On 21 Jun 2001, MJ Ray wrote:
So, what Linux would people suggest? Is Mandrake still the general recommendation for people starting off? Or is Debian now ready for the beginner, either on its own or via Progeny?
Well, my first Linux install was Redhat 5.1 and then I tried various combinations of Redhat, SuSE and Mandrake and was disappointed with all of them. I had then heard of Debian but of course heard it was a real pain to install, but decided to give it a go (this was of course Slink) and it was a little bit more tricky than the others but once I had it installed I havn't changed since.
The new Redhat installer is very much like a windows installer IMHO and doesn't appear to be very flexible but for 90% (99%?) of cases works really well.
I would really reccomend Debian to anybody including newbies, as long as all of your hardware is supported by the current stable release. Although If you want to get a feel for Linux before using it full time Redhat or Mandrake are probably easier to install and get a working setup with.
Adam