too many choices (distros)

[Alan Dayley]

Josh Coffman said:
>
> This isn't the way I hoped the thread would go but oh
> well.

To contribute on the distro point of the thread...

My first distro was SuSE 6.4 in a full retail package that I won as a door
prize at my *first* PLUG meeting.  I still have the package.  The books
are great.

However, as we discussed using Linux at work, I quickly realized that
non-engineers, or rather, non-Linux-aware people needed to hear a name
they knew: Red Hat.  So after just a few weeks of toying with SuSE, I
switched to Red Hat 6.2.  I have primarily used Red Hat and then Fedora
ever since.

I use Fedora for my primary desktop along with my wife and kids too.  I
also have used Fedora for servers but I may give CentOS a try next time I
need to setup one.

A very easy server to setup is Fedora based Clark Connect.  It has a nice
web-based admin interface and good email, filesharing, web serving etc.
tools all ready to go.

For firewalls, if we are moving beyond desktop and server here, I have
used Smoothwall but now much prefer IPCop.

Back when I first started I chose KDE as a desktop environment because
that was the SuSE default.  Despite the sometimes half-hearted support
from Red Hat, I have stayed with KDE.  I have no big complaints about
GNOME, I simply have not seen the need to switch from what I started with.

OpenOffice.org is the "productivity suite" of choice because I, and others
I talk to, can use it on Windows too.  And it can handle the Microsoft
files we get from others.

Firefox and Thunderbird for browsing and email because they are good and
work on multiple platforms.  My wife prefers KMail that I used to use
until I wanted my home email to look like my work email.

> ...My Short lists...
>
> Beginner desktop:
> 1 SimplyMepis
> 2 Ubuntu (based on popularity and articles)
>
> Intermediate Desktop:
> 1 SimplyMepis (simple and installs in 15-20 minutes)
> 2 Fedora Core
> 3 Mandriva
>
> Techie's Toy desktop(beyond my skill):
> 1 Gentoo
> 2 Slackware
> 3 Source-Based distros
>
> Corporate desktop
> 1 Suse
> 2 Mandriva or Mepis Corp Edition
> 3 Fedora Core/RH
>
> Personal server:
> 1 Fedora Core (its what I know best)
> 2 Debian
>
> Corp/Commercial server:
> 1 Red Hat (commercial support, know lots of places use
> it)
> 2 Debian

Nice list!

Alan