AW: Linux for newbies

[Meidinger Chris <chris.meidinger () badenit de>]

Hi Matt,

you will hear many different recommendations. My personal experience is as
follows: i started with RedHat which is a pretty good system to get
installed and start getting used to linux. Particularly for a desktop you
will get started faster with RedHat, and are less likely to get frustrated.
I would recommend against SuSE - everything is different on a SuSE machine,
if you learn SuSE it won't help you that much with other distros. 

I would, however, recommend moving on to another distribution as soon as you
can. I personally like gentoo linux from www.gentoo.org a lot. I did much of
my linux learning on gentoo, and it's a great platform because you set up a
lot of things yourself and learn how they work in the process. Some people
will probably say debian, but debian stable is too outdated for my taste. I
find debian better suited to production machines than a personal box to
learn linux on. If you try gentoo you will learn a lot about linux by the
time you have your box all set up. The distro is also quite standard, the
only place that gentoo differs greatly is in the placement of the startup
scripts. I consider the way gentoo does the rc scripts more intuitive than
the standard SysV, and easier to use for a beginner.

If you need help getting linux installed, don't hesitate to mail direct,

Greetings from Germany,

Chris

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Matt Atkins [mailto:matthewsatkins () msn com] 
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 13. November 2003 23:22
An: security-basics () securityfocus com
Betreff: Linux for newbies

First of all, I want to tell all of you what a great mailing list this is.  
I am just starting to scratch the surface of network security, and this list
is the major source of my information, ideas, and motivation to learn.

In my first of many posts, I would like to ask the group what flavor of
Linux is recommended for a newbie.  I have no experience with Linux, and
want to teach myself the ins and outs.  I will probably be purchasing a book
or 2 to help get things off the ground, so a good book recommendation would
also be appreciated.

Thanks in advance and I look forward to your suggestions.

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