> OK, since the topic was raised, I'm pretty much a complete noob too.
>
> I'm concentrating on CentOS right now.
>
> Good, bad, indifferent???
>
CentOS is pretty solid as its widely used, based on very mature
technologies (rpm package management), well maintained and is the direct
copy of another very important commercial distribution (Red Hat). So
its a good choice. It tends to be a little behind when it comes to
desktop stuff. Its mostly used for servers and when people want a
desktop distribution based on Red Hat stuff they use Fedora. But using
CentOS for desktops is fine too.
Some common criteria I use when deciding which distribution to use are:
o Well maintained (packages are updated frequently)
o Good package management that has good dependency management (RedHat
used to be a failure in this area)
o Generally free of bugs
o Doesn't have weird restrictions
o Good user community.
Because Linux distros are usually supported by the community, if you
use a distribution that is not widely used, you will have limited places
to go when you have questions. On the other hand, sometimes small
distributions are so eager to get their distro going in the beginning
that the help is excellent. Usually those distros end up being big
eventually.
The weird restrictions one can be more subtle, for instance one thing
I noticed with the XpressLinux distro is that on this page:
In the comments the admin says "xpresslinux is only for desktops"
I kinda doubt this is actually true, but it if was really this way and
there wasn't an easy way to install Apache, why? I mean I understand
its trying to be like Windows, but there is no reason to restrict what
software a user can install like Windows does.
--
Mark Krenz
Bloomington Linux Users Group
http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/
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