[richw]

Yeh or Neh ?


If yeh with experience who's would you get?

Want to throw it on an old machine to check it out.

I am afraid that 2 years from now XP will be done and you will need all the stupid
add ons and upgrades for Vista

Thanks


rich weir

[Billy]

I have very limited experience with Red Hat Linux. Basically I installed it, set the static TCP/IP address info and thats basically it.

I usually google everything whenever I need to go on a Linux/Unix machine which makes up 2% of our infrastructure. Very rare I need to go on them.

[97BladeRider]

I have experience w/ Debian, Red Hat, and Mandrake. Call me crazy, but I like the boxed Red Hat ES 4 Linux the best. I guess it's the support issue. Ease of updating with their GUI and Red Hat Network site.

I haven't worked with ES 5 yet. Need to do some testing on development machines before updating production class servers.

I find Debian to be a little clunky. Mandrake would be my 2nd choice.

[CitizenFrye]

I would suggest ubuntu for your first try.. It will boot to a live cd version first and let you play with some stuff and if you like it you can run the installer from within the live cd.

Ubuntu Home Page | Ubuntu

[Billy]

Originally Posted by CitizenFrye

I would suggest ubuntu for your first try.. It will boot to a live cd version first and let you play with some stuff and if you like it you can run the installer from within the live cd.

Ubuntu Home Page | Ubuntu

I've been wanting to check that out. I constantly see articles about it on digg.com. I got VMware Workstation on my work laptop. I think I might make a virtual machine and see what it's all about.

97bladerider,

Is Debian the command prompt version? I think i've used that a couple times as well.

[TheIglu]

The Fedora Project is what I've been doing installs on with our outdated machines. It's as easy as installing Windows.

Running it is cake.

Doesn't use much resources.

I like.

I'll be trying Unbuntu in a few days. We'll see how it's progressed since the last time I used it back in '04.

I'd say go Redhat but in a non-corporate environment when uptime isn't crucial the support isn't that big a deal. Google is your friend.

[97BladeRider]

Originally Posted by BadBoyBilly

I've been wanting to check that out. I constantly see articles about it on digg.com. I got VMware Workstation on my work laptop. I think I might make a virtual machine and see what it's all about.

97bladerider,

Is Debian the command prompt version? I think i've used that a couple times as well.

Debian is one of the command line versions, but you can add X-windows to just about any flavor of Linux to get a GUI.

[Billy]

My Linux/Unix skills are soo poor its not even funny. Do you guys have any recommendations for books? Something along the lines of Linux/Unix for Windows admins?

[CitizenFrye]

I use it on one of my laptops at work, works really well, and makes working on the UNIX nodes here a lot easier since all my UNIX tools are available and I don't have to get permission from the Active Directory folks to install the tools I need..

And the install was really simple, 5 or 6 questions and off it goes.. A great starting place, a non-intimidating jump into the Linux world and build your LINUX skills..

I like the LINUX Administration A Beginners Guide by Osborne books.. But all the popular distros have pretty good online and bookstore resources.

[Bokey]

Some like. Linux mint
Linux Mint: Linux for the Desktop

[HBerry]

I use ubuntu for my webserver, its super easy to use, easy to update, and no gay windows shit to deal with. use the live CD and test it out before you wipe everything and try it.

[TheIglu]

Other than the Ubuntu Nvidia drivers nightmare I'm still trying to figure out, it works very well and I'm pretty happy with it.

[ftrain]

Just use windows, no need to spend 100's og hours learning linux during the summer. get outside and enjoy life. Computers suck!!!!

[TheIglu]

Buy me a license and I sure will use Windows

[hessogood]

Get it.

Redhat

[TheIglu]

Got Ubuntu working with my video card tonight.

Pretty simple really, just had to modify my xorg.conf to put in my monitor settings.

Man, saving for a house makes friday nights pretty lame......

[ftrain]

So how you liking Linux?

[TheIglu]

Still running it at home, still running it at work on my new craptop.

Loving it other than two things:

Printers (what printers? we don't have no printer drivers and even if we did you need to spend four fuckin hours setting them up! forget about network printers....)

Network shares: They just don't work. They did once, then stopped. Known bug in Ubuntu. Makes admin'ing my network a little harder.

[Rummy]

I switched to Ubuntu about 8 months ago thinking "I'll just do this for a while until it annoys me and I switch back to windows" ... and yeah... no looking back. Does everything I need and nothing I don't. I still have a Windows installation on the other hard disk in case I want to do some PC gaming or VPN into work, but I gotta say... those platters are just collecting dust. If I play games I'd rather sit on my couch with the 360, and work... well... f work

[hambonez]

Debian user for years. Forget books, jump in and use it. Early on I spent a lot of time at The Linux Documentation Project , even before it was tldp. You'll learn what you need to as you go. I had Linux in a Nutshell early on in my linux days. didn't find much use for it.

I knew I wasn't missing much when it comes to windows when my wife called me from her work. She worked at Tufts Healthplan. Her system froze after entering a ton of data on a case she was working. She called me to see how, "you bring up that black box," aka (Command Line Interface) to kill what was freezing the screen.

I've got debian on my desktop (amd64) and my laptop(old Toshiba satellite), though I've considered a second mac laptop for the wife. My desktop is also running mythtv so I can record some stuff that's on at the same time as the stuff my wife wants to record on the tivo(which I believe is running some kind of embedded linux).

Get the debian net installer burn it and boot it. Just try answering the questions it asks. Don't read the docs, just jump in. That is, if it's a box you don't have anything else on. It will download what it needs as you go.

Got to love apt-get update && apt-get upgrade. Don't worry what that is yet. you'll get it.

[hambonez]

Originally Posted by TheIglu

Still running it at home, still running it at work on my new craptop.

Loving it other than two things:

Printers (what printers? we don't have no printer drivers and even if we did you need to spend four fuckin hours setting them up! forget about network printers....)

You using CUPS for printing? There is probably some UBUNTU way of doing things I don't know about, but the regular cups config has been a cake walk for me.

127.0.0.1:631 to configure through a web interface. I threw a Debian box at my office and use a networked printer there. Sometimes the ip addy for the printer box changes, that's my only problem.