Input requested: test driving redhat

[JoeDude]

I bought redhat linux for dummies. It comes with redhat 7. I have been thinking about installing it and trying it out. I currently use SuSE and am not unhappy with it. I just want a better feel of what's available out there. I chose SuSE because I will be living in Europe and figured support for it would be more readily available. I'm interested in Red Hat because as Void said, The RPM's are more mature for them and there's a much wider variety of packages readily available for red hat distros. Any imput would be great. Thanx in adavnce.

AB . . . Freakin N008

[Void Main]

You can install it if you want to see what Linux was like a few years back but I wouldn't use that for any gauge about that the Red Hat line is like now. There have been several major releases since then (RH 8.0, RH 9, FC 1, and FC2). The most significant change desktop-wise came at Red Hat 8.0. If I were you I would pick up a copy of Fedora Core 1 or 2:

http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=64

I think Fedora Core 1 was probably the most stable and finished version because it was the last release with the 2.4.x kernel. Core 2 includes the 2.6.x kernel and because of that there are still a few imaturity issues to work out, especially with the proprietary vendors. If you install Fedora Core 2, and update it (including the kernel) with all the latest updates (apt-get dist-upgrade). It's coming along very nicely though and most of the immaturity issues are being worked out very quickly.

Do you have a high speed connection and a CD burner, or do you know anyone with such a setup who can burn some CDs for you?

[worker201]

I would be happy to mail you Fedora Core 1 on cd, for shipping costs only, if you don't have access to a cd burner. But to be honest, I am of the opinion that just about anything can be built for anything, if you have the knowledge. Read books and documentation, and even a relatively unfriendly distro like Slackware can be pleasant to use.

[JoeDude]

I have a dvd burner, my wifes XP Box has a cd burner. I picked it up basically to get the feel of commands and how to navigate around inside a linux system. Knowing what all those folders are at / . I see things like /opt /var /etc and browse around them and honestly have no clue what I'm looking at.

SuSE has been great to me except I have no documentation for them and am too impatient to use the help system. It's annoying to read things then flip to another screen, do one or two things, go back to the help, read more. I wanted something printed next to me so I could reference and work at the same time.

[Void Main]

If you just want to learn the file system layout then they all are laid out somewhat similarly, at least for all the main directory structures. I'm not sure about SUSE but Red Hat has all their manuals on line from RH 7.x through Red Hat 9 (the last version that you could get a boxed set of):

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/

Worker is right though. At the basic level (kernel, file system, system apps (apache/php), etc) all distros are pretty much the same. At the middle level (package management) there are groups of distros that are similar. SUSE, Red Hat, Mandrake and a few others are all RPM based. Debian, Xandros, KNOPPIX, and several others are all Debian based (deb packages). At the highest level (desktop layout, custom management tools) they are all pretty much different. For instance, SUSE comes with a system management tool called YAST. Red Hat includes several individual graphical tools to configure each component. Some distros customize the look and feel of the desktop. For instance starting at Red Hat 8.0 Red Hat created a theme called BlueCurve for both Gnome and KDE and customized other things about each desktop environment to make them both be very similar as far as menu layouts etc.

Personally, I rarely use a GUI for doing anything other than surfing the web. Any system configuration I do at the command line level. When you understand how things work at a lower level and can configure them in this way you'll probably be quite happy with any distribution. I ended up just picking one way back when, after switching back and forth many times, and sticking with it, upgrading as new releases came out. For the most part I run all the Red Hat based stuff, from Red Hat 6.0 (yep, still have one of those running) to Red Hat Advanced Server 3.0, to Fedora Core 2 on the destkop. I also run Debian on a few machines (with SPARC and Alpha processors). But really I would be just as happy with any distribution for the most part. It's just easier for me to pick one and run with it.

So if you are really in the learning mood by all means install what you have and go through the book. You might want to also install some of the latest releases of a few other distributions so you can see how things are different. Things are different in Linux as you've probably discovered. When I first started with UNIX way back when I didn't like it. The more I used it and the more I learned the more I liked it. It wasn't long and I was to the point where I wondered how I ever got anything done any other way.

Good luck and I'll be happy to help you with anything you need help with.

[JoeDude]

Kewl

The adventure begins.