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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."

13 of 319 comments (clear)

  1. Ubuntu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ubuntu is the most common, with the most online forums and such... I would recommend that one.

  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?

  3. Slack! by Sooner+Boomer · · Score: 4, Informative

    Slackware for the win!

    --
    Chaos maximizes locally around me.
    1. Re:Slack! by dakohli · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yes.

      I cut my teeth on Slackware 3.5

      Back then of course the two most common were Redhat and Slackware.

      They used to say "If you run Redhat, you know Redhat. If you run Slackware, you know Linux"

      There are no shortcuts with Slackware. The students can learn how and why. Then, once they get the base knowledge, they can move on to easier distros. I don't bother with endless tinkering anymore, I just don't have the time. But the knowledge I picked up when I had to still serves me well.

    2. Re:Slack! by miknix · · Score: 4, Informative

      I found Gentoo instructive for similar reasons. Painful, but instructive.

      After going through the Gentoo installation handbook one should acquire some basic knowledge about the inner workings of a Linux based system. Not just how to use a Linux system but also how to assemble and manage one.

  4. 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....
  5. KDE by TheNinjaroach · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you're bringing people over from the Windows world, please encourage KDE. It's a pretty good take on the "taskbar w/ a start button" GUI-style and will be immediately familiar to most folks. One word of advice: "Classic Menu Style" for the launcher will help keep things much more traditional.

    --
    I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
    1. 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.
  6. Depends what you're trying to teach by compro01 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you're trying to teach them to use Linux for general purposes, I'd go with Mint. It passes the Aunt Tilly test with flying colors in my experience.

    If you're trying to teach them about Linux and how stuff works, Slackware or Arch would be the choice.

    --
    upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
  7. 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.

  8. If... by AresTheImpaler · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you get paid by the hour, then Gentoo is the way to go. Pro-tip: use the slowest machine.

  9. 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?

  10. 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