How is red hat for a beginner? 1

[SuaveRick]

Would that be a good choice for a new-to-linux-not-to-unix person? I'l read lots of threads asking what the best for a beginner is but haven't seen red hat mentioned lots....

 

[franklin97355]

Redhat has gone more toward the corporate user with it's subscription service and the free, user supported software has spun off as Fedora (core3 soon to be core4 (I hear)). If you were interested in Redhat try Fedora.

 

[oppcos]

I personally think Red Hat is the worst possible Linux. It is not standard in many ways and doesn't even appear to feign polish. Most ISVs use Novel's SuSE to develop with, so most software works out-of-the box easiest with that (Oracle is a great example of pain-in-the-box for Red Hat, no sweat with SuSE).

Debian is also very good and well supported by ISVs simply because it is standards compliant and the community puts together tons of pre-made packages for software. For a beginner, Knoppix is great because it is based on Debian and boots off of a live CD you can also install to the hard drive.

I'm sure others will argue with me.

 

[SuaveRick]

Well heck, if Knoppix can install to the HD I'll do that, I have the live CD right now anyway.

 

[oppcos]

Yes, it has a nice, almost-always works graphical installer. You have to run it from the command line though to start it.. something like knx-hdinstall ? I think you need to su first and search for it in the /sbin or /usr/sbin.. They've changed the name a few times so the hardest part is figuring out where it is.

 

[SuaveRick]

ha!
I'll have to read up on it, know of any good links?

 

[oppcos]

I think the one I used was knx2hd actually. It brings up a nice GUI Wizard that walks you through partitioning your hard drive and such. I used the recommended options for most of the steps and have been running Debian on my work computer for a couple weeks now, clean and beautiful. It was so easy, I don't really remember the process or the website that led me through it, I'm afraid (but I've also installed many other Linux desktops and servers, so the partitioning part may have only seemed easy to me..)

I dual boot Windows and Knoppix auto set that up correctly too.

Here's a link I just found googling. Not what I used, but seems decent enough? I would do the QTPartEd instead of that tutorial's recommendation (in other words, just start at the knx2hd part and let it guide you to what you need to do).

 

[SuaveRick]

thanks very much oppcos!! I'll be doing that this weekend I think!

Have a good one!