Advice needed on which distribution, method of download.

Red hat and Mandrake are very similar (Mandrake was once based on red
hat..) and I find mandrakes tools and software to be much better (drakfont
is the best program on the planet!) not to mention its easy for new users.

Learning to program on any dist is pretty much teh same.

If you are looking to learn more about linux and want to do it the old
fashioned way, then slackware is a good path to go.

Owl is also a pretty snazzy dist as its security/server based designed for
ISPs. It defaults to have most packages you would want in a server/devel
environment and less of the pretty extra stuff like XFree and what not.

Troy Moniz

On Sun, 4 Nov 2001, Mark Berkwitt wrote:

> I recently installed Mandrake 8.1 from from an .ISO file from disk one.
> Something seemed to go just a bit wrong during the install when some
> packages were listed as uninstalled.
> Inspite of the warning, it installed for my matrox g450 and works better
> than any linux I've used to date.
> However, I'm installing linux for 2 reasons. First, I just want to expand my
> experience with Linux, and second, I want to create an environment for
> learning Java, Python, C, Tcl, shells, etc. I need to get sharp as a
> programmer.
> Which dist would you recommend?
>
> As far as method, I have broadband so downloading is fine.
> I have some cds from LinuxMall. I believe I can install with these and then
> use upgrade features or simply download files and install from them. I
> don't know which to do as some methods have hidden problems to the
> unexperienced.
>
> These are the CDs I have:
> Linux-Mandrake 7.0
> Official Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 Disks 1 & 2
> Red Hat Linux 6.2
> Caldera OpenLinux 2.4
> SuSE Linux 6.4
> and FreeBSD 4.0 to finish the collection.
>
> I tried to install the Debian just for the challenge. I don't remember what
> went wront but it didn't install. I tried Mandrake 7.0 but one of those two
> just left a black screen.
>
> First I need to decide upon a distribution, then a method of installation.
>
> Suggestions welcome.
>
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