[Cialug] Which Distro is best?

[kristau]

On 7/6/08, Nick Johnson <mainbass64 at gmail.com> wrote:
> hey im a new user for the linux system, and i am wondering which distro
> would be best for someone that is new to linux. I am looking to start using
> linux to better my programming knowledge, and coding. Just email me back
> with your reply, thanks.
>
> ~ Neek
>

Without perusing the other 79 responses so far (wow!), I'll offer the
following (possibly redundant) advice:

* Jump right in.  Roll some dice (would 12 D20's be enough?) to choose
a distro, if one doesn't jump out at you.
* Use DistroWatch (www.distrowatch.com) to populate your list of
distros with which to experiment.
* Compile a kernel a few times.  Nowadays you don't need to do this
very often, but it is a good skill with which to become familiar.
* Distros which should be on your "short list":
** Ubuntu -- it is fast becoming the ubiquitous "Linux Desktop" distro.
** Gentoo -- super geeky, custom-compiled for your hardware distro.
** Slackware -- one of the oldest.
** Debian -- also one of the oldest.
** Red Hat/Fedora Core/CentOS -- commonly used in enterprises.
** SuSE/OpenSuSE -- another enterprise-focused distro.

Most of all, have fun and use this list as a resource for help.  We
thoroughly enjoy providing advice (even if it comes from different
corners) when asked.

-- 
Tired programmer
Coding late into the night
The core dump follows

My GNUPG public key is available at http://www.kristau.net/public_key.asc