Best Distro to LEARN?

[jlc]

I've been thinking lately (yes it hurts). Anyway, here's the deal. I've been using Linux pretty non-stop for that last 4 years and I switch around a lot. I've used SuSE the most, Mandrake, Redhat, Gentoo, Libranet & Debian. And most every budy else. But here's the question. Which Distro do you all think is the best to learn the complete INs-OUTs of? I realize they're all alike in many ways, but some have some major differences. As-far-as learning one more than the rest, say for a JOB.

 

If you go to Monster.com, do a search for different Distros, Red Hat clearly takes the cake. BUT, I've never really liked Red Hat, I didn't like MD until 9.1 and I used SuSE from 6.3 - 8.2, Gentoo 1.2-1.4_rc4. Debian 2.2 & 3.0 (currently running that on an old Sun SparcSation20!) I've grown pretty favorable of Libranet 2.8 since I've been using it over the last 2 weeks. But the question linger's in my head all the time, should I run Red Hat just because it's probably the bigest in the Corp. World? We can all argue that untill were Blue in the face, but Red Hat is the big one here in America anyway.

 

So please, HIT this question hard and give me your thoughts and idea's...

 

 

THANK YOU,

 

To bad we can't poll this question??

[jlc]

Oh, not that it matters but it is a major distro. I've also ran Slackware 7-9. Currently to, I do work with Solaris so it's also helpfull when the distro is somewhat similar. And yes I've ran Free & OpenBsd too.

[jlc]

9 views and no POST, come on people help me out here.

 

[tyme]

Best distro to learn about Linux? Why, LFS (linux from scratch) of course!

 

next up in my lineup is Gentoo, which is what I use (as you can tell from my sig).

[bvc]

If I understand the question....Red Hat and LFS. Like you said, in the US corp. world rh is the big dog, and you'd need to be very familiar with it, knowing its ins and outs. I also don't see this changing anytime soon. To help with the hard core stuff, LFS.....it does nothing for you and is completely commandline driven. If you like to learn, lfs is the way to go.

[jlc]

Did you go back to MD or are you still using Lib BVC?

[gabbman]

Difficult to answer, do you want and easy all gui way to learn, get it installed and learn the cli as you go, or do you want meat and potatoes cli from the get go???

 

GUI-FAIRLY EASY INSTALL then I would suggest Lycoris or JAMD or Mandrake, or Xandros. (JAMD and Mandrake have up-to-date apps). At least the probability of a successfull install will build the confidence to poke around in the shell.

 

MEAT AND POTATOES-MORE OF A CHALLENGE would be the likes of Debian, Libranet, Slackware, LFS, and of coarse Gentoo. These could discourage a novice from ever attempting to climb the learning curve if they don't get passed the initial install stage.

 

Bottom line is, whatever the capacity to learn and understand will determine what's best for the individual's enthusiasm to continue.

[jlc]

It's not that I don't understand Linux, like I've said I have pretty much used everything but LFS for the last four years, I use Solaris at work so understanding and using *nix isn't all that difficult for me. I understand CLI just fine. The meat of the question is what would be better in the REAL world, meaning CORPRATE USA.

[bvc]

At the moment....neither :shock: I think it was wed. or so I finally got ML9.1 going. Got a new case because of psu failure and moved everything out of the micro to the ATX. Had to screw around with Win98 a lot...hehehe update city :roll:

 

ML9.1 was using grub, but decided to freak on me again, so I was using lilo, until JUST last night I finally installed lib2.8. Well, it installed grub and AGAIN, when hiding win partitions, it freaked. Now, no lilo, no grub, no ML9.1 rescue mode, so I do an upgrade rt?....WRONG....it wants to do an install, gets to diskdrake, and all linux partitions are gone! :shock: Probably overlapping again, so I'll run parted tonight and see. I don't know what grubs prob is or what is causing grub probs, exactly, but this is getting old. Well this is another thread.

[aru]

cybrjackle, IMHO you answered yourself in your former question. If you want to learn linux to find a job, provided all the background you already have, you should focuse on RedHat.

 

Another good choice will be SCO's UnitedLinux

... well, you already know suse.

 

My vote goes to... RedHat

[DragonMage]

I dunno about you, but I think you need to learn two kind of distro at least. One is RedHat since most corporation pretty much use RH when they say they use linux. Another is debian since the academia use debian and I think debian is much more intrusive in learning (the nitty gritty at least) and you need to learn a non-rpm based distro in order to complete your linux education so to speak.

[ramfree17]

you need to learn a non-rpm based distro in order to complete your linux education so to speak.

 

extend that to have at least a stable experience on every package management (or lack of) of different distro. :)

 

ciao!

[tyme]

The definitive list of systems with their own package managment (or similar program for easy-install):

 

Red Hat (yeah, the started RPM, so they should have the best implementation of it-you'd think)

Debian (.deb, of course)

Gentoo (not so much packaging, but emerge is an interesting program)

Sourcemarge (what's that program called that they use? sorcery?)

 

any other ideas? Gentoo's emerge and Sourcemage's sorcery I would imagine to be similar, though I haven't tried out the later-maybe sometime :-).

[SoulSe]

Red Hat (yeah, the started RPM, so they should have the best implementation of it-you'd think)

I presumed the same until I used MDK, who had made for a much better implementation of the rpm system. urpmi for one.

 

As far as learning the basics go, I really only got off the ground with MDK. Using Linux was like running against a brick wall for me until I discovered mdk, which, for whatever reason, was the first Linux distro. I got anywhere with.

 

As far as usefullness in the work place goes, Red Hat is undisputably the most important distro to know, not because I believe it to be superior to others, but simply because most businesses running Linux (especially on servers) use it.

 

I am no expert though, I am yet to try Debian or SuSe. I started with Gentoo, but I had to give up due to my crappy Internet connection and not having enough time to piss around with things that I really don't mind other distros assuming for me.

[tyme]

I presumed the same until I used MDK, who had made for a much better implementation of the rpm system. urpmi for one.

hence the

-you'd think

 

but you're right, MDK is probably a much better distro for learning to use RPM. and red hat is definitely good to know. i'm going to probably have to dig my claws into the enterprise addition at some point as it is likely to be the first distribution permitted on U.S. government/military networks-for production (vs. testing/development) use, that is.