Best Linux?

[XpXJ19]

I'm just curious...

What do you think is the best distribution of linux? :confused:

[Tech1]

Again, there is no "best" linux, only what's "best" for you.

[jlowmt]

I agree with T1, there are several good ones to choose from.

I like Red Hat most of all personally followed closely by Mandrake.

I'd recommend Red Hat for a pc type application.

[Dswissmiss]

Easy distros are Mandrake and RedHat. If you get sick of the RPM package manager, try installing apt-get, or look into Ark linux. Libranet is in my opinion the best for pay distro.

[blockcipher]

I started with slackware and will use it from now on. But I have heard mandrake and Lycroris are great distros to start off with!

[Xayd]

If you want apt-get install Debian and you'll have it, no need for Red Hat or Mandrake ;).

[Markoman01027]

I only used Mandrake, and that was pretty cool..looking forward to using different distros in college soon :-P as I am gonna be taking mostly Linux classes.

[XpXJ19]

I've used Red Hat 8.0 and I am currently downloading Mandrake 9.1

I guess I'll just see what I like best.

I'll probably try out the newest version of Red Hat before deciding.

[Floppyman]

I'm using Mandrake 9.1 for now, but hope to switch to Slackware soon.

[Tech1]

Slackware is great, as a newb i started it, with only a book on my hands, and still as a newb i love it, if you don't mind learning the hard way

[XpXJ19]

What exactly is harder about Slackware?

[Tech1]

Just have to manually add users and such, no .rpms or anything (although there is a slack package manager)

I haven't seen alot of difference, but it's not made to be user friendly like mandrake where it has pretty icons and a pretty GUI, nor does it have a mandrake panel where you can configure everything from the GUI, you need to command everything.

[LiGhTBoY]

I've used many distros (debian, mandrake, redhat, slackware....) and netbsd (yes it's not linux, it's unix.) I recommend redhat for a beginner.

[fudtone]

People say Slackware like its a badge of honnor...

So tell me again why you want it to be more confusing?

[LiGhTBoY]

fudtone am not sure i understand your post.....but slackware is respected because it's the closest to unix of them all

[kilgoretrout]

IIRC slack is among the oldest of the linux distros. It's really not meant for beginners unless your willing to do some hard work up front learning linux. User friendliness is not high on the slack developer's agenda; it's just not what it is about. It is probably one of the fastest linux distros that you'll find and is definitely about customizing, configuring and tweaking using command line tools all of which can be frustrating for newbs.
For someone new, rh or mandrake is a better choice for most. Debian is also excellent but the install for anyone not familiar with linux is a bear and generally acknowledged to be so by those in the linux community. There are many excellent debian based distos that take the install hassle out of debian but retain its good features. Libranet is one but you gotta pay for that as mentioned above.

[Xayd]

The nice thing about Debian and Slackware is they intall nothing that you don't want bad enough to specify by default.

You get mail, ssh, and an OS with the standard installation, that's about it.

Linux's primary aim is to be a server, rather than a desktop OS, and Debian and Slackware hold to that pretty well.

[dragonxx4]

I really like some of the CD based Linux distros. My favorite is KNoppix3.3 It has awesome hardware detection, and a great sofware package.

[LiGhTBoY]

If you want cd based go for overclockix http://overclockix.octeams.com/ created by a member of the o/c forums, arkaine23

[Karnevil9]

What about Suse Linux? Anygood?

[LiGhTBoY]

Yeap suse is good... but don't you have to pay for it? i thought you could only do an ftp install with the download version. Please correct me.

[kilgoretrout]

Your right LiGhTBoy; the free download version is only available via ftp. Another problem with suse is installing anything in suse that's not on the suse cds is a royal pain. There's much more free software available for mandrake or red hat and they're both freely downloadable and they each have larger communities, at least in the US, where you can get help.