What linux to use...

[codename47]

I'm totally new to linux and have no idea what the capabilities are of it..... I was thinking of throwing it on a PII 350mhz file server at my house but I don't know how difficult it is to set up... I have a RAID5 set on it and running it through a Compaq SCSI controller (smartarray).... would it be a bad idea to try and set up something like this on a raid set first time out? I'm running windows XP pro on it right now with all the eye candy turned off giving it a little breathing room but I've just heard so much about linux and the fans are pretty hardcore for it so???? Any ideas... or places to start for a new guy...

[MTB2Live,Live4Comps]

what are your goals? do you want to simply learn what it has to offer as a server os? as a desktop os? or do you have purpose to serve? or just kinda like a simple toy to goof around with? you might check out www.distrowatch.com
i'm a big fan of gentoo, but it's sorta painful on older hardware like that (as in slow - everything still works fine). i have vectorlinux4 on my p2 300, it's still pretty fast on old hardware (it's based loosely on slackware). and mentioning that, slackware is a decent choice. or debian - that's known to work well on older hardware. but your compaq raid - that's supported. i'm not sure how hard it'll be for a newcomer tho (my RAID0 setup wasn't too harsh on me - but i had read a lot about it first, and had a lot of gentoo experience previously).

[Zwitterion]

I'm a fan of gentoo, too. I have it running on an old Celeron 400mhz computer as a firewall. It DOES take awhile to setup, but I think its worth it after you have it all setup and everything.

[codename47]

thanks for the replies... well to be honest I just wonder what function it will improve over my current XP pro operating system... I've just heard that it is better and wanted to give it a try... the purpose--some to play and learn and other is to be functional and be an improvement over my current set up. Would Gentoo be a good choice? I've read about it and have heard it isn't that intuitive but I'm willing to learn... I just don't want my server down for a week b/c I can't figure out how to load the OS correctly with the software... oh that is another question... will the regular compaq software for the RAID set work with linux?

[zandor]

I wouldn't recommend Gentoo from stage 1 for a new user, particularly on older hardware. I haven't tried the other revs though.
I used to just toss Redhat on everything, but now I'm ticked off at them for dropping the free RedHat Linux.

[j0k3r]

Originally posted by zandor
I wouldn't recommend Gentoo from stage 1 for a new user, particularly on older hardware. I haven't tried the other revs though.
I used to just toss Redhat on everything, but now I'm ticked off at them for dropping the free RedHat Linux.
Still looks free to me... (http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=7)

[Stinger836]

^ That is the last free version.
Quote from that same site right above linked page:
Red Hat 9 is the last version of Red Hat Linux per se, and Red Hat will stop supporting it in a few months. Instead they will offer a commercial Linux distribution, "Red Hat Enterprise Edition", and a free distribution, "The Fedora Project"

Fedora will be the future for Red Hat for most users anyways.
http://linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=64

[j0k3r]

I know they will start charging for the RedHat "brand", but Fedora will still be RedHat.

[DJFinch]

I would reccomend any of the more newbie friendly (I'm a relative newbie to linux too, only been really using it for a few days, but I've played with it on and off since about '96, occasionally going full on linux only until school required some) Most people are reccomending gentoo and slackware, which are wonderful distros I am sure, but I dont think are for getting your feet wet in the *nix world. IIRC, you have to compile gentoo before you install it and it takes about a day on fast hardware. I'm a big fan of Fedora. Before that I liked Mandrake, before that Lycoris (it had a different name then...cant recall it now) and before that corel openlinux....then...um...I think redhat 5 was the first for me...

I would reccomend in this order for you,
Fedora Core
Mandrake (lil' bloaty but easy to get going)
Lycoris (way bloaty and feels too...fisher price-ish. Trying to get that 'Linux your mother would use' holy grail, not there yet IMO)