Re: Linux for newbies

[Doug Reed <dougreed () houston rr com>]

>       You will likely get two classifications of answer to this question.
> > From the "make it easy to get results fast camp" you will see responses
> along the lines of Redhat, Mandrake, and Suse. From the "Don't make it
> too easy so you actually know what is going on" camp you will see
> responses like Debian, Gentoo, and Slackware.
Aye, I am from the "second camp" as well :)

I started off with Mandrake, then moved to RedHat.  I found them both to
be pretty sluggish, and I don't think I learned very much using either
of them.  And what I did learn was specific to that distro, not
universal.  I moved to Slackware after my experience with the other two,
and the knowledge I've gained since then is tremendous compared to what
little bit I would have learned if I had stuck with "DrakConf"
(Mandrake) or "Up2Date" (RedHat).  

As for the other two, I tried installing Gentoo a while back, but I
don't think I quite knew enough at the time to get it running.  I
thought the whole download & compile process was a bit intimidating, but
I've been promising myself I'd give it a try.  I can't say anything
about Debian, as I haven't tried it (yet).

Doug


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forum Systems PRESIDIO: PGP / XML GATEWAY APPLIANCE
The Presidio integrates PGP data encryption and XML Web Services security to 
simplify the management and deployment of PGP and reduce overall PGP costs 
by up to 80%.
FREE WHITEPAPER & 30 Day Trial - 
http://www.securityfocus.com/sponsor/ForumSystems_security-basics_031027 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------