What version of linux
 

I have redhat on one of my computers now to test and I thought it was pretty good, but I dont want to use something thats not going to be updated so I figured I'd switch. I don't know that much about linux but I plan on learning C++ in a little while so it might be good to know. What I'm asking is what version would be suitable for someone coming from red hat without that much linux experience? Is their any distro thats pretty close to redhat? I tried Mandrake but people say that its not good for C++ among other things so I uninstalled it.

Google for "linux for newbies" and you will get pages of diferent versions of Linus. I just did it for a good laugh, some of these have a desktop that looks just like windows........

I would love to switch to Linus too, however i have no programming skills so it kinda scares me :oops:

matt, I can't program. I can only read syntax and copy variables in.

I was studying programming in high school and college and gave up on it. The linux desktop can look just like windows, and depending on how much you know about linux and wine, it might actually run your windows programs (slower of course).

If you want to install linux, I suggest you have a friend who knows what he's/she's doing install it for you the first time. There are a lot of options to screw up, and when you're installing, it's a bit hard to look up the answers on the internet.

If you want a distribution that's updated, I suggest not using slackware. They get updated rarely.

I currently run Red Hat version 9, but I'm dumping their sorry arses in favor of something else. Debian or Mandrake I'm thinking. Anyone have a favorite? why?

I think Mandrake is nice, but its apparently not considered good for developing. I have rh9 but I don't know how this Fedora is going to turn out so I want to switch.

I think it is probably a good idea to try out lots of distributions, even if your rationale for doing so isn't sound. At one time, installing Linux was a learning experience, but nowadays it generally takes less effort than a Windows install. Even so, the process of customizing it to suit your tastes and installing auxillary packages is still very valuable administrative practice... eventually you will become proficient enough to just install the packages that you want, instead of changing an entire distribution for want of a single program. just my 2cp

I installed linux redhat on one of my computers, it came with a desktop program that was about as close to windows as you can legally be... heh

IMHO I think you should take a look at Gentoo.

The good thing about gentoo is:
1. You can compile everything from source.
2. It gives you a "start from scratch" box without all the un-necessary mumbo-jumbo like gnome kde etc
3. The emerge system is like apt-get.
4. Excellent install documentation!

They have 3 stages for install.
1. Start from scratch! What you do here is update your use flags your compiler flags like, "-march=pentium4 -02 -pipe -funroll-loops" etc etc. You then bootstrap the system and then begin compiling the basic tools like gcc, ls, bzip2, etc.

2. Start with the bootstrapping already done. All you have to do is update your use flags and maybe look at your compile flags. Then your start compiling your system.

3. Everything is already pre-compiled that best suits your system depending on your processor. It's basically a giant zip file.

NOTE-The compile process from stage 1 actually takes a day and a half and from stage2 about 1 day depending on the speed of your system.

The reason why this is so good, because you have programs compiled for your system. If you have a pentium4 you can take full advantage of the processor features such as mmx sse sse2 etc. This makes a very highly tuned system!

Now about the emerge command. Gentoo keeps a list of all software for linux, thier versions, and dependencies. Much like apt-get.
To get the latest versions of the programs you would type emerge sync. WHat this does is syncs the list on your computer with the list on thier rsync mirrors.
Then you can type emerge -u system or world to update your entire system to the newest versions of installed software(or downgrade if security bugs were found). Best of all, it does all the dependency checking for you and initiates all the use flags for the programs at compile time. No more rpms or tgz's.

I can't sell it enough! I think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread!

Anyways, head on over read a bit and download the cd for your processor =)

PS-Also, if you want to run a server with heavy loads, you can install fluxbox or blackbox instead of gnome or kde. kde and gnome look pretty but, do a ps -aux and look at all the memory it takes to run them!

Good for learning programming! say you have hello.cpp,
type g++ hello.cpp -o hello

It's what I learned on. Grant it, I'm not a very good programmer heh. I only learned up to STLs.

Chrysm,

wow, that was a very compelling, and extrememly convincing presentation for Gentoo. I will certainly look into it and see if it is right for me.

My Linux machine is basically just a server but occasionally I do like to run X on it. So, having all that extraneous garbage in memory like you mentioned..doesnt sit well with me. : )

Thank you very much for your response.

I've switched over the xfce4 recently from fluxbox.. alot less bloat than kde, and xfce4 is a little more feature rich.. Gentoo is just fun.. Good way to learn the workings of a linux box from the ground floor up, redhat abstracts alot away from you..

I haven't tried it yet, will give it a look =)
Heh, before gentoo came along, the flavor to learn from the ground up was slackware. I just saw on Freshmeat about 2 days ago that an emerge typr tool was released for Slack 8.1. I guess it's going to catch on for those flavors that don't charge to have you automatically update your system to fix security issues. I also know they have an apt-get for Slack and all this time I thought that was for Debian heh!

It was for debian too.

I noticed that emerge for Slack 8.1 as well! If only I had internet at home! I could install stuff!

Join any linux IRC Channel with a lot of gurus on it, say "Ahh screw this, linux sucks, im goin back to windows" and immedietely youll have 50 people tryin to help you. =)

ROFL!! :lol: