Mandrake is the only one which can use my D-Link ethernet card.

I seriously doubt that Mandrake is the only one that can use your D-Link ethernet card. Have you tried to configure it manually?

 

[Chooco]

tried to, but i'm not good at it so it didn't work too good.
even mandrake has problems accepting it, it will connect one day then the next day it just can't figure out an IP to use and it won't use the IP i give it so i don't really know what's wrong. installing Mandrake 8.2 as i type this, wish me luck