Thank you for your input. I would like to play with a free database Linux version; MySQL and PostgreSQL with a Linux.

what would be a good one to get started with including a free database?

Thanks

-Joe

On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 3:05 PM, Jon Pruente jdpruente@gmail.com wrote:

Distrowatch.com

Far and away the most commmon desktop distro is Ubuntu. The proper one you want to start with really depends on what you plan to do with it and what level of general tech experience you already have. There is a vast difference between "install, update and forget it" distros and "tweak the hell out of it" distros. For and install and go desktop Linux Mint might be easiest. While Gentoo or Arch would be the fiddly tweakers paradise.

A bit more description/background might be in order instead of just shooting for the most popular. On May 9, 2011 2:59 PM, "Joe Cho" ksjoecho@gmail.com wrote:

...

Hi,

I would like to install a Linux to my desktop. Could you advise a most commonly used Linux version? for example: Redhat, Debian, etc.

and where can I download?

Thanks in advance.

-Joe

-- Joe Cho ksjoecho@gmail.com

---

KCLUG mailing list KCLUG@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug

LiveCD's are great for testing out a Distro to get a feel for it without actually installing it on your system - I used several of these for months while getting my feet wet with Linux. LiveCD's boot into RAM and SWAP space on your computer so as not to interfere with the entrenched 'operating system' on your computer. Most LiveCD's will also have a method for installing to your hard drive (either alongside Windows/OS X or completely removing said OS's and installing itself).

I know that Ubuntu, Fedora, Knoppix, Puppy, openSuSe and a LOT of other distro's have LiveCD's available (I prefer Fedora 14 right now, but Ubuntu 10.04 is a great starting point for a beginner).

Standard disclaimer is that this is only my opinion and does not reflect what others think - Enjoy Linux - it is worth the time and effort to learn. If you have any questions or need help, feel free to come to a KCLUG meeting and start asking - there are plenty of people with volumes of knowledge...

Michael Haworth Enterprise Systems Support Manager PAS Technologies Inc. D: (816) 556-5157 M: (816) 585-1033 ________________________________________ From: kclug-bounces@kclug.org [kclug-bounces@kclug.org] On Behalf Of Joe Cho [ksjoecho@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, May 09, 2011 6:28 PM To: Jon Pruente Cc: kclug@kclug.org Subject: Re: most commonly used Linux version?

Can anyone tell me what's difference between LiveCD and non-LiveCD? I just downloaded LiveCD for CentOS and uploaded, it worked without any key stroke.

However, I can't even take out DVD.

where can I download the normal DVD version? ~snip~

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Obviously, I'm biased, but Fedora is where we contribute all of our code to the community. Fedora is very stable, very leading edge, and prepares you for using an enterprise distro (Red Hat Enterprise Linux).

Participating in the Fedora community also enables you to provide feedback to the #1 upstream contributor in areas including GNOME, X, the kernel, glibc, the gcc toolchain, etc.

We'd love to have you.

http://fedoraproject.org

On 05/10/2011 03:34 PM, Greg Mischel Smith wrote:

Ubuntu would be a great choice as you can find a lot of help online and it is usually spelled out in a way people for people who may not have as much linux experience.

MySQL will work fine for you with Ubuntu. I use CentOS as one of my servers at my work and it works great for it, but for home use, I would stick with Ubuntu.

-GregMS

On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 2:59 PM, Joe Cho <ksjoecho@gmail.com mailto:ksjoecho@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

I would like to install a Linux to my desktop.
Could you advise a most commonly used Linux version?
for example: Redhat, Debian, etc.

and where can I download?

Thanks in advance.


-Joe

-- 
Joe Cho
ksjoecho@gmail.com <mailto:ksjoecho@gmail.com>


_______________________________________________
KCLUG mailing list
KCLUG@kclug.org <mailto:KCLUG@kclug.org>
http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug

---

KCLUG mailing list KCLUG@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug

- -- Thomas Cameron, RHCA, RHCSS, RHCDS, RHCVA, RHCX, CNE, MCSE, MCT Managing Solutions Architect 512-241-0774 office / 512-585-5631 cell / 800-451-8679 x 8417915082 bridge http://people.redhat.com/tcameron/ IRC: choirboy / AIM: rhelguy / Yahoo: rhce_guy

This is a very US centric perspective. Outside the US Suse is the dominate distro in both enterprise and consumer markets. Suse in Europe and Asia is as big an enterprise leader as Red Hat is in the US. Red Hat is a miniscule share in Europe.

I would disagree with your statement about Debian being the most used Server OS. If you had said "Debian Based" then I might agree with you, but hardly anyone uses pure Debian on their servers. They use Ubuntu because of the ease of use. CentOS is also a huge selection. When IT staff that I've interacted with choose the distro (in the US) it's either CentOS or Red Hat. I don't know of any but the most underfunded (meaning only old hardware) that willingly choose Debian for their servers

Of Distro's still around that you may know, Slackware is the oldest, then Debian, Suse and Red Hat in that order.

What do you mean by "Suse is the Novell of linux"?

Gentoo has never been the most popular distro in any except maybe the "do-it-yourself" category.

Glenn

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 3:05 PM, Jonathan Hutchins hutchins@tarcanfel.orgwrote:

RedHat is probably the most recognized and specified distro in the business community (ie by managers as opposed to IT people. A lot of the documentation at http://tldp.org was based on (Pre-Enterprize) RedHat, and the book Running Linux, and excellent introductory reference, was based on it. Running CentOS, the recompiled open version, or Fedora, the "community" based free version is a good way to learn the Red Hat Way.

Debian, on the other hand, is probably the most used Server OS, excluding the above enterprize environment. When the IT staff have chosen the distro instead of Marketing or Management, the server run Debian. It's upgradability, reliability, and long-term stability are second to none.

A lot of the popular distributions are re-workings of Debian that use newer packages. Ubuntu, Mint, and Arch are all based on Debian, as are many others. Mandriva is the main Red Hat based distribution that's not affiliated with Red Hat. SuSE uses the same package system as Red Hat, but is very different. Gentoo and Slackware represent their own branches of the tree, with Slackware being one of the oldest.

Ubuntu is the populist. SuSE is the Novell of Linux, IBM bases it's POS systems on it. Gentoo was the most popular a few years ago, but is a hobby unto itself. _______________________________________________ KCLUG mailing list KCLUG@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug

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On 05/23/2011 03:05 PM, Jonathan Hutchins wrote:

RedHat is probably the most recognized and specified distro in the business community (ie by managers as opposed to IT people. A lot of the documentation at http://tldp.org was based on (Pre-Enterprize) RedHat, and the book Running Linux, and excellent introductory reference, was based on it. Running CentOS, the recompiled open version, or Fedora, the "community" based free version is a good way to learn the Red Hat Way.

Debian, on the other hand, is probably the most used Server OS, excluding the above enterprize environment. When the IT staff have chosen the distro instead of Marketing or Management, the server run Debian. It's upgradability, reliability, and long-term stability are second to none.

Ahem. I'm going to have to take issue with that claim. Do you have any citations to back that claim up?

We own between 65 and 85 percent of the Linux server market, depending on which report you read. Debian based distros are not really even a blip on the radar from a commercial standpoint.

- -- Thomas Cameron, RHCA, RHCDS, RHCVA, RHCX, CNE, MCSE, MCT Managing Solutions Architect 512-241-0774 office 512-585-5631 cell 512-857-1345 fax http://people.redhat.com/tcameron

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 3:05 PM, Jonathan Hutchins hutchins@tarcanfel.orgwrote:

Debian, on the other hand, is probably the most used Server OS, excluding the above enterprize environment. When the IT staff have chosen the distro instead of Marketing or Management, the server run Debian. It's upgradability, reliability, and long-term stability are second to none.

What an amazing blanket statement - one that I've never seen born out by facts. I suppose saying "IT staff" is vague enough to include the 18 year old high school graduates that some small businesses are forced to entrust their sysadmin duties, or the developers that like to run Ubuntu on their servers because that's what's on their laptops.

As a professional system administrator I can say for a fact that Debian is one of the worst choices for a server OS in a business environment. Very few ISVs certify their applications for it. Very few hardware vendors provide tier1 support for it, nor do they test their hardware and drivers for Debian. Debian's position on "non-Free" software means that it simply doesn't work out of the box on a lot of commodity server hardware.

I noticed that you put in a disclaimer about "excluding the above enterprize[sic] environment", but I find it laughable that you're marginalizing the most important use of Linux in a server role. I suppose we should qualify what a "server" is. Are you referring to the Pentium 3 Lenny boxes serving up MP3s in someone's basement? I would think in the context of this conversation we're referring to Servers. As in, non-PC hardware doing "real work" for businesses, government, and education.

There are only two real players in this arena: Red Hat and SuSE. Ubuntu wants to be there, and who knows, maybe it will be in a few years. But right now it lacks both the support infrastructure and vendor/ISV support to be a serious player. Debian isn't even on the same planet.

When I'm working on supported hardware using a supported OS, I rarely need to make support calls to the vendor. However, when I do, I need expert level help. Who's going to provide that for me for Debian? When I call Red Hat they have the support staff _and developers_ available to fix my problem. Novell does too (at least for the time being). Ubuntu has a few guys. Who will answer the phone when Debian breaks?

A lot of the popular distributions are re-workings of Debian that use newer

packages. Ubuntu, Mint, and Arch are all based on Debian, as are many others. Mandriva is the main Red Hat based distribution that's not affiliated with Red Hat. SuSE uses the same package system as Red Hat, but is very different. Gentoo and Slackware represent their own branches of the tree, with Slackware being one of the oldest.

SuSE is very similar to Red Hat in my experience. Provisioning is the only place where I find big differences (kickstart versus autoyast). Almost every other facet of system administration is very similar and it doesn't take long to learn the differences.

Now, I would like to point out that I think Debian has a lot of value and does a lot for the Linux community. But I think your statements are a vast overreach and aren't born out by my experience, and I've been working professionally with Linux as a system administrator for 14 years and as a user for 17.

Jeffrey.

I was shocked when I found out about the existence of Redhat in our domain. We had switched from an all Novell NDS and server domain to a Microsoft Active Directory and servers not long after I got here. Desktops went from NT 4 to XP after that. Then it took a couple of years from the conversion to XP that I heard our DNS was on Redhat and then some programming tools started to appear that were FOSS.

Winmerge (does a diff on files); Tortoise, Subversion Cmd Line client, Subversive and AnkhSVN (all SVN repository clients); Putty and WinSCP (SSH clients); Wireshark and Nessus (network sniffing); went from Websphere to Rational to Eclipse (Java programming IDE); Tomcat App Server on Redhat; and a bunch of other stuff that I'm probably forgetting right now.

I'm excited that they were willing to at least look at FOSS alternatives and save the taxpayers some money.

Brian Kelsay Sr. IT Specialist/Systems Analyst Anadarko Industries, LLC, working for: USDA/OCIO/ITS/TSD Kansas City Large Office Phone: 816-926-6897 Fax: 816-448-5605 Email: brian.kelsay@kcc.usda.govmailto:brian.kelsay@kcc.usda.gov

From: kclug-bounces@kclug.org [mailto:kclug-bounces@kclug.org] On Behalf Of Haworth, Michael A. Sent: Friday, June 03, 2011 11:13 AM To: Jim Herrmann; kclug@kclug.org Subject: RE: most commonly used Linux version?

ROFL! That answer sums up the fight that I am in the middle of right now - sometimes it's the admins that need a three day class to learn how to run M$-Word... Microsoft (in my situation) wins because of the automagic "it just Works!" that they have propagated over the years. This is a company of around 500 users and getting any FOSS in the door is like pushing an 18-wheeler uphill. GIMP barely made it into the image - it's free so it can't be trusted - I am only making progress with Redhat and SuSe because they offer (require) paid support models (so does Ubuntu/Canonical, but I DO NOT like Unity) - that means that they are good and wholesome, not some fly-by-night outfit...

Sometimes I think that the mindset has been formed by corporate drones that 'if we can't pay for it (and pay A LOT!), then it's not good enough for us.'

I would love to share with the LUG the hoops that I had to go through to get a simple NTP server running on CentOS into the company - we were seriously going to drop $2k+ on a program that would synchronize 1 windows computer to the root NIST servers and then auto-configure the Group Policy so that all other computers would sync to the single server... $2k for something that any Linux distro does FOR FREE! I pissed off several people when I went ahead and set it up on a desktop and did the configuring myself and then just told everyone that it had been done. It's still running, but the main proponent of purchasing the other software package will occasionally spit out that it 'is not as accurate as the Windows program would have been'.

If my Linux-Fu ever gets strong enough, I will start applying for some of the sysadmin jobs that I see from time to time.

Michael Haworth Enterprise Systems Support Manager | PAS Technologies Inc. 1222 Atlantic | North Kansas City, Missouri 64116 T: 816-556-5157 | C:(816) 585-1033 | F: (816) 556-4692 | Michael_Haworth@pas-technologies.com Visit our website at www.pas-technologies.comhttp://www.pas-technologies.com

From: kclug-bounces@kclug.org [mailto:kclug-bounces@kclug.org] On Behalf Of Jim Herrmann Sent: Friday, June 03, 2011 7:02 AM To: kclug@kclug.org Subject: Re: most commonly used Linux version?

Joe, Since you were asking about desktop Linux, and the system administrators on the list veered off into server land, let me bring this conversation back to your original question. You said you wanted to install a desktop and wanted the most commonly used Linux version. If you look at the vendors that are selling retail desktops, to consumers, they are using Ubuntu. If you are looking for the more common business desktop, then use Windows, because businesses don't install Linux on their desktops, well damn few anyway. Only smaller, smarter companies, do that. The big boys are all stuck with Windows XP because it's too damn hard to change out 10,000 desktops of people who need a three day class just to learn how to run M$-Word. I'm sure that some companies, more in Europe no doubt, are switching to Red Hat and SuSE desktops, but if you want the most commonly used *consumer* desktop, download Ubuntu here: http://www.ubuntu.com/

I hope that actually answers your question and tip toes around the holy war that still rages within the Linux community. ;-)

HTH, Jim On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 2:59 PM, Joe Cho <ksjoecho@gmail.commailto:ksjoecho@gmail.com> wrote: Hi,

I would like to install a Linux to my desktop. Could you advise a most commonly used Linux version? for example: Redhat, Debian, etc.

and where can I download?

Thanks in advance.

-Joe

-- Joe Cho ksjoecho@gmail.commailto:ksjoecho@gmail.com