WARNING - NEWBIE QUESTION!

[Brian Kelsay]

> 
> John,
> 
>   Paraphrased from Linux round-up.
> 
>  Redhat - the Original distro. Has personal and 
> professional versions, not geared for the newbie 
> 	per say (sic?).
> 

It's per se.  And a newbie can use Red Hat fairly easily.  Their distro like
all others can be server or workstation and the install is fairly easy.

>  Mandrake - Industrial strength business oriented
> distro

Based on Red Hat, meaning they put stuff in the same place as Red Hat and
stay compatible.  Probably the most newbie oriented and I would say has some
of the best help available via listserv or several support websites and
forums.  Email me if you need help finding them.  They throw in all the best
stuff in their distro and then some, along with a lot of their own
customization to menus and config tools.  These guys are out to help the
user.  Is it showing that I like Mandrake?
> 
>  Debian - GEEK oriented, definitely not for the newbie 
> (masochists excluded)
> 

Haven't used it, but it probably has some of the most vocal users.  They
seem to have this great tool called apt-get.  I'm sure you can figure it
out.  I would say from the info I have read that they have one of the most
solid/stable and free distros.  If you want only GPL software, this is the
place to go.

>  Suse - European version of the business oriented
> distro (personally my new favorite - great for newbies
> and that sucker is HUUUUGE!)
> 
Haven't used it, but Randy Rathbun and somebody else had it on their laptops
at a LUG meeting.  It looked pretty good.  No flames now, but it seemed
equivalent to Red Hat or Mandrake.  They do a lot of customization and have
a simple install with as you said LOTS of software, I think it's up to 6 or
7 disks now.

>  TurboLinux - Asian version of business oriented 
> distro.

Agreed.  They are also doing lots of work in the clustering area.
 
>   Slackware - newbie oriented.

How do you get this conclusion?  I think it should say expert oriented.  If
you use this you better know where the config files are and have a favorite
text editor.

Brian Kelsay

I always have an opinion, but I try to keep it to myself unless trying to
keep someone from buying crappy hardware.