Best distro for learning the most

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BioHazard.89

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 25, 2004
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I am looking for the "Best" distro that will allow me to learn as much as I can from Linux. I am trying to dive into this OS and I rather do it and learn the most I can with it, as I know windows like the back of my hand.... I don't really know what else to say.... I want to completely get a windows os outta the picture for this computer - as it is / will be a everything-but-gaming computer.... I'll be doing alot of development and such on it. The system I run for this PC is in the sig...... the one with the ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 128mb - RHLinux 8 seems to recognize it but I don't know much else..... I am planning on getting a nVidia card and getting a large ass amount of space on a SATA RAID on this system too - going to act as a family file server (passworded folder type thing - on a windows network - this would be the only linux pc.... is this even possible?)

Thanks once again to all who are aiding me in my ventures into Linux-dom.....

//Bio.89

//Edit: Other thread of mine to lookat with some unanswered questions:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=787915
 
I've been messing around a bit for the past few days and I'd say I learnt the most from Gentoo (though I couldnt pull everything off :( I'll try again soon though). RIght now I've settled for Debian
 
that would be kernel.
Gentoo is a pretty good idea, its rather advanced but documented well enough to guide you through an install.
As for windows networks : samba
 
Gentoo works. It provides the learning experience and command-line familiarization, and still makes it easy to maintain and install new software. Great community over at the gentoo.org forums as well. Any problems you may encounter will surely be resolved there already.

And as stated above, Samba is what you're looking for when it comes to putting a linux box in a network with windows machines.
 
Gentoo would work, yes. Slackware, possibly.
I would recommend FreeBSD. It's very ... direct, but also clean, well documented, predictable, and easy when you've gotten used to it. (Though that goes for everything, doesn't it. :) )
The ports system is what inspired portage (in gentoo), as well.

It's not linux, though. It'll run the same programs, compiled from the same source (if you should want to). All the common commands are the same. The directory layout could have come from a conservative linux distribution. However, everything kernel-related is different, it has a somewhat unusual partitioning method [1], and there's several other differences.

You'll really just have to decide if you want to try it. Personally I'm addicted, and I've learned a lot from messing with it, but I can understand going with something a bit more, well, Linux.


[1] What the rest of the world calls "partitions" are "slices" within FreeBSD.
Within one slice there can be several partitions (very much like logical partitions).
The biggest practical effect is that you usually put away one primary partition for FreeBSD, and divide that up further when you install, instead of linux' usual number of logical partitions.
 
Samba is, among other things, a server that looks like a windows machine sharing files, and tools for accessing such shares.
(The protocol is SMB, thus SaMBa.)

It has been an art, possibly a dark one, to make it work, but last time I tried I didn't actually have any problems. (The machine I'm using right now serves files to four other windows machines via samba.)
 
I think I'm going to go after Gentoo right now.... what exactly do I download????? x86?
 
You'll want to read the handbook. I expect them to answer that question somewhere in there.

(This is the long version of "I don't know, since I've never tried", btw.)
 
I think the distro to learn the most from is Linux From Scratch, which is basically a build your own Linux type of thing (you need the tools from another Linux distro to do this).

It's probably the most advanced install, and it has a pretty hefty installation manual. I don't recommend it to beginners though, it's a little heavy.

I'd say Gentoo would be your best bet.

Get the x86 version. I'm looking at the page on LinuxISO, and out of all the things listed, the i386/x86 version is the one you want. The minimal installer, if I remember correctly, has the sources for a level 1 install.

I don't remember though, it's been a while since I installed Gentoo last.
 
Besides, how much do you really gain by going from level 1 instead of, say, level 2?
I remember looking at it once, and starting at level 2 or 3 seems like it should save him a lot of time and hassles, at the cost of some parts not being fully optimized. (Something that should be easily correctable later on anyway.)
 
Stage 1 is the bootstrapping the system. I really can't offer an objective comparison between a stage 1 or stage 2/3 install because I always did stage 1.

If you just want to learn, just do a stage 3 - you edit config files, configure and build the kernel and install modules, and set up a boot loader. You really don't need to learn much about bootstrapping.
 
^^^
No, you don't want to download those. Those are sources for each stage. You can't do anything with them like this.

Get the .ISO of the LiveCD from here:
http://linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=45

Burn the .ISO to make a boot disk, boot from it and then start following the instructions in the Gentoo manual.
 
Gentoo Linux - Gentoo x86 Minimal Installer
or
Gentoo Linux - Gentoo x86 Universal Installer?

I'm asuming the universal one :p
 
The Minimal Installer is a no-frills bootable cd that gets you into a Gentoo console environment, and you have to download whichever stage you want to start from. Though usually, the cd will probalby have a stage 1 tarball.

The Universal installer includes a stage 1 and stage 3 tarballs for different cpus (athlon, pentium, i686 general, i386 general, etc.).

If you're gonna be doing a stage 3, just get the Universal.

Though in the end, it doesn't really matter unless the computer will not be connected to the net during the install.
 
i don't know if it will help, but i went to b&n and got a book called "Linux for Non-Geeks" and its really helping me learn the ropes. if comes with fedora core 1 too. i really like it.
 
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