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Ask Slashdot: What Is the Best Distro For Linux Lessons?

Posted by Soulskill on from the throw-them-into-the-deep-end dept.

MBtronics writes "I work at an embedded hardware/software company and we are currently moving all our products for Windows CE to Linux. Our core development team already uses their favorite distro for development, but the rest of the developers are still working on Windows. We are going to give a series of Linux lessons (from 'what is Linux' to installing, using and developing) for everybody in the company who is interested (including non-developers). They will be allowed to choose their own distro, but we will certainly get requests for recommendations. My question to the Slashdot crowd: what distro (and window manager) do you think is the best to teach Linux to the generic public? We are currently thinking of Ubuntu, Fedora or Mint."

11 of 319 comments (clear)

  1. mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    OS X!

  2. What do you run internally? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why would you teach a different distro than the one you currently run internally?

    1. Re:What do you run internally? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      it sounds like there isn't *only* one that is in use internally ("development team already uses their favorite distro"), which i think is a mistake. they should settle on one, whether it be ubuntu, debian, suse, rhel, or whatever.

      for 'general' lessons to other employees that just want to learn linux.. choosing from a list of 2-3 free distros that the teachers are qualified or experienced enough in to teach is fine.

      for the general public (which is what the question is for)... stick with ubuntu or maybe suse... free distros with a history of just working right 'out of the box' even if it 'works right' in the 'wrong' way (e.g. gnome 3 or unity) for many people

      for education purposes (i.e. in a school.. whether it be grade school, high school, college, or tech school), rhel (or centos on a tight budget) is the way to go. it's the gold standard for enterprise linux, and knowing that will boost a resume for linux-related or linux-using jobs more than something like mint.

  3. Slackware by AntEater · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Slackware is great if you want to learn how Linux works - not how one specific distribution does things for you.

    --
    Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
  4. Re:Ubuntu by dak664 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    True if most people will accept the default installation, else the forums will not as much. I think acceptance of the default is more likely in mint at the moment.

  5. Solve problems once, or over and over? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you are paying for their time, a question I would ask is do you want to solve problems once, or over and over with all the permutations of each of your distros and versions?

    I would recommend against Fedora unless you want to do fresh installs at least once a year (twice a year to follow each release). I would recommend CentOS (7-10 year install length).

    Whichever you go with, I would standardize on a single distro. Then when you run into an issue you solve it once, and not corner cases that each distro have.

    It really is like learning/deploying/testing 3-4 flavors of Windows all at once (Win2000, WinXP, Vista, Win7) and that's not even introducing 32bit vs. 64bit issues, and actual distro version differences (EL5.x vs. 6.x, etc.).

    Let people dink and learn the Linux distro of their own choice on their own time. Just my two cents.

  6. It depends... by ThinkDifferently · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It really depends on what you're teaching. If you want to teach them an enterprise product, then RHEL/CentOS/Fedora. If you want to teach them a desktop product, then Ubuntu. I know this probably wouldn't be for the poster, but for others who felt comfortable with Windows and would just want to learn basic Linux commands, dare I commit heresy here, might I suggest Cygwin?

  7. umm by geekoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "They will be allowed to choose their own distro,"
    don't do that, it's going to be a nightmare.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  8. Re:KDE by buchner.johannes · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Definitely a good idea to
    - first make Windows look like Linux (using Open Source software like Libre/Open Office, etc.)
    - then make Linux look like Windows (similar layout/style on the screen, programs available where they were, etc.)
    - then later introduce people to the new possibilities. We should learn from the massive Linux transitions e.g. in governments -- some have success/failure stories, and some give "lessons learned" summaries.

    --
    NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
  9. Re:Ubuntu by aztracker1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I would suggest Mint as well.. if you go for the Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE), after install, and you have gotten your feet wet, it's easy enough to roll over onto the official repositories, or even onto Debian SID, if so desired... beware the change to Debian's Gnome 3 setup though (ugh).

    --
    Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
  10. Re:Ubuntu by Smauler · · Score: 3, Insightful

    2.3% are still using VISTA!

    Vista is a hell of a lot less bad than people think it is. That is, as long as you get it working right. I've had 15 second boot from mbr times to usable desktop, and over 3 months uptime. This is on a personal computer I use for everything, games, etc.

    I personally think turning off masses of the dumb services are key.... but what do I know.

    The reason I'm still exclusively MS on my PC is that fakeraid failed with Linux, back in the day.