Want Linux... but which one?

[Barkhausen]

This is just my personal preference - use RedHat. The reason is that it is the 'standard' distribution by which most companies will release binary versions of software.

Bark

[UrbanFuturistic]

Go for SuSE to start with (recommend waiting for 8.2 as x.0 releases tend to be a bit flakey) and move to RedHat when feeling more confident... especially concerning retrofitting a proper GCC 2.95 setup instead of C++ code incompatible GCC 2.96.

If anyone suggests Mandrake I'm gonne hang, draw and quarter them.
regards, Paulhttp://homepage.ntlworld.com/odubtaig/smilies/coffee.gif

[Da Saint]

I suggest Mandrake :p

No really, I don't really know anything about Linux. I think Red Hat is most known.

[ZrO-1]

odubtaig, what's wrong with Mandrake's distro. I've tried out 8.2 and I really liked it. It's no more dumbed down than RedHat's distro, and it seemes to me that it's a bit easeir to get set up than Suse. It also seems to me that Mandrake doesn't suffer from that anamoly in RedHat with the Gnome desktop and file browser (don't really know about that since I love KDE). Seriously, I'd like to know why you don't like Mandrake's distro, cause you seem to be the Linux guru around here.

[MadMax]

RedHat 7.3 is a piece of cake.

Even a complete idiot can set it up.

A good thing really since I know a lot of idiots use computers.

Much easier than Windows to setup.

[flamedevil]

Yeah ,
i agree with you max , red hat still the best !:thumbsup:
Debian is good too...

[UrbanFuturistic]

Originally posted by ZrO-1
odubtaig, what's wrong with Mandrake's distro. I've tried out 8.2 and I really liked it

OK, so I tried an earlier version and it was so flaky around the edges I immediately dubbed it the WinME of the Linux world and erased it off my hard drive ASAP.

The real deal is that Mandrake has a reputation for being a tad 'bleeding edge' (using 'the absolute latest' software even though it may not have been thoroughly tested yet) and tending to fall apart the moment you try to alter anything. Then there's the reputation for heavy obfuscation of all the guts of Linux so that it's bloody hard to fix anything when it does go wrong (a la Winows)

RedHat and SuSE may have a 'dumbed down' appearance but if I need to get to the underpinnings of it all I don't have a problem finding what I need... mostly. I still login in text mode and haven't actually entered runlevel 5 for a good long time, prefering to initialise X myself with, yes, my .xinitrc file controlling things.

Simple command that was missing even from SuSE 7.2...

init

...makes it a whole lot easier to switch runlevel when, say, you need to install your nVidia GLX RPMfile.

Mandrake just has a hideous reputation for trying too hard to be Windows and succeeding in more ways than one.

Now if you really want stability then go for debian. It's considered quite out of date compared to other distros but when they put the emphasis on stability... Debian Woody is almost ready for release (and you can download the ISOs if you want, it's more than stable enough for most purposes). The XFree86 version is 4.1.0 (more than adequate) although the 2.4.x kernel is still only an option (2.2.x being default) as it isn't considered 'mature' enough for a 'stable' debian distro.

Definitely not for novices :applause:
regards, Paulhttp://homepage.ntlworld.com/odubtaig/smilies/coffee.gif

[underdog]

Originally posted by Barkhausen
This is just my personal preference - use RedHat. The reason is that it is the 'standard' distribution by which most companies will release binary versions of software.

Bark

Ok first off RedHat is not the standard distro. There is no such thing in linux as a standard distro.
Second I assume when you say binaries released for RedHat you are speaking of rpms yes? These aren't released for RedHat only, rpms are just a package manager thats used by almost all distros.

But yeah Redhat, or Mandrake are good to start with. They are very easy to install and setup.

But Gentoo owns all of you:p

[MadMax]

Originally posted by underdog


Ok first off RedHat is not the standard distro. There is no such thing in linux as a standard distro.



Sorry I would have to disagree with that point of view.
Redhat IS the standard.

Whenever commercial software is released for Linux, Maya, Houdini, SoftImage, etc.

They are based on the Redhat distro. In fact the tech support for at least one of the 3D packages states up front that support is for Redhat only, any others is at your own risk.

As commercial software is based on the presumption of redhat, that does at least imply a standard.

[inmaginerz]

From the discussion... I think I will start off with redhat first,
I do want to explore more of linux but at the same time I
still need my PC to run XSI and combustion.

If anybody at all is running Softimage XSI on linux pls let me know about your experience (problems... etc)

Many thanks to all that provided me with invaluble tips about linux

I will post my experience about linux soon...




<I>"You are never so high as when you are on your knees"</I>

[underdog]

Have fun! And don't be afraid to try out a few distros, find one you like.

[UrbanFuturistic]

Originally posted by inmaginerz
"You are never so high as when you are on your knees"Hehe, spot the subbie :p

Don't be afraid to ask questions, and you will have many. You might find the comp.os.linux.* newsgroups useful.
regards, Paulhttp://homepage.ntlworld.com/odubtaig/smilies/coffee.gif

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