| Fish Tank Clan :: Forums :: General Forums :: Tech Support |
|
« Previous topic | Next topic » |
| Any Linux users here? | ||
| Author | Post | ||
| alcosatz |
|
||
FT Classic Op
Registered Member #39
Joined: Fri Dec 02 2005, 10:30PMPosts: 1545 |
.4ngryToasters wrote ... I shoulda stated the reason I'm leaning towards linux. I'm looking to get closer to the operating system so to speak, since I'm in school for IT. So non user friendly isn't necessarily a bad thing for me here. Besides, I was thinking of doing a dual boot setup, so I wouldn't be quitting windows cold turkey (lol?) It depends on what aspect of IT in which you're looking to get involved. If it's desktop-ish support then yeah, you should familiarize yourself with popular distributions geared more towards desktop users. You should do your own research though, because "desktop" and "Linux" don't mean much to me. Obviously popular desktop distros, such as Ubuntu or Fedora, have faithful "server" followings, but my five years of professional experience as a sysadm at a medium-sized telecom indicates that Fedora and Ubuntu are not making any fast inroads into the corporate IT shop in which I work. This doesn't mean these distros are not fun or great learning tools though. What I am really trying to say is this: don't think that distros that are super-duper on your desktop are going to be vastly popular with IT managers or systems admins. RHEL, unfortunately, is kinda the "go to" platform in many corporate server/infrastructure environments that choose to go with Linux and, more importantly, choose to get a rubbery hardon over support contracts. Novell-owned SUSE has a similar "enterprise" product, though I have not had to professionally deal with it (nor do I feel compelled to do so, either... yet). Anyways, you need to pay for licenses in order to actually download and install updates for RHEL which is a huge turnoff as far as the whole learning experience goes. I personally have an aversion towards Red Hat for this reason; however, it's highly probably that if you plan to have a career as a Linux sysadmin then you will deal with Red Shat at some point (I certainly have had to deal with it). The good news is that you can grab a copy of CentOS, which is a clone of RHEL, that is often adequate for testing and learning purposes. CentOS is basically a source RPM rebuild of all RHEL packages, and they maintain very close release cycles and security updates to RHEL. It may not get a nod of approval from IT managers but Cent is a smart choice to use as a learning and (sometimes) testing platform if you foresee yourself dealing with RHEL deployments. My pro/personal favorite distro is Debian GNU/Linux. Debian is not going to fit the needs of everyone, all the time (certainly not in the "desktop" arena), but it's been around since 1993 (I think) and has a pretty cool philosophy behind the project (example: -[link]- Ubuntu started out as a splinter from Debian but the relationship is getting a little blurred lately. Debian is frequently shat upon because of its sparse release cycle, which is about 18 months compared to many other projects that shoot for 6 month cycles. There is some logic, however, behind the rigorous testing and bugfixing which tends to make Debian much more stable than many other distros. Of course, there was the recent OpenSSL PRNG shitstorm: -[link]- ... which will probably be remembered for years to come. Oh well, "IT happens" as the fella says...  So yeah, provided you've got bunches of memory and disk space on a machine, grab a free copy of VMware: -[link]- and go nuts. Install all sorts of distros just to get your feet wet. You can even take the plunge and get into FreeBSD, NetBSD, *hold down vomit* Solaris, etc. There are literally hundreds of Linux and BSD variants with which to play. Get comfortable with something but do not become a distro bigot. People argue all the time about what is "best" but many arguments stem from a lack of understanding concerning the environment in which particular distros/OS's are used. Distros != sports teams! |
||
| Back to top |
|
||
| kd. |
|
||
♥ (✿◠‿◠) ♥
Registered Member #75
Joined: Sat Dec 17 2005, 08:51PMPosts: 3128 |
So if you're new to Linux, and want a semi feasible desktop, but a debian environment, then Ubuntu would be the obvious choice, am I right? Also, Alcosatz wrote ... Anyways, you need to pay for licenses in order to actually download and install updates for RHEL I did not know daht. Edited Wed Jul 23 2008, 03:51AM |
||
| Back to top |
|
||
| .4ngryToasters |
|
||
you would
Registered Member #149
Joined: Sun Feb 12 2006, 01:08AMPosts: 2039 |
Thank you alex, your response was very helpful to me. Unfortunately, I'm not sure which IT career path I am going to choose at this point in time, so I can not give a solid answer of what kind of OS I'm looking for (I'm leaning towards security, but I'm really not sure). For my next semester of classes I have one devoted for operating systems and how they work, and Computer Forensics (recovering lost data, watching traffic through ports, detecting security breeches) so I'll see where I stand after that. The reason for Linux is I wanted something I could play around with, yet still be somewhat forgiving if I screwed up (windows would have a shit fit if i peeked into the inner workings and started to mess around lol) |
||
| Back to top |
|
||
| kd. |
|
||
|
♥ (✿◠‿◠) ♥
Registered Member #75
Joined: Sat Dec 17 2005, 08:51PM Posts: 3128 |
If you screw up in root, it's not forgiving. LOL | ||
| Back to top |
|
||
Powered by e107 Forum System
|
|