Get APLawrence.com by RSS2005/07/21 Which Linux Distro Should I choose?
I think it's great that this question is becoming more and more common on the newsgroups. That shows that people are not only hearing about Linux, but are hearing positive things that make them interested in trying it out. That's good.
But answering the question is a little bit hard. Oh, sometimes it's simple: if the person says they expect to be doing tech support in the Linux arena, or will be looking for a job supporting Linux, then obviously RedHat is the first and most important distro to get familiar with. If there's a specific application that needs to run, that usually limits the choices right away.
But when it's for personal use, unless you know quite a bit about the person asking the question, that's a tough thing to answer. There are useful pages like http://www.rodsbooks.com/distribs/ and many others that can be found with a google of "comparing linux distributions". Some of these are very good, but they probably are more useful to someone who already has had a taste of a few Linuxes and is looking for something closer to their ideal environment. The neophyte will likely leave those pages more confused than they were to start with.
The best way to find the Linux you like is to try some. Many distro's are available as live cd's - cd's that you can boot and run Linux from without screwing up or over-writing your Windows system. Linux distro's can also often be installed under products like VMware. With modern hard drives being so large and inexpensive, you can probably install as many distributions as you like.
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Thu Jul 21 14:00:29 2005: Subject: BigDumbDinosaur
For someone who is just starting out with Linux and has more time than money (as well as broadband or DSL), a good starting point, I think, is with a copy of White Box Linux ( http://www.whiteboxlinux.org). This is essentially a Redhat distribution minus the Redhat value-added stuff. A total of four ISO images need to be downloaded and burned, so plan on an overnight session to get the ISO's. My Linux box here is running on this distro and it seems to work just fine.
Thu Jul 21 16:21:49 2005: Subject: ambey1
I've found that Debian 3.1 works great for our server.
We tried Redhat, Mandrake and Gentoo. Each for at least a year. Debian is best for us because it seems to be the most stable & reliable. There are few changes outside of security updates. There have usually been years inbetween releases.
Debian used to be very difficult to install. The new 3.1 release has a much better installer then their older versions. In fact I was never able to get older version installed.
Fri Jul 22 03:24:21 2005: Subject: drag
Debian is my personal preference as well, depending on the circumstances.
Redhat has the advantage that it is very well supported by commercial and propriatory software makers. Of the aviable distros Redhat ES is aviable with more certifications then anything else out their in Linux-land. Coming in a distant second is Suse.
So if I had a specific application then either I'd go with Redhat or one of the clones like CentOS or Whitebox. My first preference would be the actual Redhat ES, but that depends on the budget. For a home use or non-critical desktop/laptop for somebody who is has to support or work with Redhat I would choose Fedora Core since it is going to have the newest usability improvements that they can get working and it forms the basis for future Redhat ES versions.
For deployments of desktop systems I'd take a stong look at Suse and Novell. They have the experiance and the groupware support software (Groupwise, Zenworks, NDS etc etC) from their years of working with windows desktops. Nobody else in commercial Linux comes close to their software portfolio and experiance. Also support and pricing options are very competative with Microsoft.
However for situations were I am personally responsable for computers and don't realy have the ability to turn to some sort of commercial tech support I'd choose Debian everytime. Apt-get is very powerfull system and it has lots of features that makes it great for fairly large deployments. For instance you can setup pre-install configurations and deploy them out much better using apt-get and such then what is possible thru imaging tools like Ghost. Also the quality of software packaging is the best your going to find in Linux. Every peice of software has to go thru several stages of Experimental to Unstable to Testing before it is put into Stable. And the OS and all 1600+ supported packages are tested as a whole (as much as possible) instead of compiled-test-add-on parts. Then it is consistantly supported with bug fixes and security updates and maintained until the next stable is ready to be released. Still if you want it there is plenty of support options. Some big companies like HP support it in certain fasions, but mostly from smaller parties.
The downside to debian is their unusually long release time between Stable versions. It is very painfull sometimes... for instance the last Stable still used 2.2 kernels, which had some severe drawbacks.
Mon Jul 25 15:16:09 2005: Subject: drag
oops.. a bit of a typo. When I said that Debian has 1600+ packages officially supported packages aviable, I ment 16,000+
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