Best version and vendor of Linux

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I am a IT professional in training with an interest in network administration, and I'm a complete Linux newb; before I take a required Linux class, I want a version of Linux that's common for what I'm going into and familiarize myself with it a bit, obviously a reputable vendor is preferred. Would any of those be home-user friendly? Thanks!

Arch linux seems to be a popular version of Linux. It's suitable for any environment as you can customize it to suit your needs.

Ubuntu and all the various spins on that,(inckluding the highly popular LinuxMint Distro) are very popular end user distros, however if you're going to be encountering it in the IT field, you will most likely find these distros prevalent:

1. Debian(Stable branch, currently 'Wheezy')
2. Slackware
3. Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4. CentOS, (which is essentially RHEL without the hefty support pricetag)
5. Oracle Linux (Oracle's spin on the RHEL, again without the pricetag)

Another thing that you should be considering with Linux as well, is the Desktop environment, of which there are many. Most server boxes will use either an extremely lightwieght DE,Window Manager, or simply run headless, in which case you will need to familiarise yourself with UNIX/Linux Command Line, or know how to access headless machines remotely via a machine with a DE or WM installed.

Arch Linux and Ubuntu will be bad choices as Arch Linux is a 'bleeding edge' distro which has current released software packages, and as such these new software packages are untested. This figures somewhat also with Ubuntu, though Ubuntu is mostly geared for end users

The distributions of linux that are tuned for home use are going to be very different from what you're going to see in a business environment, which is going to be very different from what you'd want to run to learn about how linux works.

Business:
RHEL/CentOS (mostly US)
OpenSUSE (mostly EU)

Home:
Arch
Ubuntu

Learning:
Gentoo
LFS

For learning purposes, Slackware beats all distros. Here, you won't find many lose parts, which means that the system is easy to experiment with.

I believe that with the last you are referring to SUSE Linux, not Open SUSE. OpenSUSE is actually the developmental line of SUSE much like Fedora is the developmental line of RHEL.

Also to the OP while others have suggested Gentoo as well as Arch, LFS,(IE, Linux From Scratch) and Slackware. Save for Arch Linux, most of these are not particularly friendly to the new user.

Possibly the three that will be the easiest to use will be Debian Wheezy, RHEL/CentOS, and SUSE. --Bear in mind though, that SUSE will cost you money, though Debian, and the two RHEL clones, CentOS, and Oracle Linux are free for the download.

All of the companies that I've seen that use SUSE don't pay for the license and run OpenSUSE. Much the same way that the majority of the companies that I've seen deploy RHEL-based systems are either deploying CentOS, or they're trying to migrate from RHEL to CentOS to avoid paying for licenses.



Absolutely not friendly at all to the new user - or to any user. These distributions are basically built around being as unfriendly as possible, so that you learn what's going on under the hood. Immensely useful, as long as your goal is learning.

Exactly. If you expect to be working with them in the business world, Red Hat and SuSE would be your best bets.

I second this -- as a complete newbie, my first Linux install was Linux Mint XFCE (I'd try out the MATE edition nowadays; the LXDE variant no longer seems to be in current development), but I only stayed with it long enough to build and learn my way around Linux From Scratch. If time isn't an issue, and you really want to learn how your operating system works on a per-package basis, nothing beats compiling, building, and configuring it yourself.

My other sources have told me Red Hat is the de-facto version of Linux; but you make it sound like cost-friendly versions are on the rise, almost to say there's a smaller but more lucrative niche in CentOS; is taking up CentOS over RHEL as a first beneficial in that way?

A question for everyone: I already run Windows on a nice 120GB SSD and 16GB memory. Without going with bare-bone resources for the linux and being a little flexible with functionality, what would be a good sized SSD to boot Linux off of?

Thanks for all the feedback!

Ever since Red Hat started charging money for RHEL in 2004 there have been clones of RHEL. Some of them are defunct, and some of them are doing well in their own right. Scientific Linux for Example started out as a clone of RHEL, and has since evolved into a distro based on RHEL with a lot of Scientific software.

CentOS became pretty much the de facto RHEL clone, but Red Hat now controls the distro. Read about that here.

Also, this is what Distrowatch had to say about this a month or so ago:



The link that was in the above article is the one that I linked to above it.

As for booting Linux, you can dual boot off of your existing SSD. I would reserve about 40 GB of it for your Linux partitions and leave you with the warning that you might f*** up your Windows Bootloader in the process. --If you happen to be running Win8, you will have to take the additional step of going into your BIOS/Firmware's Boot options and disable Secure Boot to boot into Linux, and re-enable it to reboot into Win8.

Conversely, you can get another SSD of the same size or larger than the one you currently have, or use a regular spindle HDD in a USB case to do your Liux install on. --Just beare in mind the above info about Secure Boot, and also set your machine's boot order to list the USB drive as the first drive to boot from if you do so. --You will take a hit in throughput performace by running from the USB drive, but it will still function as a regular drive.

openSUSE (and probably Fedora too, but I haven't used it) are fine distros for home use, not just development versions. My impression is that openSUSE follows a "make everything configurable through GUI" approach - as opposed to the "try to make a good default configuration, if that is not good for you, you are on your own" approach of some other "user-friendly" distros.

But I wouldn't rely on a "best distro" thread, rather read about all the major distros. One thing to consider is that it is a good idea to choose a major distro (or a distro that can use the package repositories of a major distro), otherwise it will be difficult to install less common applications.

Generally speaking he wants to know what the working with Linux in IT is going to be like, so RHEL and clones of RHEL are going to be encountered most in that environment, followed by Debian Stable, and Slackware, all of which have enterprise grade stability.

RHEL and CentOS are binary compatible, such that you can "migrate" from one to the other without even rebooting the system. If you know one, you can work seamlessly in the other without even realizing that there is something different.

I don't think Arch Linux would be suitable for a Linux newbie. It comes as a bare bones package and it's up to the user to install and configure everything which is fine for the seasoned hobbyist but impossible for someone who has no understanding of how Linux operates.

Mint and Ubuntu are the definitive home user distros. Mint is more user friendly, but Ubuntu has the benefit of corporate backing which in turn makes it more compatible with proprietary services like Steam and virtually any Linux compatible PC product will be designed for Ubuntu 12.10 LTS. My advice would be to start with Mint and then branch out to Ubuntu if you need it.

The best way to think of Linux is as a task-specific tool kit. If you have a specific job that you want done, there will be a version of Linux out there to do that job. If that job is contemporary home use, Mint or Ubuntu. If the job is to keep an old PC/laptop running, Puppy Linux or one of the many low-spec distros out there. If the job is creating a server, something like Arch Linux would be more suitable.

I'm gonna come out for CrunchBang, but mostly because it's the only one that simultaneously doesn't handhold me like Ubuntu, but also doesn't try to kill me like BSD.