Hi, i want to start learning linux but i dont know which one to get. I've heard Red Hat is good but has too many bugs and open ports. And Mandrake and Debian are the ones i heard are the best please help me. And where will i be able to get them at? And what book would you recommend with it. Also whats a good TCP/IP books and a DOS book? thanks for are your help.

Which distribution to use is mostly an opinion thing. I'm partial to slackware. Some Wrong Thinking people will advocate debian =]. As for where to get them, they're freely downloadable, however, unless you have a semi-fast connection or lots of patience, that might not be an option. Have any friends with fast connections/cd writers? Or, you can order a cd set online, or see if anywhere near where you live sells CD sets. As for a book on Linux, I've never used one, the HOWTOs and other documentation is quite substantial, chances are that if you're trying to do something, someone else already has. The only problems you'd run into involve obscure and/or 'windows only' hardware, such as winmodems. Have fun!

I've never had a problem with Red Hat 6 or 7. It installs nice, RPMs are cool. I've heard there are bad things about 7... but the problems have yet to bother me. Good luck.

- taubz

Neither, I"m running Redhat 7, and I find it is excellent as well as stable. Good installation as taubz said.

Basicly it's a presonal choice.. Diving right into slackware would definately be more of a challenge than diving into Corel. It all depends on how much "hand holding" you want during the installation and use. Corel will do alot of the things for you, and you can call it using Linux, but hardcore users would laugh at you. Myself I did use Corel for 3 days, then went to using Redhat (6.1) and then to Slackware 7.0 My best suggestion (especially if you have a fast connection and CD burner) would be to try a couple of them out. Download 2 or 3 distro's and burn them before installing anything (that way you don't have to worry about not having a working CD burner later). It's pretty simple to install (if you've done it once you've done it a 100 times).

From all the distro's I've tried, I keep coming back to Red Hat. I tried Debian, SuSe, Slackware, Corel and TurboLinux... (I had a CD burner and too much spare time, OK?). I found a lot of them to give the impression of not being... "done", as though that release is more like a nightly build. I know linux is under constant development, but they were too bleeding-edge for me, Red hat just seems so... complete, but is still being improved!

* Gian places a huge sign over CHollman82's head saying "Disreguard everything I say please, it is for both of our sake"

To those I have offended:
In future, Mr Hollman, why not state why you like it, and why it is good, instead of taking your typical attitude of "I did it so everybody must!" (Refer to the "Which programming language is easier" thread.

There's a mouse jumping on the lamp because it's hot. It's funny. We have mice.

Laugh because: "I did, so everybody must!"

*laughs loudly as told, then stops, wondering why he's doing as told..* :P

Anyhow, just to give a single comment (useful or not).. I've looked at a few Linux Distributions (not enough to say what is best or worst), and in my opinion, both RedHat and Mandrake are easy to install, but for maintaining I personally prefer RedHat.

Well, as mentioned earlier (by lordaerom, I think), you should try some different distributions, and see which one you like the best..

Yeah. Like Slackware. Nod nod.

Oh, if you had made your blanket statements a little more humble, I may not have develope dthis addiction to flaming you.

(Other people should try flaming CHollman82, it is so very, very satisfying)

Hmm gian, interesting thought that *has* crossed my mind. *grin*

hollman is sexy-cool so listen to him, get mandrake

Are there any computer science girls on Tpu?

CHollman82: *scoff* Like you can talk... Anyway, I thought you were buggering off to some remote location without internet access...

If you really want to learn Linux,
find Slackware 4.0, and install that.
No automagic scripts or anything superfluous
as with Linux these days! You'll learn
a lot. But............. its easier to fuckle
up your OS if you don't rtfm.

Even the latest Linux flavours still need
you to rtfm or else.

Ryan

Debian or Slackware. If you can't handle bleeding edge, grab RedHat. Be warned, RPM's are inferior ;)
-Kp2

Slackware is bleeding edge now? =]
Wasn't it one of the last to convert to glibc2, whatever it is, from libc5, or somesuch?

If you're new to linux you might as well get a book that way you can look things up in the begining, and they usually come with some version of linux, mine came with Caldera, which as time progressed I came to dislike, and it seems to muck like Windows and MacOS. At the moment I have Mandrake 6.5, while some what old, is still quite good, but I have to use the linux for windows thing since I have to share a computer with the rest of my family, and repartioning the drive isn't an option when the partition magic that came with it will only let me partition to C drive and I can only use the d drive. I guess it all come to your own personal taste, some times I like to get one of my small linuxes on a floppy disk and just play with it, and if you don't really know what you doing, messing with the kernel can do some wierd things. By the way, I'm kind of new here and hope to kind of work my way into your culture.