Which Linux system should I learn?

[HaqZombie]

I am in school right now...hopefully I intend to become either a PC Specialist or Internet Administration. I'm in my second term. A friend offered to give me an old system (it was like a PII 233 16MRAM old) and it got me thinking. In order to expand my knowledge, I should pick up a different operating system to experiment with. I was thinking about Linux. I would eventually like to edit an OS and I heard that Linux has open-source code, so anyone could modify and distribute it for free. That sounds very good to me. That brings me to this. I was wondering which Linux system would be good for a noob like me to learn. I've searched the net and haven't come up with much. I've went to linux.com and stuff like that, but they don't tell me what I would like to know. Feel free to post what OS you think would be a good idea to start off with.

Thanx

HaqZombie

[-DaRK-RaiDeR-]

HaqZombie,

You have to be really experienced to edit the Linux source code (kernel in this case) and it could take you a lot of time if you are just begining. Personally, i'd like Mandrake 9.0 very much (although each Linux versions are very similar), but i think Mandrake is a good choice to start. Again, sometimes it could be boring and exhausting in the begining to get used to it if you are a Windows user, but with enough practice and reading i'm sure you could manage yourself to understand it step by step.

Good luck!!!

DKRR

[HaqZombie]

Thanx Dark Raider...just one question...what are the minimum requirements for that Mandrake you were talking about? I'm just making sure that my system could handle it.

[-DaRK-RaiDeR-]

Well,

Linux is known to run in almost every old system, but i'd recommend that at least you put more memory to your PC, like 64 or 128 MB, just to be sure you won't have problems waiting too much for programs to load (mmm... although you'll probably be in Linux terminals all the time, typing and typing and typing, hehe!!!, you'll see).

Bye.

[Jabberwocky]

picking a distro to learn on all depends on what your background is. if you're coming from windows or mac systems, go with redhat. i'd stay away from mandrake for a while, i've been reading they're about to file bankrupcy.

if you're coming from a more unix-ish background go with slackware or possibly a bsd. slackware has a mroe unix feel and filesystem to it.

[HaqZombie]

Sounds good...right now I'm on Win XP Pro...I've used Win for a long time. Red Hat eh? I'm going to check out their web site....hopefully it's a free download. Thanx.

I'm downloading Red Hat 8.0 in ISO format right now...gonna burn em for later...I'm also getting all the documentation for it...thanx guys!!!

[Phat_Penguin]

HaqZombie .... if I read correct you are going to install RedHat 8 on a 233/16mb ram computer ? I think you will be disappointed unless you intend running everything on the command line or are going to run a "very" light-weight window manager.

Some of the latter distro's that are GUI intensive require a computer with a bit of grunt to enjoy their full potential. Shop around carefully there are many that will run on a system like this but I would not try and put RedHat or Mandrake on one of this specification - although I did put Mandrake 8.2 on a P75/48mb ram in text mode to act as a router/firewall for a friend - i.e no GUI's, window managers or the like.

Although getting thrown in the deep end a little I would have looked at Debian.

[HaqZombie]

Nope...I'm not going to install it on that weak of a system. I think it would only be good for some command based system. But I'm still going to download the ISO and burn em...you never know when you may come across a good system for cheap.

[Phat_Penguin]

Haq .... sorry for misunderstanding and good for you - you will like RH8 - just I would hate to think of someone being turned off linux by trying to get it to do something it cannot .... although you can trim linux down to operate on almost any system it still has limitations which are dependant on the system it is running on.

RedHat 8 is very nice, but I prefer Mandrake.... this is purely a personal choice. I have the three RH8 CD's here if someone wants to come to Oz and claim them

[instronics]

Hi HaqZombie

I would like to add that SuSe is not bad either for a linux newbie. It has great support from their website. and is always upto date.

Although i recomend (personally that is) that you dont get SuSE 8.1, but try out 7.3. The reason that i recomend SuSe is that it was my first linux distro and i really love it. Easy to use and alot of help from the local system aswell as from their website.

www.suse.com

Good luck.