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Red Hat?

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Unforgiven1:
Would you recommend Redhat Linux for a noob to Linux? (but by no means a computer n00b) After being an MS customer since 1985, I've seen the light and decided to make the switch.  I attempted to install debian GNU/Linux last night..but something was wrong server side and it messed up..so now I'm looking at redhat.
but I don't even know if it's command line or GUI. (answer that if you would) I don't know if this is the right move.  I've been using XP since it came out, and despise it, but in so far I've been afraid to switch!  I was a shareholder in MS at one point, but recent events have made me look at the company in disgust.  I've sold my stock (for 1 helluva profit mind you) and deleted everything microsoft from my computer except the OS.  now I want to make the switch. Is redhat right for me? (I do a little C++ and COBOL programming, and alot of Javascripting)or should I look at something else...if something else, what?

Meshuggener:
Yes, Red Hat would be fine for you.  You don't really have to dive into the command line stuff unless you want to - most of the time you won't need to.  Red Hat and a few other distros you might want to check out are Suse Linux and Mandrake Linux.  All three are good for Linux newbies because the installation process is a breeze and it sets up a lot of things for you.  Pretty much everything is GUI, so don't be nervous - you've got nothing to lose, so give it a shot.

slvadcjelli42:
I've been using Redhat for a few weeks now, and I really like it so far, so I would personally recommend it... the only really troublesome problem I've had (and you should probably watch out for) is hardware compatibility. Redhat keeps a nice list, though, on their site ( http://hardware.redhat.com/hcl/ ). If you get a computer with Linux preinstalled, still don't assume that everything will be 100% compatible (I know it sounds silly, but I learned that the hard way    :rolleyes:   ) Generally if you have real hardware (i.e., not just a ton of "onboard" stuff) things work out ok. That's been my experience, at least. As for the general GUI, it can be VERY impressive, in my opinion (or it can look like crap, it's all in how you configure it    ;)   ) Oh, and from what I understand there are a TON of developer, programmer, internet, etc. tools for Linux, although I've barely begun to get into all that.

[ August 04, 2003: Message edited by: Dirk Gently ]

3eyes:
RH is a great distro - for Pentiums. I installed it on my AMD Athlon and it seemed to go fine, but then I started getting a lot of "failure to load module" errors while using it.

Also. RH doesn't have mp3 support. If you want mp3s you will need to download and install xmms or similar software.

The good news is that RH is one of the best distros for Pentiums and it's very easy to install (if you can't install RH you can't install Windows either; actually it's much easier than Win98). And most of the software out there in rpm format - and there's a lot - works on RH.

Suse Linux is also pretty newbie-friendly and most rpms seem to work on it too. However, Mandrake is probably one of the most newbie-friendly distros out there that isn't a Windows-clone.

slvadcjelli42:
I wouldn't sweat the mp3 thing... took me about 2 minutes to fix that once I realized what the problem was, and I was still a newbie then (heck, still am now    )

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