hi, i have installed redhat twice and mandrake once, so i have played around in a unix inviroment, but i have no good understanding of how thigns really work.

now that i have an oppertunity to install it on a computer other than my main rig, im looking for something that kinda throws you deep in the water, cause im looking for an opportunity to learn how to "swim" as such. is there any recomendations on distros that allow me to learn linux well.

i got my eye on gentoo, but im wondering if thats just asking for trouble?

Just download them all if your ISP offers a free mirror site. I like slackware myself.

Slackware will make you learn linux exceptionally well..

Another vote for Slackware. I've stated the reasons plenty of time before:

1. It lets you generically learn linux/unix in a very balanced way.

2. You can refer to almost any generic manual/help-page for help with Slackware, as opposed to looking for Slackware specific-docs. With other heavily modified distros like Redhat/Fedora, you have to look for their specific docs .. which can sometimes be hard to find or not exist.

3. You can learn to install programs from binaries AND source. Both will work equally, unlike Redhat/Fedora where compilations can often fail causing you to revert to mindless RPM-ing that teaches you almost nothing.

gentoo is asking for trouble - slackware if you want to learn stuff, ubuntu if you want a nice easy desktop system

debian for nice/easy to use packages and what not, slackware isn't terrible like they've ^^ said.
ubuntu is easier to install than windows and once you get the hang of it, easier to use.

Starting with linux by installing slackware was the best decision I made. As others have said just by going through the install process you can learn more than more than most. It throws you in the deep end, but still holds your hand.

i've never messed with linux before, but i've got a spare box now that i want to put ubuntu on.

how is ubuntu for multimedia stuff? i really wanted to use this spare box as a media centre, as in wireless streaming media to my lcd tv. Can that all be done easily in ubuntu?

edit: ooOOoo i just found ubuntu multimedia center. has anyone used or got more info on this?

For streaming media to your LCD I'd pick something like KnoppMyth - all in one nice and easy to use package that's focused on being what you want.

i started with slackware. it is great base for learning the generic layout of linux.

i then moved to redhat because that is what certain hardware i needed to work with supported.

i currently run ubuntu-server because vmware-server supports it.

If you're wanting to learn it for business usefulness I would probably lean towards Redhat Enterprise Linux, or CentOS ( Community based distro of RHEL ). It seems to be what most businesses are using ( for newish stuff, not existing ) and hardware vendors are supporting.

I would hesitate to use it out in the wild, but on a PC/Server on a [secure] internal network it's great.

Debian, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and no alternatives.

Why the f*** you'd want to run Linux though is beyond me considering the much better alternatives better suited to various tasks.

how is ubuntu for multimedia stuff?

By default, it's pretty s*** - when I tried it last, it didn't include support for any of the common codecs like Xvid, etc, because they're not 100% legal and Ubuntu only have patent-free (ie,genuinely free) software in their default distribution.

I found it a pain in the ass to make stuff work but I didn't try very long or hard. Video section here is worth a read. That said you could prolly just install VLC and have it Just Work.

Debian

Why the f*** you'd want to run Linux

...?

phwoar that KnoppMyth looks to be exactly what i want.. thanks for that ticcles

gentoo is asking for trouble

I've found that once installed, Gentoo is probably one of the easiest distros to maintain, both for newbie or pro. But yes, the hard part is getting it onto your system in the first place, which can take a couple of days, manually. Luckily there're scripts these days to automate the process.

Also, I still don't see what all the fuss is about Ubuntu. It just looks like any other pre-configured gnome-based distro. I actually found it harder to get it to do what I wanted, but yeah it's definitely not meant to be a developer distro :)

I can't believe I wrote that :( A year ago I'd have laughed at someone suggesting RedHat.

I should also say if you're looking for a serious internet server, then one of the BSDs would be the way to go ( FreeBSD is my pref ).

I use gentoo every day on my main system at work. I recommend it if you have TIME to spend fixing things. One thing I will say for gentoo is that it's upgrade path between profiles is always exceptionally well documented. I'm still running the same installation I had when I started here years ago even though every single binary has been recompiled at least 15 times.

If you want to learn how a generic linux installation works and you have TIME then I would suggest LFS. Gentoo has a lot of gentoo-specific scripts but the devs do try to stick to the accepted directory structure norms.

If you want to just USE an installation can I humbly suggest you don't even consider gentoo as it's not going to be running firefox + evolution + mplayer for at least a few hours (depending on your system's processing power).

slackware or any *BSD based os are good to learn on. And if you really keen, Open Solaris.

I learnt on Slackware.
Then SCO (yeah I know its unix not linux) because we had a BD that required it.

Tried Redhat and just didn't like it at all.

Now use Suse (when I have to).

we switched to FreeBSD for a while for servers and found too many weird problems with software packages that were really tailored primarily to Linux (especially mysql)

i gave gentoo a bash (its the quickest one to get into (disk is only 40meg) and i tried installing, it came up with some errors that seemed strange from teh guide i was using, so i gave slackware a bash, and it didn't install properly (another random error then "your system is ready to use, restart to boot into slackware") rebooted "no opperating system is installed" so im giving gentoo another bash with a different installer guide and hopefully it will work this time

If you want to just USE an installation can I humbly suggest you don't even consider gentoo as it's not going to be running firefox + evolution + mplayer for at least a few hours (depending on your system's processing power).

on the previous installs. it was on my main box, so really i did want something that was up quickly, but because im using a differnt box, i don't mind taking my time.

i use ubuntu with kde. love kde, .deb packages and apt-get.

I use slackware for my personal rig at home. my hosting box overseas is running Centos 4 since thats what the host installed for running plesk... and I use Suse at work for filestore and pentesting.

For anyone interested, Flash 9 has just been released for linux.

Trog have you used automatix, it installs all the extra stuff that they left out due to licencing.

Prsonally just try any of the LiveCDs pop it in and boot, couldn't be simplier!

Personally I like Debian based distros fir desktops, I use Ubuntu cause I'm lazy and it works, but be warned that somethings like wireless can be a pain because of driver issues. All of the other major hardware seems to work well provided you research and get things that are well supported, but I've had no issues with my laptop, apart from the wireless, stupid D-Link Ralink R61 was fiddley everything else workd well.

Even the new ATi drivers worked well with M200 chipset, I even got EVE working with WINE, I'm happy.

http://www.geexbox.org/en/index.html is a nice media box small and compact.

Also DreamLinux is a bit wanky trying to be OSX but it includes lots of multimedia stuff.

last edited by GumbyNoTalent at 00:06:16 19/Jan/07

^^^ ahh yes wireless. I couldn't get my wireless to auth with WPA under linux. I could connect just fine using unencrypted so it wasn't a driver issue and windows could connect fine so I guess it was the stupid wpa supplicant thing for linux that I could only find one copy of. It would auth, for about 1 second, then drop the connection. I tried for hours & just gave up in the end.

Trog have you used automatix, it installs all the extra stuff that they left out due to licencing.

Ah yeh, I was gonna mention that but I couldn't remember it's name. No, I didn't try it. Automatix is basically "install all the dodgy pseudo-legal stuff"!

be careful with automatix.. it can seriously break your system's dependency hierarchy.

obes is a suzi driving suse user

also, the missus just installed suse a couple of nights ago, and zomg we drive a suzi sierra sometimes in noosa!

lets be friends obes

we use suse for everything here at work

tung, let's touch

@whoop

Haven't tried wpa yet, wep seems to work fine after much drama, there are numerous articles about why wireless is a problem, especially for PCMCIA but these are being addressed at a rapid rate of knots.

AUTOMATIX

Version 2 addresses the issues kind of, just don't install everything at once as it still screws up the JAVA dependencies. Codecs are fine to do them all at once. VMPLAYER should be done last and by itself after a reboot.

WPA is a bitch under Linux - I run with the philosophy that if it doesn't happen when I click on something then I can't be f***ed using it as a desktop. WEP should be easy enough as the majority of major brand cards out there have a driver and Ubuntu is probably the best distro I've used for configuring a WEP-secured wireless network.

For servers we picked CentOS. It would have been RHEL but I've used their support in the past and they are dopey mother f***ers without a clue so I ain't paying for the priviledge of someone to tell me to try and google the answer. I've got VMWare, Asterisk, LAMP, Nagios and (once I find some testers) iFolder all happily chugging away with CentOS.

Don't get any Linux or BSD servers at work at the moment just crapy old SCO and a few HP boxes *yeah*.

I basically gave up on wpa under linux. I ended up leaving my AP unencrypted, allocating myself a small /29 IP range, only adding the one or two mac addresses that would be using the access point to the AP config then turn off SSID broadcast. Not a great solution but it's worked pretty well so far.

kk splash, but only if i can touch the nissia

hey iFolder sounds cool

iFolder is the cheese - my aim is to deploy it for our big wigs that have desktops, laptops, travel alot and so they can stop sending 10Mb power point presentations to a distribution list and farting up Exchange.

Those having problems with WPA and linux should give the latest Ubuntu a run.

As for the OP... I'd say the best thing you could to make yourself learn is to commit yourself to it as an environment. Pick any distro (seconding Ubuntu on the desktop -- did someone 'first' it yet?) and then just commit to using it. That's the way you'll be in the "deep end" in the most useful way. Admittedly you're insulated a bit with Ubuntu, but the whole lot is there if you choose to find out how the pieces go together. If it all lands in a steaming heap... well... be thankful you didn't install it off 40 floppies.

Learning how to do it one way is a start... then you start to understand the concepts, and then you can apply them to other distros.

blah uses the ugoatu distro

i used slackware & learnt NUTHING! :D

:D

but you did help reduce global warming

i'm a caring sorta guy when it comes the expulsion of noxious gases! :D now look at the fine, cool summer we are having here in brisbane & do i see any hippies going & apologising to the oil companies for beingn stupid wrong headed hippies with green teeth & no fukn shoes!? no!

well i want to be the first to say 'thank you! mr exxon/bp/shell/etc... for this lushious greenhouse enhanced weather we are all enjoying! :D

Will you reduce carbon emissions by 100,000 tonnes by next Friday?