I'm not a Windoze fan

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I'm not a Windoze fan

Help me escape my Redmond-dictated hell.

NetGrease

4:41 pm on Nov 13, 2001 (gmt 0)

Way off topic here, but I'm bored - and fed up with rebooting this crate everytime Windoze falls over.

What's your favourite distribution (keeping web design/development in mind) and why?

I want to make the transition, but would like some pointers first.

Much obliged guvna'

evinrude

5:49 pm on Nov 13, 2001 (gmt 0)

Hmmm...If we're talking Linux, then I'd say my fave is Slackware. Easy to install, doesn't install as much stuff as RedHat, unless you want it to. RedHat's nice, easy to install, but tends to install way more then you'd ever use or need, and opens up way to many ports on the machine. The latest version of Slackware is 8.

Once installed, though, most of the distros are pretty similar. If you like the installation ease of RedHat, you can lock it down pretty tight afterwards. Even Slackware needs tightening after installation. (I'm one of the paranoid. :))

If you've got CDs itching to be burned, check out linuxiso.org [linuxiso.org]. They have a number of different distros that you can download and create installation CDs from. They also have BSD variants.

littleman

2:56 am on Nov 14, 2001 (gmt 0)

Many have praised Mandrake for it's ease of installation. Try to get a package that includes both KDE and Gnome apps. IF you don't have a CD burner, but want to save the cash of buying an official distribution you look at cheapbytes.com.

Slackware's office copy is pretty cheap though, usually under $20.

richcasto

3:19 am on Nov 14, 2001 (gmt 0)

[cheapbytes.com...] is definitely the way to go for cheap distro's, but printed docs are separate, though, so it's not for the newbie. It's great if you want to try out more than 1 distro and don't want to spend much. They also have the BSD's.

Air

5:39 am on Nov 14, 2001 (gmt 0)

Especially if you're new to Linux, Mandrake is definitely the way to go IMO, very slick install and the partition tool DiskDrake works like a dream. I'm running 4 different distros on various machines and Mandrake is definitely my fav for a desktop, while Redhat and BSD are my choice for servers. Although even here Mandrake is making inroads. BTW Mandrake is completely RedHat compatible.

littleman

5:51 am on Nov 14, 2001 (gmt 0)

Just got Mandrake 8.1 from cheapbytes for five bucks a couple of weeks ago. ;)

toolman

7:02 am on Nov 14, 2001 (gmt 0)

Snagging FBSD and Mandrake 8.1 as we (type). I second the Mandrake vote for newbies. It's the only distro I've been able to make work so far.

Someone needs to write a good Linux book. I read a lot of books and I've read 2 different Linux for newbie type books and they both left me hanging.

littleman

8:37 am on Nov 14, 2001 (gmt 0)

I totally agree Tool, there isn't a single book that will answer my questions as they come up. For instance, the other day I had to figure out how to bind IP addresses to eth0 and how to make them stick during a reboot. I have five Linux books here, but none of them were much help. I usually find my answers on the web.

gethan

9:25 am on Nov 14, 2001 (gmt 0)

I've used RedHat, Debian amd SUSE.

RedHat was the easiest install (7.0 currently) - Debian was the hardest, SUSE had the most stuff (6 disks). Debian was the easiest to keep up to date once installed - apt is the Debian package manager - that actually goes off and downloads the most upto date packages without you having to look for a thing. (great on a leased line - not so good on the end of a dialup).

I now run 3 boxes with heavily customised RedHat installations - out of lazyness in the initial install. I generally compile up my own kernel, and most of the packages I add are also compiled on the machine (apache - with mod_perl and mod_php). This tends to break package managers though so its easier not to bother.

I've heard really good things regarding BSD and particularly in regard to servers - if I ever have to build and run my own servers again I'm planning to try this route.

To answer the original question - I'd go to start with either mandrake or redhat - probably the easiest for transition. Here in the UK both are regularly "given" away on magazines (PCPlus).

NetGrease

1:06 pm on Nov 14, 2001 (gmt 0)

Marvellous!

Must apologise to whoever changed the original topic title - wasn't thinking there, and "hate" is a strong (if applicable) word :).

I have tried both RedHat and Mandrake about 8 months ago, but didn't get too far with either. Mandrake did appeal to me the most, but the install didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked. Things sound like they have been fixed though, which is great news.

I've since been looking for a decent book also, but haven't had much luck - glad to hear I'm not alone on that one.

If we're talking desktops, I actually like the look of KDE the most. I tried GNOME but wasn't overly enamoured with it. Mind you, it was the first time I'd ever installed the big L anyway.

I'll definately grab the latest version of the 'drake then I think, and muddle through with it. Unfortunately, I need to keep Win2k about for a few specific apps, and games of course - unless VALVe get around to creating that ever-elusive client-version of H-L...