Which Linux to Use

[Saptarshi Chakraborty]

Hi all,
I am a java programmer and I am familiar with Windows only. I want to migrate to Linux.I don't have much knowledge about linux and I am a complete beginner .Which Linux you people suggest for me . Does choosing any linux will help me.Suppose I am starting with Ubuntu will it help me to develop application in Fedora Core also.

[Vivek Kr Singh]

Ubuntu .. Simple to use, Excellent Forums

[Pat Farrell]

First, there is nothing wrong with Mr @Singh suggestion.

I have a different rule, or approach:

Do you have a buddy who uses Linux? One you can get together with for a beer and talk tech stuff? If so, use whatever he/she uses. And be reasonable, pay for the beers occasionally.

It is far better to have someone who can help you over the bumps than it is to pick exactly the best distro. All of the mainstream ones are good, and when you are just starting, you don't know which differences are important.

[Gregg Bolinger]

Pat's right. Find someone you can talk to face to face, if possible. 10 responses here will get you 10 different distro suggestions. Once you do make a decision, feel free to ask questions here about said distro. But asking which is the best is a loaded gun. Just search this forum for similar posts and you'll see what we mean.

[Tim Holloway]

From a software development viewpoint, which distro you use doesn't really matter.

From a general support viewpoint, the best thing to do is check out your local community. Where I live, Debian was pretty popular, though now its younger brother Ubuntu is probably more popular. Since they're so much alike, that makes little difference. But we do have some RedHat/Fedora folks (including me), one or 2 SuSe people, and even a foam-at-the-mouth Gentoo fan.

The similarities mostly outweigh their differences, although each distro has its stong points - Ubuntu for user-friendly desktops, Red Hat and SLS for large enterprises, and Gentoo for control freaks. Pick what you feel comfortable with. Thanks to the fact that so many distros have "live demos", you can test-drive them. Or install them in Virtual Machines.

[Luciano R Sousa]

Saptarshi Chakraborty wrote:Hi all,
I am a java programmer and I am familiar with Windows only. I want to migrate to Linux.I don't have much knowledge about linux and I am a complete beginner .Which Linux you people suggest for me . Does choosing any linux will help me.Suppose I am starting with Ubuntu will it help me to develop application in Fedora Core also.

note: use linux. not use kde or gnome...

for communities ubuntu is very good equals opensuse...
i used slackware...

[Joe Ess]

Luciano Sousa wrote:
note: use linux. not use kde or gnome...

Linux is an operating system kernel. KDE and GNOME are desktop environments. They aren't the same thing so why are you recommending one over the other?
KDE and GNOME are probably the most popular desktop environments for Linux Distributions. Why do you say to avoid them?

[Luciano R Sousa]

Joe Ess wrote:

Luciano Sousa wrote:
note: use linux. not use kde or gnome...

Linux is an operating system kernel. KDE and GNOME are desktop environments. They aren't the same thing so why are you recommending one over the other?
KDE and GNOME are probably the most popular desktop environments for Linux Distributions. Why do you say to avoid them?

it can not find access mysql with a simple command shell, or do not know how to use a "kill" or "killall" to stop the process ... it superficially speaking, but what I mean is that cling to the graphical environment, learn the command line too, will be very useful.

[Joe Ess]

Luciano Sousa wrote:
it can not find access mysql with a simple command shell, or do not know how to use a "kill" or "killall" to stop the process

Call me skeptical. Xwindows is just a curtain over the multiuser Linux system. If one can do something at a command line, one should be able to do it via an Xterm.

Luciano Sousa wrote:
but what I mean is that cling to the graphical environment, learn the command line too, will be very useful.

I concur that the command line in *nix systems is vastly more powerful than the command line in Windows. That doesn't make desktop environments less useful.

[Karan Johar]

use whatever you have free access to, to a beginner all seem the same. Basic commands are all the same.

[Andrew Monkhouse]

Luciano R Sousa wrote:it can not find access mysql with a simple command shell, or do not know how to use a "kill" or "killall" to stop the process ... it superficially speaking, but what I mean is that cling to the graphical environment, learn the command line too, will be very useful.

Nope - something wrong there. I'm using Ubuntu at work with Gnome (default?) as my X-Windows System desktop. No problems with using mysql or kill or killall from gnome-terminal. No special configuration on my behalf to make that work.

[Niv Tyagi]

For beginners just go with Centos.
very easy to install and runs out of the box

[Peter Johnson]

For beginners just go with Centos

Not necessarily true. My daughter's friends convinced her to switch from Ubuntu to Centos and she has yet to get the nvidia drivers to work properly (not for lack of trying), so each time she boots into Centos she has to endure the high-speed fan noise on her video card. When she was running Ubuntu the nvidia drivers installed without any problems.

[Greg Stevens]

Niv Tyagi wrote:

For beginners just go with Centos.
very easy to install and runs out of the box

I use Centos and am quite happy with it, but I would not recommend it for a beginner. Its out-of-the-box hardware support is not going
to be nearly as good as, for example, Fedora or Ubuntu. Also, the Centos forums are not geared for beginners.

[pooja jain]

ubantu is popular.

[Pat Farrell]

pooja jain wrote:ubantu is popular.

Which is not always a good metric. After all, Windows has the dominant market share.

[Joe San]

I used Ubuntu and I liked it. I use it for learning Linux and when I installed it I just know that Linux is an Operating System and nothing else.