Best Distro to LEARN?

[aru]

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 :-).

 

Came on tyme! you forget the first one!!! Slackware's tgzs

[jlc]

I think I might put Red Hat on my main system.

Keep Debain Sparc on my sparcstation.

& maybe through Libranet 2.8 on my laptop.

 

That way my fun little libranet system get's use and I stay up with Debian in two way's & get used to all of Red Hat.

 

Thanks for your input, keep posting if you think of anything else.

 

Would LFS really be hard to put on a Pentium 200mhz? Not hard, but more time consuming and slow..

 

I have used Gentoo on several occasions starting with 1.2, but while there is some configureing. You do loose some Linux basic's since "emerge" pretty much does everything for you. All probably get smashed for that one, and yes I also think apt does the samething. LFS would be good from the standpoint of all source is what you make it, not what portage or apt will do.

[tyme]

Came on tyme! you forget the first one!!! Slackware's tgzs

:banghead:

 

Would LFS really be hard to put on a Pentium 200mhz? Not hard, but more time consuming and slow..

yes, most likely very very slow.

[bvc]

Painfully slow BUT, if you want linux on it lfs is as fast/ light as you're gonna get. Then again, what arch is a P200? Isn't it pointless to compile anything for this low on an arch?

[DOlson]

Debian isn't good for learning. Well, it is sorta. Installing it is an adventure, if you like weird problems that may or may not pop out of nowhere... At least that happened to me. But once you get it going, perhaps you will learn about configuring Linux and maintaining it, as there aren't really any graphical config tools. I've been using it since January, and I love it. I learned a lot from Mandrake, and had I not used Mandrake for a year or so before switching to Debian, I don't think I would have got the install finished.

 

Slackware is alright, I guess, but upgrading and maintaining it is just annoying to me. I don't even want to talk about it.

 

Gentoo... I know I'll step on someone's (cough tyme cough) toes here... I don't think Gentoo really makes you learn anything. Just because you compile stuff doesn't mean anything. You don't actually do anything, you just run a command and it does it for you - much like any package manager (just takes a lot longer to install). That's not teaching you anything. I don't know of any GUI tools either, so I imagine configuration and such is a learning experience, but honestly, I haven't booted Gentoo in a long time, and I don't care to. I don't remember much from it, other than the fact that some things just wouldn't emerge right, some programs I use often weren't in Gentoo yet, and EVERYTHING takes a long time to install. The speed benefits, IMHO, are made up by people who desperately want to believe that Gentoo is so much faster than other distros. If I wanted to compile everything, I'd do it the right way and use BSD... Bah, I'm getting offtopic. Point is, I don't think you'll learn much using Gentoo over any other distro that has no graphical tools.

 

LFS is probably the only distro that will give you an intimate understanding (or at least it should) of how everything works. I have yet to tackle it, and I probably never will, not because I don't think I can do it, but because my distro does everything I want... I have no desire to put together my own system that requires such manual maintenance. If I did, I'd probably go with Slackware.

[tyme]

I don't know of any GUI tools either, so I imagine configuration and such is a learning experience...

yeah, that's basically the learning experience of Gentoo...and other distro's are like that too. I just happen to like Gentoo, just like you like Debian :-)

 

i learned about compiling on Mandrake-sometimes I couldn't find RPMs for programs I wanted, so I got the gz file and did it myself. can't remember how many times i ended up in dephell and just gave up on it, but most of the time i'd trudge on and get it installed. So, I wouldn't have learned that from Gentoo anyhow...ah well. I think I've gotten through my "Gentoo is the best distro ever" phase...it's like when you get a new car, it's the best thing in the world for a while, then you realize, it's really no different than anyone else's car. still has the same parts, put together in the same ways. (ok, maybe not the best analogy, but, you know what I'm trying to say.)

[Gowator]

I figure the 80/20 rule.

 

If you learn a RH based/RPM based distro then you just say you used redhat but stuck to CLS tools or webmin etc. in order not to rely too much on one vendor.

 

pkgadd is still the Solaris tool of chioce for me for new Solaris stuff....

 

Your differences are really mainly cosmetic if you stick to RH based distros whereas you might learn more with LFS and Gentoo etc. and the portage stuff is pretty cool.

 

LFS is a base, theres already beyond LFS but thats not the point, you download XFree source and comile it.... by the time youve finished LFS that's a trivial task. :-)

 

In the end its more important to try and stick vendor independent with regard to your use of configuration tools and that way you can switch and even apply it directly to OS-X ... (OK BSD might bemore appropraite but...)

[jlc]

I have found through my RH usage lately that RH has some different CLI commands for different config scripts too. The good thing about learning RH's way of doing things is that a lot of big company's use it on there servers. With Red Hat Enterprise AS, ES & WS, they have a good support model. When company's use those products, I can't imagine your sitting at a GUI using RH GUI programs to manage them. More than likely you will be using the CLI to work them. Like I mentioned previously RH does have some different CLI commands and it's good to know them.

 

I used to hate RH, sorry! But now I'm finding it to be a good solid DIstro. They have done quite a bit of Open Source Contributes. There LSB certified, a lot of people will say who cares about LSB, I would argue that and say company's CARE. People like standards, I'm not talking standards like Bluecurve ( which is sort of ugly) I'm talking files, programs. Read LSB's web site, that's the standards I'm talking about.

 

With the use of apt-get for RH, there are a lot of repository's and RPM dependency's aren't a worry anymore.

 

One thing I don't like about RH is there kernel, it's nice and all put they have jumbled it up so much, it's hard to add your own patches(someone else's patches)

 

"Patches, we don't need no stinking patches" (I do!) :P

 

SuSE appears to be making some very big steps, there taking Corprate Desktop and all of there Server platforms are looking pretty nice. "The Germans are coming the Germans are coming".

 

Debian, is a nice distro too, I've been running Debian Woody on a SparcSation20 and it's perforemed pretty nice, I've also installed it on a Sun E-250 at work, (Don't tell my boss!)

 

And I have toyed with Libranet 2.8 quite a bit and think those 2 guy's that run it have made a very nice Debian based distro.

 

I also think Slackware is a Strong, Solid, Secure Distro (although 9 has more open holes than 8.1 and below.) But some of there scripts are more BSD like than they way more Linux distro's do things. I don't know, I like to run Slack, but I'm affraid I will do things there way and forget the RH way of doing things.

 

Anyway, I'm going on and on about some pretty stupid stuff. It's pretty sad when a company can control so much commercialization to coax you into using there product. IBM, HP, Sun, Dell, you name it they promote RH quite a bit. It's a shame, but in away I also applaud them for there effort in help making Linux known through out the WORLD.

 

Please excuse all the miss spelling, gramer, run on sentences and what not, I came from a small town in the midwest with a graduating class of 24, I didn't care for English classess. Computers were the only thing that could hold my attention.

 

P.S. I think a lot of use Computer GEEKS suffer from A.D.D or something similar. Anyone agree? :lol:

 

Later,

[Gowator]

Whats, that? Did you say, i can't be sure I lost my attention half way through your reply.

 

Anyway, I agree but I still think WEBMIN etc. are pretty good GUI (well browser based) configurers. WEBMIN in particular is good fro professional sysad work.

 

I never really liked the E250's. Always seemed a bit of a comprimise over a E450. To my mind if you use a top end server as opposed to a intel box you should be doing it for a reason.

The E450 was a way superior machine in terms of the bus architecture and processor suppot and in someways misplaced by Sun (IMHO).

I replaced a couple of E3000's and E4000 series with it and it paid for itself in maintainance contracts alone.

 

Why pay E3000-4000 prices for everything from memory to software licenses when the E450 did it better.

The only thing missing was complete failover which really never quite worked enough for me to hotplug a 300 series anyway. Why take the chance if you can bounce it at lunch in ten minutes?

 

We had a E3000 where the backplane kept failing and stuck a E450 replacement. Said sun vendor wanted to seel us as second in a cluster!

since we basically needed a NFS servr and an Oracle server it was easier/cheaper (since we only needed 99.9% uptime) to just configure the Oracle Server to run the NFS as well and visa vera with a manual reboot.

 

We never actually needed to do it the E450 was rock solid.

 

Just got two E280R's at work for running Tarantella. IMHO a complete waste of money since all we need is high CPU and memory. Could have stuck a couple of Intel Linux boxes in for 1/4 of the price and double the perfomance.

[jlc]

BTW, the E-250 is sitting under my desk w/ a Raptor GFX card. I have Solaris 9, Debian 3.0 and SuSE 7.3 installed on it. It's sort of like a glorified desktop!

 

The engineers only seem to buy 280, 480 & V880's lately. A little over a month ago me and one other person had to install 22 V880 in a week, 2 per rack and all jumpstarted. For those of you that don't know, there about 400 LBS! ouch. That was a bad week.

 

I haven't seen it yet, because I had knee surgery so I haven't been in the Data Centers but while I was off, the got in a 1280, I would like to see it.

 

Anyway, that's a bit off topic. What's the topic anyway.

 

Whats, that? Did you say, i can't be sure I lost my attention half way through your reply.

 

You a funny wise guy!

 

8)

[tyme]

i like webmin t.....

 

 

 

 

oh look, a bunny!

 

*runs off*

[DOlson]

Webmin is a must have. I don't care who you talk to, there are just some times in your life that you NEED it. Unless you know everything about everything, there is a feature in Webmin that you need. Or something. ;)

 

Anyhow, back to my ramblings of Gentoo vs Debian.

 

I think the best part about Debian is the fact that it is free (100%), and runs on so many different architectures. Their commitment to freedom is amazingly amazing to me. Sure, there are politics in Debian, but I believe that's what holds it together. I really enjoy the comfort that Debian gives me. It's been around for a while, and I don't see it going down any time soon, if ever. Gentoo, to me, is quite similar. It is a lot newer, however, and I don't think it's really proved itself as a sticking distro yet. Don't get me wrong, I believe in it and all, but you have to admit that it IS still very very new, and no one really knows if interest in it is a phase or what. In any case, I see it as being quite similar to Debian. Their social contract, IIRC, was based on Debian's. They are committed to free software. I can appreciate Gentoo, and hell, even Gentoo users, but it's not for me at this point in time. Maybe you feel my concerns aren't valid, but that's your feelings. I respect that. I am amazed at how quickly so many Mandrake users jumped on the Gentoo bandwagon, to be honest. It's like, Gentoo drove by your house and offered you candy to get in. It's amazing, really.

 

So in the end, in my opinion, it really doesn't matter what distro you use (unless it's Lindows, Lycoris, SuSE, or Xandros), and we're all brothers... Any distro (except the aforementioned) is better than Windows.

[jlc]

Just curious what you have against SuSE?

[sarah31]

Webmin is a must have. I don't care who you talk to, there are just some times in your life that you NEED it. Unless you know everything about everything, there is a feature in Webmin that you need. Or something. ;)

 

Anyhow, back to my ramblings of Gentoo vs Debian.

 

I think the best part about Debian is the fact that it is free (100%), and runs on so many different architectures. Their commitment to freedom is amazingly amazing to me. Sure, there are politics in Debian, but I believe that's what holds it together. I really enjoy the comfort that Debian gives me. It's been around for a while, and I don't see it going down any time soon, if ever. Gentoo, to me, is quite similar. It is a lot newer, however, and I don't think it's really proved itself as a sticking distro yet. Don't get me wrong, I believe in it and all, but you have to admit that it IS still very very new, and no one really knows if interest in it is a phase or what. In any case, I see it as being quite similar to Debian. Their social contract, IIRC, was based on Debian's. They are committed to free software. I can appreciate Gentoo, and hell, even Gentoo users, but it's not for me at this point in time. Maybe you feel my concerns aren't valid, but that's your feelings. I respect that. I am amazed at how quickly so many Mandrake users jumped on the Gentoo bandwagon, to be honest. It's like, Gentoo drove by your house and offered you candy to get in. It's amazing, really.

 

So in the end, in my opinion, it really doesn't matter what distro you use (unless it's Lindows, Lycoris, SuSE, or Xandros), and we're all brothers... Any distro (except the aforementioned) is better than Windows.

 

what amazes me is tht gentoo zealots go around barking about all that gentoo does that other distros don't do. oddly enough though is that all gentoo does have over some distros is speed and dependency handling.

 

i also note that the majority of its loudest supporters :

 

1. came from a situation where their main distro was an RPM distro

 

2. they have the most problems.

 

3. have learned nothing (ie "my gentoo box is fast because it is compiled for my archtecture" "you only install what you need not what you don't" "it is not easy to install")

 

4. couldn't install debian (even after using gentoo)

 

5. think gentoo is the bestest distro out there when in fact they have no concept of what other distros are trying to do (for distros like mandrake the target is to get as many people using linux as possible while making the transition as smoooth as possible to this end they sacrifice certain things such as huge piles of incredibly stupid CFLAGS etc)

 

well i'm bored now thanks alot gentoo zealots......for a real learning experience i too suggest lfs.

[jlc]

Well, I recently have changed my setup to a RH 9 w/ LVM and ReiserFS. I was wondering, can I take one of my volumes and create LFS on it?

 

I have installed Gentoo on upteen systems, yes, it can be UBbER fast. But at the price of a weekend. It doesn't work for me, you replace speed of system with speed of install base and any software, I don't care for it. Don't get me wrong, I think it is/can be a good distro but there is a lot of things that I don't care for. Plus, I know there are a lot of good Gentoo people in this forum, but Gentoo's forum is getting over crowded with wicked noobs that don't know anything about Linux and give some pretty bad advice to others just to see there number of post goe up.

 

I like Debian/Libranet, Slackware, & even SuSE has a little place in my heart (one of my first distro's and I stuck with them for quite awhile). RedHat, was one of the first disto's I ever used and I have moved back to them to learn as much as possible. ONce I get the guts up to take the Solaris exams I will hit the RHCE. and want to be up to speed when that comes around.

 

Pluse, RH is a stable distro that has decent security and can be locked up from there.