[colug-432] Introduction and distro preference question

[Rick Troth]

On 01/31/2014 11:30 AM, Dan Kaiser wrote:
> I'm fairly new to Linux (I've dabbled for the past four years or so)
> and newer still to the group (joined in late December.)  I was looking
> forward to the attending the meeting this week, but I've been fighting
> a nasty cold so I thought it better to sit this one out and not sneeze
> on anyone.  If anyone has notes from the scripting talk I'd love to
> see what was covered.

Welcome! (And thanks for *not* sharing certain things.) Hope to see you
at the next meeting.

> I have a question for the group.  I've recently purchased a new-to-me
> ThinkPad X220 with the intention of making it my primary machine
> running Linux full time.  I used to triple boot my MacBook Pro, but I
> found myself in OS X most of the time, and while I tried
> virtualization, I couldn't really make myself "work" inside a virtual
> machine.  Now that my wife's laptop died and she started using the MBP
> more and more, I saw it as an opportunity to finally make the jump.

V12N* takes a while to get used to, and is not a silver bullet magically
resolving all multi-environment needs.

> I'm most familiar with the Debian family of distros (Debian itself,
> all flavors of Ubuntu, Mint, CrunchBang, etc.) and I know APT fairly
> well.  Usually I've been trying to find the best disro to get ancient,
> second-hand hardware to run effectively, so I've also tried out
> TinyCore, DSL, Puppy, Bohdi, and Antix as well.  Now I have a newer
> machine capable of running just about anything well, and I'd like to
> pick something that will use the hardware to its full potential.

What Jon said. Keep it simple.

I love to go the surplus route, but if you presently have the luxury of
(relatively) newer hardware then use it to explore current tools and
systems that look interesting and suite your needs. Hang onto that older
hardware. If time allows, then you'll want to use it again. (More
reasons than we want to get into just now.)

> I've been hesitant to stray from APT package management, as that is
> all I've ever really used, but I read many good things about Arch (and
> others based on it.) I've read also that if you're at all interested
> in a Linux profession (something I'm open to down the line) you really
> should only be using RHEL/CentOS or Fedora.

V12N may help here, especially if your primary desktop is not virtual.
You can try out these other distributions in virtual.

> So my question is what distro do you recommend for someone in my
> situation?  I'm not trying to start a flame war, and I understand
> there is no "best" distro, only the one that works best for each
> individual or in each situation.  I'm just looking for opinions from
> folks much more experienced than me about what you use (or have used)
> and the pros/cons of that choice.

I second what Jon said about sticking with what you know in the near
term. You're changing hardware. Don't change the software too without
good reason. Change one thing at a time if possible.

Coming back to V12N as a sandbox for trying new stuff, and not knowing
how well Debian supports it, I will say this: I'm pleased with KVM on
OpenSUSE. I have also used Xen with success but subjectively prefer KVM
at the moment.

Before you install, run two or three "live" CDs of distros you're
interested in.

*V12N is shorthand for "virtualization", V-12letters-N. Easier to type
for lazy people like moi.

-- R; <><