The bewildering choice and ever increasing number of Linux distribution can be confusing for those of you who are new to Linux. This is why this page at DistroWatch was created. It lists 10 distributions, which are generally considered as most widely used by Linux fans around the world.
A Beginner’s Guide to Choosing a Linux Distribution
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
This choice is pretty easy for a real beginner IMO:
Get both RedHat and Mandrake:
RedHat to see that Linux CAN look like a real professional OS and Mandrake to actually have a small chance that things like web surfing work out-of-the-box.
Of course these are the choices for people who have a life outside of Linux and want to keep it. So don’t throw Gentoo at me.
Which one from RH or Mandrake would be the best for the medium-hacker/developer (coding KDE apps and generally modifying the system to suit), general productivity, muiltimedia and tweaker (downloading 3rd party packages etc) user? I just described myself, I’m still pondering moving from RH9 to Mandrake… but I hear it isn’t that great to develop on.
If you are a developer, I would suggest Red Hat not for other reason but because, we like it or not, Red Hat is the “standard” today, at least in USA, as it is very important for developers to distribute binaries that were built on most supported platform. AFAIK, Red Hat has about 40% of the overall Linux market and second is Mandrake with about 20-22%. At around 10-12% each you will find both SuSE and Debian. The rest of the bunch (Xandros, Lindows, Lycoris, Slackware and Gentoo) are fluctuating between 2% and 4%, each.
Eugenia is right about Red Hat for developers. Most of the workstation and server vendors certify on Red Hat, so this is an important platform to know about. There seems to be some controversy about Red Hat’s choice to make KDE a second class citizen, though. Until the KDE controvery is sorted out, I would stay away from Red Hat for KDE-centric development.
Beyond Red Hat, SuSE is also widely supported by server and workstation vendors. I believe SuSE has the first shipping version of AMD64 support and is widely supported worldwide by IBM and HP. SuSE doesn’t have any issues with KDE.
For personal development, using a distro that you can finely control the files on is sometimes useful. And Gentoo seems to be the leading candidate here.
that’s quite good page for newbies. I should bookmark it and give link to everyone who will be intrested in linux.
I’m not sure how the statistics work, but I “use” Red Hat in that I’ve downloaded 3 different versions of it (one of those versions I downloaded three times). Also, Red Hat’s really popular, I would think, with people who aren’t too interested in KDE apps, for a whole lot of reasons.
Really, the distro you develop on should be comfortable for the developer. Porting between distros isn’t near as painful as developing on a quirky development platform.
I used Mandrake for a while for some very lite Qt development. It wasn’t too painful. *shrug*
I went for Gentoo. That way I was sure to learn things. I liked Gentoo a lot, although I had a very hard time choosing a window manager.
Hey,
I’m a full-time windows user, but I’m writing this from a knoppix bootable cd. It detected everything and works great. “Linux, your next operating system.”
I’m going to copy this cd for all my friends.
t
I am not sure that I agree with Eugenia’s figures, wherever they come from. I’d definitely not put Slackware and Lycoris in the same market share category – there is no doubt in my mind that Slackware is much more widely used than what it looks like from its appearance in the news headlines. The same goes for Debian and SuSE – Debian does have a considerably higher market share than SuSE. Reasons? Mainly because SuSE does not provide ISO images, but also because SuSE only markets its products in Europe and N America, ignoring the rest of the world. Not many people have heard of SuSE in Asia, while Debian is well-known name among Linux users and developers.
My figures would be something like this:
Servers:
Red Hat – 85%
Debian – 9%
Slackware – 5%
the rest – 1%
Desktops:
Mandrake, Red Hat – 20 – 25% each,
Gentoo, Debian – around 15% each,
SuSE – around 10%,
Slackware – 5%
the rest – 1 – 3% each
Of course, I might be completely wrong…
Isn’t that odd?
Wine does a lot more than just Microsoft products.
Not a bad page. Red Hat comes across as being too stuffy even though it isn’t – I would definately recommend Red Hat to newbies. It feels very professional to me.
After a long time using Linux and Windows 98 I switched Windows XP exclusively. It’s just much more user friendly than Linux on Desktop.
Currently Linux apps are good but system configuration is unacceptable. As a programmer I know why this is so. It’s because Linux is using text files for configuration, which are ment for humans, while Windows uses a central database (registry) which can be easily used by humans and programs.
Until Linux switches to a central database to system configuration it will remain hard to configure.
Knoppix was a positive surprise. While it’s config tools sucked. I managed to instantly connect to internet with my ADSL connection.
X configuration was bad (it couldn’t even read the config file, only write it). I had to manually edit the config file to remove scaled fonts (fonts were very ugly), and all modelines, so that it used a mode known by my monitor.
I had also to dig through the very bad KDE control center to make KDE useful. They should finally make sensible defaults and remove all the crap. Konqueror isn’t as good as Explorer. It has too many menu entries and options.
There was no internet connection monitor. No way to use a GUI to manage my ADSL connection. KPPP only works for modems.
Knoppix is not ready for Desktop. It’s only something for advanced users. But it’s much better than Mandrake 8.0 (my last Linux distro) whose config tools didn’t even work.
This small “management summary” of the distros is very well done. I am not sure if someone without Linux knowledge will know what they are writing about, but this is probably another story.
@ Another Anonymous
“Until Linux switches to a central database to system configuration it will remain hard to configure. ”
A “registry” is not the be all or end all of configuration methods. I’ll gladly agree on Linux’s conf system being FUBAR, but the Windows registry is nothing but a severe pain in the arse. If you got something other in mind I’m game.
You knew, something like this would be coming, wouldn’t you?
Anyway, now that i started a rebuttal i might as well go through with it *sigh*.
About the text file configuration: would you say that the human user should adapt to the machine? I wouldn’t and while i know there is much to be desired in GNU/Linux adaption to the human user, text files are way ahead of a registry. They can be found in /etc, that’s central enough for me. And even better, they can be overruled by personal configurations in ~ with the same syntax. Registry and “Personal Settings” can’t do that, i believe.
I don’t know what you want to configure in Knoppix, it’s a live GNU/Linux CD. Running from it and set up in usable but not very customizable way. Knoppix is not meant to be the basis for an installation and it is not meant to be tweaked to death. Mr. Knopper himself advises against a HD install.
About the KDE 3 specific thingies:
KDE is just one of the many desktop environments and window manager around. Take a look around and you will find many nice solutions. Since you don’t like Konqueror (which i can second) and find the KDE Control Center lacking sensible defaults you might want to try GNOME 2. It has lots and lots of defaults and while i like it less than KDE3 i like Nautilus, the GNOME file manager much more than Konqueror. Since you aren’t so much into GNU/Linux you might want to download Morphix, which is Knoppix with GNOME2 instead of KDE3.
Whatever, about xDSL: xDSL is a connection set up over your network interface card and thus monitored as such. Look for options to monitor your ethx devices, there are plenty. If you insist to monitor your ppp connection, you can do so by pointing Gkrellm to pppx and off you go. I don’t know if this is true for KPPP, sorry. I never understood why people want to monitor such things anyway… heck, it’s a flatrate.
But why all this writing. If you have the money to spare to buy MS Windows XP, more power to you.
Yeah, AFAIK the GConf people are doing something similar for GNOME.
The Windows registry is one of the chief sources of problems for Windows users–why repeat that?
I think the textfile based configuration should remain, but it needs to be better organized than just /etc. Also, a GUI frontend for it all would be nice (NOT like RegEdit)
And Another Anonymous: Please don’t tell me you used RegEdit to configure your desktop and your PPPoE settings.
There are plenty of monitors, as well as PPPoE tools for Linux. Try (I believe) http://www.roaring-penguin.org, or something like that.
For Knoppix, X configuration is done at the boot prompt. Press F2 to get a list of options.
>A “registry” is not the be all or end all of configuration >methods. I’ll gladly agree on Linux’s conf system being >FUBAR, but the Windows registry is nothing but a severe >pain in the arse. If you got something other in mind I’m >game.
I don’t know what problems the Windows registry has. Whatever they are, they aren’t fundamental for databases. They are problems of one implementation.
I’m for a central configuration database. A database which can be used by programs is much better than text based files for reasons obvious to any programmer. It can also be as reliable as a file system.
I will not answer “rebuttals” of my experience. It was just my experience with Linux (Knoppix is based on Debian). You are criticizing an experienced Linux user. Linux on desktop isn’t usable for the majority of users.
I would like to keep text-based editing, and integrated documentation in the form of comments.
What should change is, that the format should be similar accros the different configuration files. It should be easily parseable for several programs (wether they are written in python or C++) Xml seems perfect for this, all languages have some xml parser available.
The configuration files should preferably be seperated/created based on content. Have a basic mail server configuration file, that’s used by postfix/sendmail/qmail/exim/.. Any extra features in some other specific file.
The hierachy in /etc should improve. Any listing of a directory in /etc should contain maximum 20 entries. Preferably with descriptive names. /etc/hardware /etc/network /etc/network/mail /etc/system /etc/startup ..
Libranet is pure debian with an easier installer and the Libranet Admin Menu is the best. Makes setting up printers, installing fonts, etc, painless.
most definitely in my opinion it is better than say Lindows or Lycoris. Also it is very stable and I have only used the free download version 2.0. Couldnt imagine how nice the new 2.8 version is.
I like to develop on source based distros, because they usualy have the latest and greates (the stuff your next redhat/mandrake has), plus many version of the same package (to test again). I test redhat/mandrake/debian in UML (user mode linux), chrooted distro, or vmware (depends what machine i’m working at). Then I make adjustments for these distros (if anything is wrong) but I am still ahead of the curve (and I know what will happen in future redhat versions before it happens). This is just my opion and how I work, so feel free to throw it out or use it.
P.S: I’m not suggesting a paticula source based distro here, because everyone likes something diffrent, and I don’t want to start a source based holy war.
As I mentioned in the introduction, the guide does not list the 10 “best” distribution, but rather 10 best-known and most widely-used distributions.
Let’s be honest about it – even if Libranet is better than Lindows or Lycoris (which is something that some people will disagree with), it is unlikely to gain any decent market share. Why? Because it’s not available as a free download and it does not have a Lindows-like marketing machinery behind it to spread the word. Also, it sells for $70, which is a bit too steep.
Sorry to disappoint you, but a 10-item list can only include 10 items. Those readers who prefer one of the remaining 200 distributions will have to learn to live with it.
If you are a developer in a large company, and you have any interaction with IBM… you’re going to want to use SuSE.
It seems to be what IBM is standardizing on in terms of Linux.
I still cant believe how easy e-smith was to set up.
For me it is the shining example of how an install should go.
If it fits your needs, then after a 10 minute install it is up and running, very few questions require answering.
If you need it to do something different it gets a bit more complex, as all the /etc files are held in perl scripts so that the web admin can regenerate them.
Also, if you change your config, you just run the setup ( from the convenient console menu ), and it lets you change any of the base settings. I reconfigured my server from an adsl gateway to a modem gateway in a minute, at the same time changing all the ethernet hardware.
I liked the page enough to suggest it to some friends. It’s a good smattering of what’s out there. They could have included Vector too…
I evangelize Linux as I’m learning it and slowly understanding the possibilities. However, in it’s current form it is lacking especially for n00bs. Not every Linux user is a guru, nor wants to be one. I have faith in the Devs tho…I believe Linux will become THE way to interact with machines in the future. I have yet to try *BSD or anything else yet, so my opinion may change. However, Gentoo Linux is the finest software I’ve ever put on a computer.
btw, happy (belated) b-day Eugenia!
I don’t think that if you’re a developer you should get Red Hat, as Eugina said. If your product is open source, you can provide the source in a tarball and find someone else clueful to make Red Hat RPMs and binary packages for other distros if neccesary.
Another problem is if you’re running the latest version of Red Hat any older versions won’t be able to run the binaries (i.e. RPMs) you make if they were made with C++. So downloading the latest Red Hat simply to make RPMs is a bad idea if you’re using C++; simply because most of your users, especially servers, are still using a RH7 codebase.
I only have two problems with text-based configurations:
1. Some of the files (esp. in the etc directory) are very poorly named. Take rc.conf for example – now, I don’t give a damn what planet you’re from .. you’re not going to know what the hell this file does the first time you see the name.
2. When it comes to having 10-12 different options to choose from for a particular setting, I’d rather choose it froma combobox than type it in manually. Why? Because typing leaves too much room for error. For example, when setting up Gentoo for the first time, I screwed up entering a setting in the grub.conf file and didn’t find out about it until I rebooted and was greeted with a kernel panic.
Of course, I have no problems with config files like the sendmail ‘aliases’ file, where you can run a command to check the syntax when you’re done.
Another Anonymous said: “I will not answer “rebuttals” of my experience. It was just my experience with Linux (Knoppix is based on Debian). You are criticizing an experienced Linux user. Linux on desktop isn’t usable for the majority of users.”
Indeed, no one can present a rebuttal of your experience. That is yours and you can’t change how you’ve felt using those particular flavors of Linux. However, one can present a rebuttal for your statement of opinions, such as “Linux on the desktop isn’t usable for the majority of users.” First, you state yourself that you’re an experienced Linux user: how would you know then if it is usable or not by “a majority of users”, since you yourself have gone beyond this point? Have you conducted surveys? Did you do usability tests? It obviously was usable for you, since you used it…
Also, distros such as Mandrake have made significant progress over the past two years (since you talk of Mandrake 8.0). There are numerous tools that set up programs without the user having to go through the actual text files: Linuxconf, KDE Control Center, Mandrake Control Center, Webmin, etc. There’s even a registry-like utility for Gnome.
Personally, as a long-time Windows user, I loathe the registry. On the other hand, I think having text files and tools to edit them through the GUI is having the best of both worlds. And, for having tested it with my non-technical friends (including my girlfriend), I can tell you that a well-configured Linux system if very usable for users. KDE 3.x is remarkably intuitive (though it’s true it may have too many features for someone coming from the Windows world, which might be confusing at first…)
Somehow, I have a hard time believing that you’re really an “experienced Linux user”…I’ll take your word for it, but be sure that while no one challenge your personal experience, one can certainly challenge the conclusions you derive from it.
Configuration files have an advantage : you can create or modify them from a given platform and then transfer them over the network to the OS you are trying to tweak or repair. This is possible because they are only text files.
Can anyone say the same about a database like the Windows registry ? Not to mention the fact that once it’s deleted accidentally or on purpose, the user is in trouble (reinstallation, anyone ?).
About the meaning of names such as rc.d, it’s sufficient to say that reading man pages or a book will provide all necessary explanations. After all, how many Windows users were born with the ability to use that OS ?
I read the article and must admit it’s a good starting point.
Before anybody spouts off any more uninformed crap about GConf being like the Windows registry, GConf is backend independant. It’s perfectly possible to create a backend for GConf to grab settings from LDAP, a Berkley DB, a MySQL database, or whatever else you like. However, the default (and currently, only) backend for GConf uses XML files. Last time I checked, XML files are, in fact, text files.
>Configuration files have an advantage : you can create or >modify them from a given platform and then transfer them >over the network to the OS you are trying to tweak or >repair. This is possible because they are only text files.
>Can anyone say the same about a database like the Windows >registry ?
It’s possible with the registry. You can export settings to a text file in ini format and import them.
>Not to mention the fact that once it’s deleted >accidentally or on purpose, the user is in trouble >(reinstallation, anyone ?).
What happens if you delete /etc ? Anyway it depends on applications.
GConf is a step in the right direction. It’s a configuration API. Now it should be used for all Linux programs, not just GNOME’s. A configuration API is actually what is needed. The backend isn’t that important, although a database is faster than text files.
So what about a project to convert all basic Linux programs (initscripts, PPP, initd, etc.) to use GConf?