Which Distro of Linux 1

[KPKIND]

Hi *,

I am a newbie to Linux, but I have a very good expertise on AIX. Just thought of learning linux also. I am confused with the current available distros of linux. I am more interested in learning that distro which is mostly used in data centers and enterprise environment. It would be great if anyone of you can let me know which distro is usually used in such environments.

TIA
Kumar

 

[RhythmAce]

I think far and away the most popular would be Red Hat's Enterprise Edition. It is not free but comes bundled with some commercial packages. If you are just wanting to learn linux however, you don't need to go out and spend thousands for something like that. All linux distibutions have very much in common. They all use the same kernel which is the core of the operating system. They all come with the same shells which are the command environments. Most of them even come with the same packages. They all come with the same desktop environments too, kde and gnome. What sets them apart from one another is their directory structures and where they store particular files. Other than that all linux users speak the same language regardless of which distro they use. With enterprise versions you are paying for tech support but you can get that here fore free. And enterprise versions stay with the older releases of software because it is very stable and easier to support. For Example most hosting providers are still using apache version 1.3 for their web servers. Those of us on the bleeding edge are using 2.0.xxx.

 

[BitFuzzy]

[Those of us on the bleeding edge are using 2.0.xxx]
Though sometimes emphisis is on the word "bleeding'

If you're comming from an AIX environment, you shouldn't have much of a learning curve, though you may (or may not) be a little lost w/o "SMIT" heh

The DIST used in a data center would (in my opinion) depend on who set it up, or put it together. (what bundles were purchased etc).

Ex- If I set one up, it would be running either Slackware or Debian.

If you've got the time, try different dists, see which one fits you best.

 

[KPKIND]

Thanks for your(Both of you) time to answer my question in such depth.

Also could someone point me to good linux sys admin guides.

TIA
Kumar

 

[Kozusnik]

Speaking as an AIX convert, I've used several distros, and several versions of those distros, Linux is easier for me than AIX. I prefer Mandrake for my desktop, but we use Red Hat 7.3 and soon RH Advanced Server 2.1 (old, but supported by our vendor). Almost any distro will serve your purposes, but I wouldn't recommend Gentoo until you've played around more with some others.
Go to linuxiso.org and pick one.

Remember : free (Linux) = lsps -a (AIX)

Most of the other shell commands are the same.

Good luck,
Mark

 

[ishnid]

If you want to take the Red Hat Enterprise route, White Box Linux is a free fork of RHEL which would be ideal to play around with.

 

[Chacalinc]

CentOS is more updated than White Box Linux.

Chacal, Inc.

 

[mrballcb]

As a unix guy, you might find the filesystem structure of
Slackware a comfortable fit. It feels more old-school insofar
as the methods and file locations.

Personally, I use Mandrake (now Mandriva) for my desktop both
at home and work. We have servers with multiple older
versions of RedHat, we have servers with Gentoo. All new
servers will have CentOS on them. RedHat's and Mandriva's
snmp are pretty nice because an snmpwalk pulls up rpm info
(package, date installed, etc). Makes management of package
versions (think updates) very easy.

 

[KPKIND]

Thank you all for your time to respond for my query