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Beginner's Guide to Linux Distros
Martin writes "TipMonkies has a nice overview of various Linux distros for those of you with little time to research each distro yourself. The article also discusses some of the advantages/disadvantages of each distro." From the article: "SUSE- The 'U' is hard and the 'E' is soft. Almost like the word sue with an S on the end. SUSE is the other big commercial distro. It was when it was still it's own company in Germany, and now even bigger since being purchased by Novell."
great breakdown and very informative... much needed for newbs.
What a dumb name. Even worse than "Debian." At least that one's pronounceable.
Learn to do things without pretty GUIs. That's the best way to learn. Learn how your system works. LFS is good, but overkill, IMHO.
Well, finally someone explained which one is for you. I guess jwz had big problem with that in all his Linux exploits
I use Linux and there's some fairly major distros that I don't know that much about. The article seems fairly free from hype and bias. That's the kind of thing I really appreciate.
I always thought that SuSE was pronunced "zu-zah". This is the way it has always been pronounced by most German-speking SuSE experts I know.
[1]
Currently, the biggest distros not derived from RedHat or Debian are Slackware and Gentoo which also have their own package management systems with various advantages/disadvantages
[2]
Now with Lycoris (just purchased by Mandriva), Xandros, Linspire, and a number of others, Mandriva no longer is known as the most dumbed down distro, but still is very good for people new to GNU/Linux
[3]
There are plenty of ground up distros, but most are derived either from RedHat using RPMs (RPM stands for RedHat Package Manager) or Debian using dpkg files
The user will change distros as he adquires skill... just start with an easy one.
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
SuSE is phonetically pronounced soo-suh.
well, you'd think with enough homebrew linux distros out there,
that there would be enough distros for every niche.
everything from the pain-in-the-arse gentoo text based-install, to the super-easy x11-point-n-click based-install for Fedora..
how hard can it be to possibly use linux in first hand? like c'mon.. i was 14 when i first started, and im not the brightest lightbulb in the house.. that be foe' sho!
--kingpunk
For a less biased review site, check out Distrowatch. They also link to independent reviews.
I dunno... while much of this dude's article seemed accurate, after reading the above, I've come to the conclusion that even after all his years of experience, he's still a newb... or he's just plain smoking crack.
/dev/random
I don't claim to be a linguist, but WTF is a "hard U" or "soft E"? I'm familar with "long" and "short" (and their accepted definitions in modern English) ... but hard and soft vowels?!
Were they confusing this terminology with that used for consonants, such as "hard g" or "soft g"?
R.Mo
Please allow me to explain your situation in detai, (sorry for the inconvience by the way):
Ignorance \Ig"no*rance\, n. [F., fr. L. ignorantia.]
1. The condition of being ignorant; the lack of knowledge in
general, or in relation to a particular subject; the state
of being uneducated or uninformed.
[1913 Webster]
2. (Theol.) A willful neglect or refusal to acquire knowledge
[1913 Webster]
I've been raised on Windows, but tried distros off-and-on for the past 5 or so years starting in college. I never really got comfortable enough with it to leave it on my system for very long doing anything important, but recently I made an effort to find an easy distro to build a Samba server.
Went through Debian, Mandriva, Suse, but settled when I got to Fedora. Of them all, it was an easy install and surprisingly easy to configure the Samba server. I'm CLI-defficient, so its GUI tools to configure/manage were what I couldn't find in any of those other distros (or if they are there then they're too hard to find!)
I definitely agree that most savvy Windows users will find Fedora's setup more intuitive than the other distros!
Most people aren't interested in learning how to not use a GUI. They want to check their email. They want to browse the web. They want to pay their bills online. They want to track their spreadsheet. But most of all, they want to do such things easily and efficiently. That's why GUI-based systems like Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows are so popular.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I will definately read through this when I have a little time to spare. I've been wanting to set up a dual boot with a linux distro and Windows XP, to see if I could realistically make the switch to Linux in the near future... a friend of mine suggested SuSe to me, and I have the ISO burned on a disc and ready to go when I format my old HDD which is currently not being used. But I'll def read through this to see if there is another distro that apeals more to me.
My hand touched her hand. Her hand touched her boob. By the transitive property, I got some boob! Algebra is awesome!
I think he got the order of his debian trees wrong. He had it at stable>>unstable>>testing. It's stable>> testing>> unstable. Testing is to test it before it becomes stable. Unstable is, of course, unstable. Just in case anyone reads this and uses the info. And yes, i'm being pedantic :)
The guy's information is a little out of date.... For one, while it isn't a GUI-driven installation, Slack's install *is* menu-driven. If you read what you're presented with when you boot off the install CD, it's pretty obvious, too. It says very clearly, partition the disk, then type "setup". It even suggests using cfdisk to partition the disk if you want a "gui". I'd hardly call it arcane, since the information is given to you without your needing to hunt for it.
/pasture. It's not in -current.
There's some assumption that you know what you're doing, and Slack doesn't set X as the default runlevel, but there's also a really helpful book available for free at Slack's website. About the only thing you really need to know is that RL4 is X, not RL5. That, and that it uses BSD init placement (/etc/rc.d/) instead of SysV (/etc/rc.d/rc.X/). Other than that, it's Linux. What works for one distro will work for Slack. Only there's probably already a package so you don't have to compile from source, just check linuxpackages.net first.
Also, Gnome has been moved to
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
Time to get back on topic, then:
My Intro to Linux Distros:
1) Fedora Core 4: Distro that just recently relegated XEmacs to an "Extras" repository. (Thank god, too, since it's a piece of crap compared to standard Emacs.)
2) SUSE: Novell Linux Desktop's redheaded stepchild.
3) *BSDs: Distros too cheap to spring for a GPLed kernel.
4) Gentoo: Linux with a side of rice.
5) Debian: The One True GNU/Linux.
That should put an end to put an end to pronuciation posts! (Where did I put my beer and the marshmallows?)
Does it require voice authentication with the proper pronunciation of "SUSE" or something? Reminds me of the whole section on Bjarne Stroustrup's home page on how to pronounce his name.
"or those of you with little time to research each distro yourself."
If you don't have time to try distros then you don't have time to learn GNU/Linux at all.
I've tried installing Mandrake 8, 9 and 10, SUSE and Debian on my old P350, and the only install that didn't croak was Mandrake 8, and with that one I never could get the sound to work. I assume it's my hardware, but then of course that box ran Win98 just fine. I would like to learn Linux and get away from MS, and I have this nice old machine to play on. I keep hearing how easy it is, so wtf?
It should be:d rake
:)
:)
Slackware
Debian
Gentoo
Redhat
Suse
Man
etc.
Slackware is the oldest existing distro. It is also my second favorite.
Debian is... Debian is just incredible. It should be covered early on because it defines a linux based distro for anyone who has been around for a while. I do not particularly care for debian though.
Gentoo needs to be covered early because it can give you the most features with the least amount of hassle. Personally, this is my favorite distro.
Redhat, and therefore Fedora, should be covered... if only because they got their act together after 7 years of improper security practices and poorly thought out packaging. I really do not like this distro, but I suppose I should thank them for pushing me to slackware pre 3.2.
Suse and Mandrake have enough history to be considered important. I have no personal opinions on either one though.
strike
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
I'll join my voice to the ones praising Linux From Scratch. It's an amazing resource for learning how a Linux system is built.
:)
We used it as a reference when we built the first full version of GoboLinux -- essentially following the steps of the book and adding our modifications (configure and makefile flags) to build the new directory structure, to make our "/usr"-less distro.
To this day, I refer to their build instructions every now and then. They also contain a good collection of security patches, so if you're into compiling your packages by hand, drop by at their site and see if they suggest any additional patches. LFS covers the basic system and Beyond LFS covers the additional stuff (KDE, GNOME, etc.).
The filesystem is the package manager
I still just want a distro that works great with my Thinkpad laptop.
I've been through Debian installs so many times, and I get so close, but there's always one thing or another I can't quite get (used to be sound, now I got that working but the darn thing won't sleep anymore)... I tried Kanotix, again the sleeping issue... downloading Ubuntu now. (Yes, in case you can't tell by the list I'm a big Debian fan... but Fedora is next on the torrent list, lousy 2.7GB download though)
Is there a reason laptops are so tricky for linux, and yes I know all about linuxforlaptops.com and the other websites which cater, but still, the installs are frustrating, the wireless has finally gotten to a point where it's ok, but still not great (enabling wep and connecting to a varity of networks etc)...
Does a "for laptops" distro exist?, I'd love it, hell I'd help with it if my skills could be used.
Sidenote: The old debian installer had much better support for laptops than the new one!
It's not the choice of distributions that causes me the greatest apprehension about moving toward Linux.
After I've decided on a distribution, I still need to choose a shell, an editor, and learn how to install software. That's not all bad, but where's the dummy book for that?
And don't even get me started on how frustrating it is to go to help sites and read posts from linux users who've found religion in their version/method/language/solution...
Maybe I'm just getting old.
I've been an avid BSD and Solaris user for the past 5 years, but never set foot in Linux-world (theme park anyone?) because frankly... I didn't know where to start.
//Side-thought
This article gave me a good ground to work off of as far as what I should be looking at to start with. I wanted something that would give me configuration flexibility and a good set of packages, but I really didn't care much for graphical configurations (99.9% of my unix work is on the command prompt anyway, and I actually like the OpenBSD installer). Having it there would be nice, but I can certianly live without it. My current guess... Debian. Any other suggestions?
What I must point out is that the writer used "free-as-in-beer" as least 4 times... but I guess he's free to do that.
Well, I just found another overview of several Linux distros that may add some information to TFA.
Although the article mentioned YaST and the overall refinement of Suse, it failed to mention what I think is perhaps the biggest incentive to buying suse for someone new to Linux. The Documentation.
The Manuals that come with Suse are some of the best I've ever seen. Granted by the time I switched to Suse I'd been using Linux for several years and didn't find the user manual all that useful, but the administration manual is still a great reference. In fact I probably refer to it more than my Linux: Complete Reference book.
The author makes quite a point of mentioning that Suse Professional runs about $100, but fails to mention the quality of the manuals you get with it, or that you can buy an "upgrade" version, which is the full version without the printed manuals, for around $40 from Suse's website.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
.. to have another source of information about a great OS. http://www.distrowatch.com/ is great too.
I love Fedora 3 because of the way it sees my hardware perfectly, but I've wrecked my system once trying to compile and install a new kernel.
Is there a howto for this?
I sure do miss the nuts and bolts style of slackware, but the instant hardware recognition makes up for a lot of it. Also, RedHat FC3 is a snap to configure my LAN. I could never figure out the arcane commands needed to set up a LAN/internet connection over cable modem/router in Slackware (although hooking a single machine to DSL was insanely easy).
If I could overcome the instant hardware recognition barrier and figure out the pea soup of setting up a router/lan thing in Slackware, I'd go back to Slackware 10... Slack 9 did work fine when I upgraded the kernel...
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I went through the install menus, fiddled with the partitions, and after a bunch of text screens later, it was alive.
Then I easily got samba installed & running with the package manager. Yay. This failed previously when it was a debian box(none of the d/l sites worked).
Much to my amazement, sound worked! I copied a mp3 file off a windows share(that was effortless) and boom, it was playnig in xmms.
Then I tried to edit the samba config file, but it needed me to be root. Okay, let's just put in the root password I thought i put in(it did ask me for one, right? I guses not), nada. Darn.
Just looking at google's results, looks like I can sudo in, er, or something. Or if someone replies here. I was so used to using root when I was using fedora & debian.
Me likey unbuntu. No bullshit to get things going, and more importantly, first time I ever got sound working in Linux, and I didn't have to do jack.
Mind you, 99% of this server will just end up benig used for samba, but that's good enough for me. I would like to get it to broadcast to a shoutcast DNAS server, but couldn't find any plug-in to do it.
I've tried most of the major distros in the last 6 or so years: redhat/fedora, debian (I haven't tried Debian Sarge yet)/storm/ubuntu, slackware, mandrake, caldera, gentoo/etc and even a few floppy distros. The one I like best is Ubuntu. It's not a very pretty install (I was a little alarmed at the lack of input I had during the installation process), but it's polished, nimble and alot of the useless crufty apps is happily absent. A firewall is also amiss (not a good thing and the only beef I've got with Ubuntu), but you can easily remedy the situation with:
/. reader, you've likely already heard the buzz on this newer distro, but for those newcomers wondering which linux to try, I heartily recommed Ubuntu.
apt-get install firestarter
If you're a regular
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
1) Downside X of my distro is actually an advantage, but only if you a) are hardcore, b) need optimization.
2) Downside X of my distro isn't a problem, you just...
3) You left out that my distro does...
4) My distro has apt/emerge, therefore...
and the only reasonable response...
5) Good. We need a simple guide to the pros/cons of the various distributions and of their intended userbase.
He should, however, add that Ubuntu gives a linux user the best of both worlds - ease of use and power. My distro is the best.
IMHO, we shouldn't need a guide to the different distributions. Ideally a couple basic types that could be extensible into what people need- for one simple reason: cooperation. Why have all these different people fixing security and other problems in all these different distributions when we could take all those same people and put those eyes towards a much lower number of lines of code. IMHO, there's more in namesake adoration in the different distributions than there are actual differences in functionality provided. All these distributions with all their different package formats makes it that much harded for the open source developers to release source. Why should every end user have to compile from source when a package could be available, or why should every developer have to make packages for the umpteen different distributions? There isn't even a common source package format that would let you quickly build the appropriate package for your distribution. It's quite a pain at times to find some of the less common packages even for a 'major' distribution like RedHat enterprise linux or fedora core. IMHO, we need to ditch some of these and work towards a couple of perhaps more flexibly administered distributions.
But he fails to mention where those "advanced" users went and why it would make sense to recommend a potentially more complex distro to new non-Linux savvy users.
Being a Gentoo user myself, I agree that Gentoo is not a dpkg/rpm-based distro, and that it can take ages to compile stuff, but this blatant bias is just completely partial. He was somewhat neutral on other distros (the ones he mentioned, never mind the ones he just ignored, like Mepis), he even showed some ignorance on Slack, but Gentoo did not deserve those lines, imho!
No, I didn't RTFA... I was afraid of having to read more bad use of "it's/its/their/there/they're" like the snippet "...it was still it's own company in Germany, and now even bigger since being purchased by Novell"
One day you editors will learn how to use this English language.
So, first wow I'm on slashdot. Second, I'm shocked I'm not getting flamed more. Third, sorry I missed so many distros. MEPIS is super and definatly should have been included. It was late and caffine started wearing off. And I'm wrong about SuSE.
Gentoo users are to experienced Linux users as ricers are to race car drivers.
SuSE is a Slackware derivative NOT a Redhat one
For a server based system Slackware is my choice. I learned way back when on a 386 with 200 mb hard drive. Its simple to write programs for and automate every day things and is very stable. However i would never run a gui from slackware. Its harder than most but that is because you can configure it exactly the way you want it and it just works from then on out. For a desktop system fedora is my pick of the litter.. Its easy for users to work with right out of the install.
Affordable Business Web Hosting with a Personal touch.
I hope Pat Volkerding gets better, it will be a HUGE loss to the linux community if slackware disappears.
I've used most of the distros available... Redhat, Fedora, Gentoo, Knoppix, Ubuntu, Debian, SuSE, and Yellow Dog, but I feel most comfortable w/ Slackware.
I don't really agree with the author from the article link, when he says...
"It is a bit more simple but less powerful to hack around the init scripts and change the real guts of the OS"
I feel that is the most in-accurate statement possible, as that is part of the main reason I enjoy slackware so much, compared to say SuSE's moronic boot-script 'logic', or distros that use inetd (by default) to launch most of the server applications.
Slackware is one of the easiest os's to customize and optimize to do specifically what you want with, whether it be a development/production environment on a single system, or even on a multi-node clustered environment, so I have to also disagree when he says...
"You don't build the system from the ground up like Gentoo"
Gentoo's installation is not builing the system from the ground-up, it's choosing which packages to install, which is also an option in the slackware installation process.
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
Summary:
LFS brilliant for learning Linux
LFS definately not for newbs.
It's actually full of errors.
He's already corrected the first one (SUSE, being from Germany, is not pronounced with a silent 'E') but more remain. For instance, he confuses Debian testing and unstable, reversing them.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Funny that the author mentions some Slackers going to Ubuntu, seeing as this slacker just gave it a shot. I haven't installed too many distros after switching to Slackware from Mandrake, but after hearing so much hype I decided to try it. At least for my system, Ubuntu turned out to be too much of a memory hog for my taste. On my laptop I have a gig of memory. With Ubuntu I had close to 600MB free with no apps running (just Gnome), whereas with Slackware I had close to 900MB free (just KDE).
bash is the typical shell installed. the distros i've used also have at least one editor & usually two installed already.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
Not enough of them come with Pico, they all should.
Instead of romanticizing Linux, let's not forget it's first and foremost, a software project. Because it is a project it should have well-defined objectives. Because it is software it must avoid failings such as redundancy and unnecesary complexity.
I try to be a linux user and grieve that I still have to use Windows for several uses, including desktop because linux (insert distro name here) just can't compete in such areas.
Instead of getting better support for regular user's needs, we get GNOME vs KDE flamewars. Instead of getting better app-OS organization, we get package management systems that only work with their own packages. Instead of getting features and functionality, we get distros.
This is why Linux has no chance against Windows. Blame hardware manufacturers, OEMs and the media, but Windows works for regular users while linux only does so partially and after lots of patchwork. At this rate, Windows will still plague computers as it does for another 20 years or so while the linux community wonders why they are still only 1% of the computer users.
And regular users are we when we are not using the computer for setting-up web servers, programming in obscure languages or setting the box as a router.
Linux is free software, but freedom should be accompanied by responsibility. It should be a priority of the community to act as such, instead of breaking into isolated islands everytime they disagree.
If anyone wants to research which flavor of Linux to get, go to Distrowatch.com and read the reviews by online magazines. They also send out CDs for a small price if you can't download/burn your distro of choice.
My personal suggestion for newbies to get a LiveCD like Knoppix or UbuntuLive. Then move on to an friendly system like Mandriva/Fedora/UbuntuInstall/Mepis, etcetera depending on their specific needs and research (distrowatch again).
If they want to get even more into it, try something like Slackware or Gentoo. Maybe as a final stage of total mastery Linux From Scratch:D
OTOH, if they really have spefic needs, there's no end to distros out there addressing a niche market and not just the desktop.
Oh, and avoid those people who make "their" distro a religious choice and all other nonbelievers infidels.
Here's a difinition that applies perfetly to yourself:
weenie
[on BBSes] Any of a species of luser resembling a less
amusing version of BIFF that infests many BBSes. The
typical weenie is a teenage boy with poor social skills
travelling under a grandiose handle derived from fantasy or
heavy-metal rock lyrics. Among sysops, "the weenie problem"
refers to the marginally literate and profanity-laden
flamage weenies tend to spew all over a newly-discovered
BBS.
I've always pronounced SUSE like "sue us". don't know why.
Though mandrake tries to be really user friendly (and actually pulls it off to a certain extent).
It's HELL to try and unlock when you want to make your first changes, if you're coming from windows and you just want to change some networking stuff or install a codec you will be faced with an absurd amount of security warnings and they make it tough to switch to root (You don't set your own password and there were a bunch of other problems).
I've gotta go with redhat, though I'm new to Linux it comes with a ton of useful stuff, good options in terms of guis and has tonnes of support.
Plus you can search for RPMs which is much easier than compiling everything from source.
Debian's apt-get sounds pretty sexy and I'd like to see it resolve problems (without even prompting ALA redhat) but telling someone to start with jigdo? Please that thing is garbage and the installer isn't as friendly and...
It's gotta be redhat.
Learn to do things without pretty GUIs..
Why??? Here we are decades past Xerox Park, the Star, and the Lisa, and you're telling me that the best way to interface with a "modern" OS is to memorize hundreds of cryptic text command line and configuration file options?
Are you sure you wouldn't care for a bank of front panel switches so you can toogle in the boot loader by hand?
It's not, IMHO, that in the majority of cases a CLI is better, it's that the high priests of the servers delight in secret, unintelligible, arcane rituals that no one else understands...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Never fear, Automator is coming to an x86 near you soon :)
Sorry, but Knoppix was not the first Live CD.
The first Live CD was Yggdrasil. You young whippresnappers would do well to learn how to say that word, yo!
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Here's the problem I have with Gentoo.
On those systems that would actually BENEFIT from a near-complete self-compiled setup, most are too underpowered to do it in any reasonable amount of time (think days or weeks).
On those systems that are actually fast enough to compile the system in a reasonable amount of time, they see performance improvements measured in fractions of a percentage point. Big flarkin' whoop.
Add to that the dev community (who seem to be taking classes "You're too stupid to use OUR distro newbie!"), and you have just cooked up a rather unattractive pudding known as Gentoo.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Pico has been replaced by Nano in most modern distributions. The two are identical, except for the license. Just create an alias for nano if you find yourself constantly typing pico ;)
Damnit, you're asking to much. I'm going back to Windows where I don't need to know anything about it to get my work done
Really, SUSE uses a "hard u" and a "soft e"?
My god. And people blame TV for the deterioration of the English language.
The proper terminology is a "long u" and a "silent e". I'd hate to have to explain to someone why you can't hear a "soft e".
I would have RTFA, but the aforementioned suggested there would be little there of value.
i use a mixture of GUI and terminals (XFCE and xterm) because that is what works for me.
what i have found is that when you start linux you're always on GUI, then as you get better and better you gravitate to the CLI. this is because for somethings the CLI is SO much faster (filesystem work for eg)
but when you're editing webpages, you really need a good GUI editor and a GUI client. sure you can do it with vi/emacs/ but its just faster and easier FOR ME with the GUI.
ultimately ANY distro is about what suits you most. and you can't force your choice on anyone else. their needs may vary greatly from yours
atb
Suchetha
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
The same reason people go out into the wilderness with nothing but a knife to learn how to survive instead of going to the local Tesco
He says can take days. Last time I did an install from scratch, it took about three hours.
ed should be enough for everyone
I am trolling
So, for those of you who rtfa.. ;)
I need a server with (Sun's) Java 1.5, Tomcat 5.5, Ant, Subversion, Apache2 and PostgreSQL 8.
And maybe fastcgi+ruby for kicks.
Which distro do I choose?
I found a version I like (Mandrake 10.0). I've got my system set up, running the way I like, apps I want installed and tweaked to do my bidding. I'm not even sure I'm going to move from 10.0 to 10.1 or whatever is the latest whizbang verion much less attempt to run a new version of Linux. I am not an uber-geek and don't know (or want to learn) how to migrate a zillion custom settings and application data from one Linux to another.
If/when something comes along that warrants the pain of conversion, I'll think about it.
All you need to know about linux distros is this:
/mnt/ then manually mount the fucking thing (probably as root) then when you want to browse the contents of the media you will get 'Permisson Denied' errors yet it may or may not still let you browse the media anyway.
They all suck
They are all a stupid mess
They all use 30 year old technology to draw the GUI
They will often come with 20 different GUIs installed
You wont be able to use any apps you are used to
You won't be able to to just plug in removable media and have it show up on the desktop (a technological feat that was conquered 20+ years ago but is still alien to Linux). When you insert removable media you will have to navigate to
If you are lucky enough to manage to get some sort of desktop icons up and running then they will all be pig-ugly GNOME icons which will make you sick. You might even get some ugly ass GNU MONSTER app with that GNU BEAST that will scare little kids, and suddenly you realise to your horror that every other OS is like Disney or Warner Bros and Linux is like some horrible Eastern European cartoon from the Communist period.
You will spend days and days of your time trying to get basic things working. You will be messing around compiling stupid apps with stupid names just to view a jpg, and wondering to yourself what FUCKING PLANET these people where on that could create software with names like 'xzgv'.
Hi folks, you say you want a new Linux car? Step right into our training room where we will go through our special course "How to buy and configure your new Linux car 101", and we will have you out and ready to actually select and buy your new car in just a matter of hours! What? You think you want to purchase that Dodge Caravan at the dealer down the street? Hell no! You don't want that!! Why, don't you realize that our Linux vans can be configured with no less than 23 different kinds of seats? We will even give you a map to show you the way to the 23 different aftermarket Linux car parts shops that sell them! OK, enough talk of other inferior cars! Come on in, take a seat, get comfortable. Let's go through the overview of what we will cover in the course..let's see..frames..yep, we will go through the 12 different kinds of frames and what associated parts and components you can actually buy in install on each. Engines.. great module .. we go over the 9 different engines you can buy, and also the many differrent carberator, cooling, and air conditioning systems available for each engine option, just terrific stuff.. what? yes, questions? Oh, you say you've really no mechanic experience? Well, don't worry! We provide a full set of Snap-On tools (of course, you could also choose Craftsman or one of our other 3 brands) and even let you borrow a car lift to make installation a breeze! Does that answer your question? Great! Now on to the next module, Suspension and Tire options...we'd better hurry if we are going to make it to the interior seating module by the end of day...can I get you folks some coffee?...hey! Where are you going?!? Come back! Don't buy that Dodge, they only have 3 models..come on, they don't give you the 38 differrent kinds of headlights that you can put into OUR babys! THEY EVEN FORCE YOU TO TAKE DELIVERY WITH THE STEREO SYSTEM ALREADY INSTALLED!! HEY, COME BACK!!!......
LBA's SOT - yet another Fedora based distro geared for business desktops is one of the best out-of-the-box distros. Great fit and finish. Excellent installation.
Gentoo is extremely low maintenance (which could be said of Debian and Ubuntu), but unlike those allows you to easily set a persistent policies of what elements you allow or do not allow through USE flags. Compiling WOULD be a pain in the ass, but all the truly large ones (OpenOffice, Mozilla et al.) come as binary packages. And with KDE now atomized, compiling is truly no problem any more.
Rehashing tired "ricer" jokes is fine by me, but it would sadden me if prejudice stopped anyone from trying it out. For me, it completely broke the impression that Linux is difficult.
LinSux SUCKS ASS. Use Windows instead, and refuse to be used by your computer, which is what happens when you install LinSux. ALL OSS ZEALOTS MUST DIE!
If you're not a masochist, don't chose Vi/Vim or Emacs, choose Pico instead. :-)
;-)
And the one true shell, bash even though I'm a tcsh guy.
so it's pronounced Zeus then why isn't it called Zeus instead of completely messing up all marketing in non english speaking countries with a word that doesn't mean anything, that comes with a manual on how to read it?
Hitler's in the fridge.
Ahhh. Exactly what makes adopting Linux such a hassle. The multiple distros.
Generally Enterprise users and Home users will want a distro that they know will be well supported and upgraded. Most of these "wanna bes" in the Linux world will have a tough go at it.
Stick with Redhat/Fedora or SUSE. Make you life easier.
Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...
If you speak German, or are from Germany, it's quite pronouncable. It's not English. You might as well flame a Russian software company name for being 'dumb,' too.
And the 'E' on the end of a word in German has the English short 'A' sound, or 'uh' sound. So it's somewhat pronounced like 'su-suh.'
Slightly OT: but Knoppix is also German, and is pronounced with a beginning hard 'K' sound at the beginning: 'Kuh-noppix.' Though if you say it that way in the US everyone will look at you strangely.
You might not get so many people wanting to moderate you as a fool.
Either that or next time you want to reply to someone, check their parent post to see the angle they're coming from
Exactly. So why Microsoft is developing a command shell again?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Because if you don't, you are tied to the GUI. People always learn much more when they learn the concepts behind something instead of just learning the actions. GUIs have problems, are designed poorly, etc. Many times the GUIs are just interfacing the command line anyway. You can always NOT use the command line, but you can't learn it instantly. GUIs differ greatly, and sometimes don't implement things the way that make sense to everyone.
Here is a simple example. I work for a company that does ecommerce. We made changes on the server to allow for free shipping on about 35 products for the site. How to test it? Well, I had to create a shopping cart first, then .... click through, find 35 items, and add them each in succession? Ick. I had all the item numbers, so I built a quick script that built the url and called "firefox $URL". It opened up each item in a new tab, then I could just click ADD TO CART, verify the shipping was free, go to the next tab, etc. If I didn't have a quick script, it would have been a much longer process, lots of clicking and copy/paste.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
1. Download, install and configure Slackware until you really like it.
2. After about half a year move on to RedHat/Fedora or Ubuntu to simplify package management.
#1 is necessary, because without it you won't understand "how shit works".
For instance, there are lots of config files only accessible via text editor. The automated installers only work for root.
Though I usually use the command line when and because it's less hassle than the GUI, e.g. making directories.
Tech Public Policy stuff
An average user can do all that with a pre-configured Linux box, and without concern about Windows viruses, trojans, and other malware. Here is a how-to piece on building a preconfigured Linux box. Yes, multimedia is included.
What the end user of this box would have to remember to use it without hassle is simply to buy peripherals (scanners, printers, cameras) from the "approved" list provided by the vendor, derived from SANE / CUPS / gphoto supported parts.
Tech Public Policy stuff
No. The root account exists, obviously, but the field for its password in /etc/passwd is blank, meaning no password whatsoever exists for root. This means that it is not possible to log in with the username 'root'.
Because every automated script-kiddie attack out there is programmed to try to log in as 'root'. If it's not possible to do so, then all those attacks have been neutered. While it may still be possible to escalate privileges if a user account is compromised, the difficulty of doing so is greater than the difficulty of running an automated exploit; for one thing, 'root' is a username guaranteed to exist on every Linux system, but cracking a user account which might have any username requires much more devoted and detailed attention. Making it more difficult or time-consuming to crack your system increases the chance that an attacker will try somewhere else instead, since very few attacks against home users are deliberately targeted to their victims; instead, attackers simply scan for computers with known vulnerabilities and crack the easiest targets.
Hence it's a security improvement.