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Beginner's Guide to Linux Distros

Posted by Zonk on from the pick-your-poison dept.

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."

8 of 409 comments (clear)

  1. Distrowatch by vasqzr · · Score: 5, Informative


    For a less biased review site, check out Distrowatch. They also link to independent reviews.

  2. eh... by ltwally · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "...The beauty of Slack is in its simplicity. The core of the OS is based off of BSD, whereas Debian and RedHat are based off of AT&T UNIX..."
    eh... Is this guy smoking crack or something? I've played with Slack, and have multiple FreeBSD boxes. While Slackware might be the least graphical (and thus, more arcane -- like the BSD's) linux distro out there, it is not based off any BSD that I've ever seen. The kernel is linux, the userland utilities are all GNU, and the location and configuration of all the system files is definitely not BSD related.

    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
  3. Re:Slackware by Pros_n_Cons · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Learn to do things without pretty GUIs . That's the best way to learn

    I'm still learning when using a GUI, I'm just learning how to do a task without reading a manpage.

    --

    -- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
  4. Got the debian releases wrong by mattbadass · · Score: 5, Informative

    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 :)

  5. Re:finally... by rmm4pi8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do "newbs" know what HAL or curses are or even necessarily the differences between KDE and GNOME? His use of terminology would be baffling if I didn't know a fair amount about Linux.

    --
    U.S. War Crimes blog. Email for free Mandriva support.
  6. Re:Slackware by barc0001 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not all people need servers either...

    If you RTFM, it sounds like this is more geared towards people using it on a desktop.

    And it's that kind of zealotry that puts people off trying linux. You may be thinking you're helping, but what the average non-tech geek hears from a statement is this:

    "Learn to do it without a GUI. Only stupid people need GUIs"

    Now, like I say, that's not what you mean to say, but that's how "Learn to do things without pretty GUIs. That's the best way to learn." will be interpreted by a fair percentage of non tech people.

  7. from teh author by jwhamilton · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  8. The First Live CD? by torpor · · Score: 5, Informative

    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. --