Best Linux Distribution for the Newbie(written for the first time linux user wanting to know which distribution to start with)by: Derek Winterstien linux@dbw.org |
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Best Linux Distribution for the Newbie By: Derek B. Winterstien Thursday, October 26, 2000 A newbie should definitely consider no other distribution to start out with other than Redhat Linux. Redhat is the largest commercial Linux distribution offering more support options than any of the other distributions. This may be a point that many will wish to challenge but I believe that it can easily be substantiated by simply looking to see what different companies such as IBM are investing in and supporting. Redhat clearly has more money being invested into it. It also has a complete web site offering help documents, updates, security patches and many toys or fun stuff packaged with it, that is, if you really want to play around with all of those cute little frills. Redhat is also bundled with many commercial products for building things such as a powerful e-commerce web site. However, I do not profess to claim that Redhat is the perfect fit for everyone. Each distribution has its own merits. The Linux distribution debate will always exist because the sweetest thing about Linux is, of course, that it is open source. Because it is open source there will always be plenty of flavors to choose from, sort of like Baskin Robbins ice cream. I have used and reviewed several difference Linux distributions. Some distributions are more appropriate for specific tasks, but overall most are similar in many ways. Personally, I was very disappointed in the Mandrake distribution. In my opinion, it was simply a hacked up remake of Redhat. I ran Mandrake at home for a while but I found that their web site had next to nothing for information. Their distribution was not as current as far as what was packaged with it either. The kernel that the latest release of Mandrake came with would not recognize my 60-gig IDE drive. There is a way around this that works for kernels as old as 2.0 but this is not a solution for someone who is just starting out. Keep in mind that Linux does not care about what your computer's BIOS thinks that your harddrive geometry and size are. Linux usually knows more about your harddrive than your computer does anyway. :o) I am somewhat partial to Slackware and some of that is due to the fact that it was the first distribution that I ever used. Although Redhat performs very well in commercial environments, I would not be afraid to use Slackware on any of my enterprise web servers at work. I have limited knowledge regarding SuSE other than it makes me think of "Green Eggs and Ham". I wouldn't mind playing around with it more but so far, I haven't had the time. Whether you are a newbie or an experienced Linux user, I would stay clear of debian or other distributions that simply do not have enough popularity among mainstream commercial users. These distributions are loved by hard-core Linux zealots and do have their merits. But for the most part, these distributions lack refinement and ease of use. Beyond sitting in the basement and hacking at the operating system all day, I do not think that debian will ever be adopted for use in most commercial applications, and it certainly is not a good choice for the novice Linux newbie. I am sure that someone will argue that they are using debian at work, but that only qualifies as an exception to available statistics on the commercial application of Linux. You will always find a lot of Redhat bashing in the Linux-geek-community because it is the most commercial and thus tends not to appeal to their particular idealism. I agree with them in that I do not want to see a Linux distribution become so commercialized that it ends up being another Micro$oft style "protect the user from themselves" operating system. At this time, I feel confident that Redhat is nowhere near becoming like Windoze 95. However, there are some shortcomings with Redhat. My biggest concern with the distribution is that of security. Redhat tends to enable practically every service by default after installation. This can be easily taken care of after the first boot by editing the file inetd.conf and entering the directory /etc/rc.d/rc3.d to change some "S"'s to "K"'s, if you will. I must admit, however, that security is an overall concern with any Linux distribution. If you never want to have your box compromised then your best gamble is OpenBSD. I, myself, prefer to run Linux. I believe that with a little effort, keeping up with patches and bug fixes, Linux can be made reasonably secure. I replaced a Cisco PIX firewall for a fortune 500 company (they were leasing the PIX) that had a complete screened subnet network architecture with a Linux box using ipchains, ipportfw masq support, and ipmasqadm. This particular Linux installation is very secure and has yet to be compromised. In summary, Redhat is a good choice for the newbie wanting to learn Linux and enjoy an easy install. Redhat is also a good choice for use in almost any commercial / enterprise environment. It has widespread acceptance in the industry with companies like IBM and Dell. Moreover, Redhat offers the most complete support available with any distribution. Linux is Linux, however, and any distribution will offer you the full Linux experience. Although, my recommendation is to start with a Redhat version ending with a .1 or .2 (such as Redhat 6.2). -Derek |
