Linux?

[Rings890]

So I have been looking at Linux but have nerrowed it to either Mandrake, Debin, or Redhat. Heading towards Mandrake. . . ?
what do you think?

[master7]

Depends on what you want to do. My flavor of choice is Red Hat, and I use it as a server.

Mandrake is more for the home user. Debian is for the security minded folk.

[Stef]

I like to use Debian, it's more geared towards system administration or software development. It's also the most stable Linux distro out there, and completely developed by volunteers around the world.

Mandrake is the ease of use distro, which is derived from RedHat.

Mandrake uses RedHat's packaging system to deviler software that's optimized for Pentium class CPU's. Debian uses it's own packaging system which is much more flexable and robust then RedHat's.

In the Linux world, there are three major distros in which many others are derived.

Slackware Linux -> the first Linux distro.
Debian GNU/Linux -> the first Linux distro completely based on GNU software.
RedHat -> the first commercial Linux OS.

Each of these distros use their own packaging systems for the installation of software.

Slackware uses Unix style tarballs (files ending with *.gz), Debian uses dpkg (files ending with *.deb), RedHat uses rpm (files ending with *.rpm).

Unfortunetly, RedHat's packaging system is more or less the industry standard for Linux software packages.

Things are this way since more Linux OSes are derived from RedHat. Few are derived from Debian, but the high profile Linux OSes like Libranet, PinGOO, Lindows, Xandros, BearOps, Progeny, Storm Linux, Olympix Linux, Corel Linux, Linux-YES, are all derived from Debian and are extremely stable in comparison to Mandrake, RedHat, or even SUSE :D

Stef

P.S. -> Debian is also the #1 choice for a hack platform ;)

[Murman]

nice info! Stef