which linux ?

[beerbaron]

Hey all ?
since im a new at unix / linux
i would like to know which is the best dist, of linux out there

Ideally id like to run a server which would also act as a firewall but im also keen to go to a gui interface..
ive used the sun java desktop client ,staroffice and mozilla on a friends pc and i like it
ive got mozilla on my windows pc's at home now but wouldnt have a clue how to start off on the unix track
any thoughts appreciated

[chip256]

Pretty much any distro can be good at anything. It's just the way it's packaged that makes it different from the others.

As you are new to the *nix world, i'd recommend something like Mandrake or Red Hat. They come with nice installation progs for noobs.

If you're up for a bit of a challenge and have plenty of bandwidth available, you could try Debian or Gentoo.

[urban_gorilla]

pfft, using the new test installer for debian is ridiculously easy. as Uther says, a "trained chicken could do it".
its just a bit of a bastard getting it set up after its installed :)

[astro]

Probably the easiest i've seen for n00bs is a distro called "Mepis".

Based on Debian and Knoppix, it's a Live CD (runs from the cd when you first boot it up).

Get it to a comfortable point, then use the "Installation Center" to partition hard disks, install the system and a bootloader.

Everything's point and click, and upgrading it later on is easy as pie - Run the upgrade utility, download the new packages (web server, etc) and they're installed on the fly.

[Ic3]

Careful here beerbaron, you could start a flame war here. Pretty much what ever distro you use is what you think is the best. I've used Mandrake and Red Hat and was pretty happy with them, although I found OpenBSD very nice as well, it's turning into my favourite.

One of my friends uses SuSE Linux, and he hasn't complained once about it. Really though, pick one out of a hat, read things on the net and be on your merry way to becoming a *NIX user.

Good luck!

[Ic3]

Originally posted by astro
Probably the easiest i've seen for n00bs is a distro called "Mepis".

Based on Debian and Knoppix, it's a Live CD (runs from the cd when you first boot it up).

Get it to a comfortable point, then use the "Installation Center" to partition hard disks, install the system and a bootloader.

Everything's point and click, and upgrading it later on is easy as pie - Run the upgrade utility, download the new packages (web server, etc) and they're installed on the fly.

Because of that reason is why I'm thinking of using Mepis in a bit of hardware I'm developing, to make it easy to install, but that's still a long way off, we are barely in planning stage yet.

[urban_gorilla]

Originally posted by astro
Probably the easiest i've seen for n00bs is a distro called "Mepis".

sweet! this sounds cool. i must remember to check it out sometime

honestly id say redhat or mandrake from what ive heard from more knowledgable people.

[beerbaron]

thanks for all the info guys and gals :)

another noob quiestion i have
can i run staroffice on a red hat or mandrake server ?

[Uther Pendragon]

i would like to know which is the best dist, of linux out there

The definitive answer to this question is....... it depends.

Yeah I know thats probably not the answer you were looking for.

It depends mainly on 2 things, 1) How command line geeky you are and 2) Whether you have broadband or not.

If you don't have broadband you can basically forget about running debian and gentoo (or any of their derivatives) as they pretty much require you to be able to leech down largish files.

I really like Debian and Gentoo, but that's because I have been screwing around with linux for about 5 years, I guarantee I didn't start on Debian.

I started on redhat. It works, it does lots of hardware detection, there are lots and lots and lots of packages on the cd's. It's reasonably sane. I got sick of hunting down package dependencies for the rpm's when I wanted to install new hyper rad super dooper software 29.rpm so I moved on. Redhat has largely fixed this with fedora if I understand correctly. They now use apt to install their rpm's which solves dependencies automatically.

Mandrake has always been a fairly nice user oriented desktop distro and it does it well, I never got into it much because I was past that stage by the time I installed Mandrake.

Debian is very nice if you know what you are doing, I wouldn't recommend using it first time round but keep it in mind once you get used to how Linux works, I highly recommend it.

Suse, I dunno, never used it.

Gentoo is okay, be warned it takes like 5 hours to install a web browser as it has to compile it for you, even more techy than Debian in a lot of regards.

There are shitloads of other smaller distro's around, I would think about staying away from them first time out of the gates, Get a little used to it and then move on from there, if you can find a local nerd to help you with the install, things will go a bit easier.

Anyway good luck, if you get stuck with particular problems drop a line in this forum and I will try to help you out.

[Uther Pendragon]

staroffice is just a piece of software, it will run on any half way modern distro. In fact Redhat/Fedora probably installs it by default

[landmachine]

Debian. Anything else and you're bringing serious doubt to bear upon your sexuality. Redhat users might aswell hand their penises in right now.

Debian has apt. apt rules the known universe. There is no other choice. There's nothing difficult about it either, i started out on linux in '95 with slackware, and i can assure you debian is a lot easier than that shit was. Here is a list of what is wrong with other distros:

Gentoo is for nerds who overclock their computers and have neon lights in their cases for when they go to LAN parties on saturday nights instead of getting drunk and fucking chicks like everyone else. If you've ever seen anyone who's posted the details of their computer in their sig on a forum, that person probably runs Gentoo.

Suse might aswell be french.

Mandrake is like redhat, except a whole lot shittier.

Redhat is an example of how not to do linux - too much custom redhat crap in there, and their fs layout makes me feel dirty. RPM is the worst package management system conceivable. The only upside to it is that it's well supported commercially.

All the BSDs are for people who like to think of themselves as superior to linux users by picking an OS that is even more alternative, as if OS choice were somehow going to get them laid. Also, it's more old-school unix than linux. FreeBSD ports is ok, but nowhere near the size of apt.

Turbolinux is for orientals.

Slackware is pretty goddamn nice actually, if only it had apt. It doesnt. Slackware is for a server that won't ever see more than a tiny set of software installed and is going to sit in a corner, running forever.

Knoppix is... pointless.

[evil]

I installed Fedora - the consumer version of Redhat- a few weeks back at work and the install was a dream. Much simpler than Redhat installs AND it found all of the video and sound drivers.

Choose what ever flavour of Linux you want, you can't really go all that wrong. Whereas sticking with Microsoft is very wrong .....

[astro]

Originally posted by Ic32k1
Careful here beerbaron, you could start a flame war here. Pretty much what ever distro you use is what you think is the best. I've used Mandrake and Red Hat and was pretty happy with them, although I found OpenBSD very nice as well, it's turning into my favourite.

Too true. Although in my defence, i'm running SuSE at the moment (runs openoffice as default, in response to a previous question) and wouldn't really recommend it as it's a bit bloaty and has a weird install path - you can't just download a CD. You have to download a boot CD, then run a netbooty thing from one of their FTP mirrors. The downside is that the install can take a while, the upside is that you get the absolutely freshest packages to start. kinda like debian.

I generally change distros regularly, just to mix things up and give myself a new challenge (Nerd alert!).

So far i've played with:
Debian - very cool, and apt rocks.
Mepis - almost as cool, slightly dumbed down and has apt. which rocks.
Knoppix - more of the same, but everyone wanks over how glorious it is. instant point deduction.
Redhat (5, 6, 7, 9, fedora) - good distro, but full of Redhat-only tools. Getting Fat and bloated.
Mandrake - like redhat, but slightly easier to use. more fat and bloated.
SuSE - like redhat and mandrake, but even easier to use. Looks pretty and is very well polished. irritating install path.
Slackware - unless you know how to configure kernel modules and network cards by hand, forget it. there's few if any extra tools and programs, so it's more of a "Pure" distro. Kudos to them for being the first, though. My personal favorite.
Gentoo - rediculously fast as there's very little overhead, but getting it working is like writing a symphony. Install process will take the better part of the day if you want to go the whole hog and install it right from the bootstrap.

In the end, i'll have to agree with Ic32k1 and suggest that you just try a couple and see which one fits :D

[landmachine]

Originally posted by astro
In the end, i'll have to agree with Ic32k1 and suggest that you just try a couple and see which one fits :D

NO. Use debian. There is no debate here.

[beerbaron]

Aint starting a flame war about the different flavours on unix
Ive got broadband, so downloading a distro isnt a problem
as for command line , well id prefer a gui interface but i can go command line if need be
looks like ill be doing plenty of research :D

[sdfksdf]

simple, slackware (http://slackware.com).

[Ic3]

Originally posted by beerbaron
Aint starting a flame war about the different flavours on unix
Ive got broadband, so downloading a distro isnt a problem
as for command line , well id prefer a gui interface but i can go command line if need be
looks like ill be doing plenty of research :D

In the end, that's what using *NIX is all about, just learning and research. But it's good fun, i just wish I had more time to use *NIX, when I'm sort of forced to run windows at home and work...

[astro]

Originally posted by landmachine
NO. Use debian. There is no debate here.

Oricinally posted by sdfksdf
simple, slackware.

Hence the "Warning: Flamewar Imminent!"

Hey, I like 'em all. I'm even running a custom version of HardHat for about 45 thin clients i'm rolling out at work at the moment.

Just remember - we're trying to seperate ourselves from windows retards and mac toffs. Let's not create a rift among Linux users ;)

[beerbaron]

thanks to all that replied
and IC32K1, i too am forced to run windows at work but am researching ( as a side project ) the sun java client . mozilla, staroffice combo for my office

Im not anti microsoft but i know theres better ( and more secure ) stuff out there without the major price tag

once again thanks to all

ps
have organised red hat
will play and learn with that a bit
then move onto debian

[wolfpac181]

blah.... people here are making it tuff..... here is a skinny, just different styles.... Redhat and Debian. Obviously these aren't the only two distros, but they are popular distros that others seem to emmulate.



Redhat styles:
they are easy to start off with. easy installs, good first installation, lot's of precompiled packages. not much shell is needed for time being, I'd say it's a great bike w/ training wheels to start off with.


Debian styles:
More for the user who knows their way around, more terminal usage, more of it all. Good stuff, just need a little more knowhow to hit that.

[MaJeztik]

Youd be better off installing something like Redhat or Fedora Core if your a n00b.

It more widely supported & rpm is a breeze to install programs.

[t101]

Yay FreeBSD!

[Springer]

Originally posted by t101
Yay FreeBSD!

...OUT!

oh, debian :)

[wolfpac181]

Originally posted by t101
Yay FreeBSD!

5.2 is the shizznot!

[t101]

Originally posted by Springer
...OUT!

oh, debian :)

Its still Linux, and Linux has some very fucking broken code in its internals.

Otherwise, yeah I kinda like Debian too :)

Edit: Not as broken as some of the windoze nightmares though obviously....

[brentwahn]

Originally posted by wolfpac181
blah.... people here are making it tuff..... here is a skinny, just different styles.... Redhat and Debian. Obviously these aren't the only two distros, but they are popular distros that others seem to emmulate.



Redhat styles:
they are easy to start off with. easy installs, good first installation, lot's of precompiled packages. not much shell is needed for time being, I'd say it's a great bike w/ training wheels to start off with.


Debian styles:
More for the user who knows their way around, more terminal usage, more of it all. Good stuff, just need a little more knowhow to hit that.

Listen to this man - I started as a sysadmin earlier this year only having touched *nix once or twice at uni. We have both *nix and Windows servers, and I learnt Linux playing with both the GUI and shell with Redhat.

But once you get the hang of the shell, Debian is definitely the way to go. Also, think of the future... Debian is one of the only TRUE GNU Linux ditros around...

Redhat is becoming more and more Microsoftish every release - and this isn't about to stop.

[beerbaron]

Update
i have installed redhat and am learning it quite nicely
getting used to shell ( gui is easy but hey )
thanks to all for the advice
next step
unix admin job ( heheh i wish )