Which Distro for a newbie?

NotAGolf

NotAGolf

NotAGolf

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Hi all.

I want to have a go at working with Linux. I've finished a computer science degree recently but we did virtually no work with linux. I'm now in the job market and as you would expect a fair number of jobs involve using linux.

Therefore I want to get a copy of of linux and start having a play, at first just to get a feel for how linux works, maybe after a little while I will work on a few programs and such.

Which distro would you suggest I get? I don't want something so easy that everything is done for you like on windows (if there is such a thing!), but I don't want something that would be too difficult for a newbie, e.g. needing to know 2000 lines of code to install the distro correctly!

Thanks very much.
 
I would look at debian or fedora. I found that I learnt the most when I installed Arch linux, they have a fantastic beginners manual which explain to the letter how to install it, it improved my linux understanding 10x fold. Ubuntu will know doubt be recommended to you a lot, but from how I have read your post you aint after a "hold your hand" distro.

It seems to me you need to be looking at distro's that are used on servers as well in the business world.

Debian, fedora (red hat), FreeBSD and Arch
 
As Oxy said, if you don't want a hold your hand distro and you want a quick nippy distro with no programs pre-installed then go for arch linux. My only gripe with that distro is it is a steep learning curve and I didn't find the forum people too friendly, but I probably just gone one bad apple in a group but that put me off quite a bit.

If you want something that will just work then give ubuntu a try - mint is essentially ubuntu but with some changes including codecs pre-installed.
 
Mandriva is good for newbies, but there's also X/Ubuntu (And Mint, #! etc...) and maybe Knoppix or Puppy Linux for a familiar 'Windows like' theme.
 
Since its for professional reasons you want to try Linux, maybe you should go with Fedora or OpenSuse. Since they are the free versions of the biggest enterprise Linux products Redhat and Suse.

May be you should try OpenSolaris as well just for good measure although it is not Linux.
 
Thanks for the input.

Main problem is that I don't know what 'level' I require. I understand that Ubuntu comes with more on it, but I don't know if I'd have the knowledge to get on with something a bit more stripped down. What about documentation and things for the distro's? It'd be nice if I went for one with a fairly big support base, that way if I get stuck it's possible to look up answers.

The only other one I've heard of is Fedora. Is this a popular distro?

Ideally I would like one that would be most popular in the business world (if there is such a thing), then I'd be more familiar with it if I ever came into contact with it.
 
Buisness world? That might be RedHat, in which case Fedora would be your best bet. But to start off with why not choose a familiar distro, get used to that, then move onto Fed?
 
I personally like Debian. I installed the bare minimum and went from there.

Previously used ArchLinux for about a year but found it to be quite glitchy sometimes, still liked it though. I don't think I'll ever go back to Windows!
 
Superewza said:
Buisness world? That might be RedHat, in which case Fedora would be your best bet.
Click to expand...
A few of the companies that I'm currently looking at use red hat so that might be an idea.

Superewza said:
But to start off with why not choose a familiar distro, get used to that, then move onto Fed?
Click to expand...
How much do distro's differ? Atm it seems to be between Ubuntu and Fedora. Ubuntu seems to be a bit more beginner friendly which might be an idea for me, but I don't want to get used to that then have to change to Fedora and have to re-learn everything!
 
If you want a true Red Hat 'clone', use CentOS. It takes the Red Hat source RPMs, rebrands them, and releases them. Essentially, apart from the logos, CentOS is Red Hat.

Fedora is upstream of Red Hat, and is much more desktop/bleeding-edge oriented. Not that there's anything wrong with that (Fedora was my only OS for about two years!), but for what you're after I'd be playing with Debian stable and CentOS inside VMs for a while to get a 'feel' for them. JMHO, have fun!
 
mpledge52 said:
A few of the companies that I'm currently looking at use red hat so that might be an idea.


How much do distro's differ? Atm it seems to be between Ubuntu and Fedora. Ubuntu seems to be a bit more beginner friendly which might be an idea for me, but I don't want to get used to that then have to change to Fedora and have to re-learn everything!
Click to expand...

There's not as much as you would have thought, basically just compatibility and front end, as well as some slight kernel changes... but nothing much with the front end. I would recommend Mint instead of Ubuntu though, based on Ubuntu but with a nicer front end.
 
Go for Red Hat based distro

either Fedora, Centos or Mint they are great and the commands are a lot easier than debian well so I found them.
 
Any distro will give you the basics, if you ignore the gui's and pull up the terminal to do your work.

But I would really advise downloading something like virtualbox, and installing yourself a copy of debian, centos, and freebsd(not linux, not sure if VBox supports this either). You will find a lot of similarities between what you can and can't do with these systems, but there are enough differences for you to want to be aware of how they work.
 
Superewza said:
Buisness world? That might be RedHat, in which case Fedora would be your best bet. But to start off with why not choose a familiar distro, get used to that, then move onto Fed?
Click to expand...

+1 for fedora, I find it a good balance between ease of use without being too 'hand holdy' but is a good platform to learn from a business/ job perspective because of the Red Hat factor. Lets face it, Fedora is pretty much the bleeding edge of Red Hat development, so features we are playing with in fedora now, will probably find their way into Red Hat Enterprise over the next couple of years.
 
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