Which form of Linux is best to learn?

[229257]

We are looking at implementing Linux into our network for webserving and file serving through samba shares.

Linux is farely new to our company and we can't decide on what make of Linux to use for this purpose. Different people in the department have different opinions wheather it be red hat, suse, mandrake or whatever.

Any opinions? Ease of learning? Best Support? Who is the current market leader(the microsoft of linux)? Is this concept of United Linux going to work?

if it makes any difference it will be running on an Intel chip most likely a compaq ml370.

On a personal note which is going to be more marketable to perspective employers.

 

[smah]

Personal preference: Mandrake 9.0
Mandrake has many graphical tools making it easier for Windows users to get going. Current market leader I would expect to be Red Hat.

 

[w1nn3r]

I'm a redhat fan myself. I run a shell/ircd/webhost machine that runs redhat. Its so much easier, IMO, to get used to, and its what i started out with. And with 8.0, Its made alot of things simpler if you were planning to install X(Like GNOME,KDE). The only real problem ive had with redhat as of yet is with redhat 8 and Opera where it was missing parts of the qt library, but if you werent planning on using it as a workstation then definatly redhat.

 

[jdobbs]

I myseld like RedHat and am running a RH7.3 server at home. Although at work my boss lives by SuSE and has that running as our firewall, webserver, mail server, and database platform. SuSE to me is hard as crap to learn. I say RH!

 

[blizz]

Hi,

I could not recommend which is best to learn since I've not tried them all.

Mandrake is probably your best choice if you're coming from the MacOS or Windows and want to see if Linux will work for your requirements.

Suse is very popular in Europe. The company is based in Germany and is known for including everything you could ever need with their system (it comes on 6+ CDs!).

RedHat is the most popular Linux distribution in the US and many other distributions are RedHat based. I like the RedHat Package Manager(RPM) files for software installation which makes installing and uninstalling software a breeze. RedHat also has a nice graphical installer called GNOME. There are probably more RedHat users than any other distro so support is good.

Good luck in your decision. No matter which one you go with you can always come back to this forum for help. There are some really friendly and knowledgeable folks on this forum. Blizz

http://www.blizzards.info

 

[franklin97355]

Lockergnome penguin shell has run several distro comparisons. Go to

http://www.lockergnome.com

and search the penguin shell newsletter for info. It's also a good resource for information.

 

[CaKiwi]

see also

http://www.distrowatch.com/top.php

for a distro omparison. CaKiwi

 

[danielhozac]

blizz,
"RedHat also has a nice graphical installer called GNOME"
Uhh... GNOME is a desktop environment that has nothing to do with the installation.
229257,
If you have never used Linux before, I would suggest RedHat. It comes with configuration applications for just about all the programs you will use. //Daniel

 

[wlwoman]

RedHat fan here; if I can set up a server with this, anyone can (attested to by my many and often stupid questions on this board!). I'm running a 7.3 web server (because I couldn't figure out how to set my SSL up the way I wanted it with my vhost config and the combination worked to retain partial SSL so for now I'm not fooling with success). I also have two 8.0 file servers, one of which is a secure server for credit card transactions. RedHat support is good and the update notification service is very helpful.

I've looked at Mandrake and it has a nice interface. I used to use Debian but find RH a lot more user friendly.

 

[timsr]

Mandrake fan here. GUI have improved and is relatively easy for clients to learn. We have a about 200 customers using it and so far have had few problems with the learning curve. (.0 looks nice, but have not implemented it yet, still using 8.2.