Re: Linux for newbies

[Aoratos <aoratos () wideopenwest com>]

On Thu, 2003-11-13 at 17:22, Matt Atkins wrote:
> First of all, I want to tell all of you what a great mailing list this is.  

I agree.

> I would like to ask the group what flavor of 
> Linux is recommended for a newbie.

The quick version: Go with Red Hat because it is one of most, if not THE
most, popular distros.  "So what?" you ask?  Well, it makes it easier to
try out new stuff when most of it comes packaged in Red Hat RPMs (as
well as source, of course).

My contribution to the discussion of the past few days is the following:
If you really get bit by the Linux bug, you may be tempted to convert
off of your Windows desktop for surfing and e-mail and use only Linux. 
Good ... do it.  BUT, I suggest that you don't use THAT installation of
Linux to do your twiddling and learning on.  Install Red Hat (or SuSE,
Mandrake, etc.) for your desktop and then have another partition where
you experiment with Gentoo, Debian, compilers, games, window managers,
security tools, etc.  If you get good at something, move it over to your
"production" partition.

My $.02.

Sincerely,
Aoratos


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