[thelist] New Year Resolution

Steve Cook sck at biljettpoolen.se
Mon Dec 18 09:01:43 CST 2000


Nice resolution Alan :-)

As has already been pointed out, the differences between distributions are
very subjective, so I'll try and be as objective as possible! Personally I
use Red Hat on my home machine, though I've had experience with several
distros. I've not had any experience with Turbo Linux, though I believe it's
a pretty strong distro with a wide following especially in Asia.

For your basic desktop machine, I would heartily recommend RedHat. It is
pretty easy to install, a great amount of support material on the web caters
to RedHat users especially, the RPM package format for distributing programs
is probably the most common way to distribute precompiled code (as opposed
to tar.gz archives of sourcecode which need to be compiled - normally a
fairly simple process, but perhaps more confusing to begin with). Also
because RedHat now comes with both Gnome and KDE as installation options, it
makes using the distro a fairly painless process. (Your mileage may vary!).
While much of what makes people prefer one distro over another is a taste
thing, I think the reasons above help separate RedHat from the rest on the
grounds of ease of use!

For a server machine however, RedHat has one serious disadvantage - its
default install leaves quite a lot of services and potential security holes
open. Much like in a MS product, the onus is on the user to go through
turning off unwanted services. It makes installation much easier, but leaves
the box less secure.

You may want to consider waiting until you've honed your linux admin skills
somewhat before installing your own production server. In which case, I
would recommend either Debian or opting to use NetBSD (or FreeBSD) instead
of Linux. If however you are simply looking to set up a server on a home
network for experimentation purposes, then RedHat is probably still a good
option. The server install of RedHat will have you up and running in
(relatively) no time at all. If you absolutely need a Linux production
server right away, then it's prolly best to get someone like Penguin
Computing to provide you with something pre-installed to your
specifications.

I hope that helps and I'm sure that there will be a varied range of opinions
on the subject.

.steve

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: the head lemur [mailto:headlemur at qwest.net]
> Sent: den 18 december 2000 15:34
> To: Evolt
> Subject: [thelist] New Year Resolution
> 
> 
> My Name is alan and I use Microsoft.
> 
> My new year's resolution is to move to Linux.
> 
> So the questions are:
> OS - Red Hat or Turbo Linux?
> Server - Red Hat or Turbo Linux?
> 
> Please help in my recovery!!
> 
> the head lemur-alan herrell





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