looking to load linux on a box
not sure which variant
for the beginner to medium level of knowledge

ref:
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/ ... ros-704584

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"If you're good at anticipating the human mind. It leaves nothing to chance."
-Jigsaw

I use Debian. But started w/ Ubuntu since the user community is so huge someone was likely to have run into, fixed, and posted about any/most problem I might encounter.

ubuntu 12

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Ubuntu just works for the most part if your looking for something easy to figure things out with. I generally use Fedora.

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"I will prepare and some day my chance will come." - Abraham Lincoln
http://danielhertzberg.wordpress.com - I blog about networks!

go gentoo and learn how to build the system from scratch. compliling everything for your system

If its a laptop that you just want to play around with then Ubuntu but if your really digging in or setting it up as a server then CentOS headless. GUIs are cheating!!

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Ubuntu/Debian or Fedora/CentOS?

do you prefer typing apt-search/apt-get or yum search/yum install?
Only difference I notice. Oh, and you can "apt-get yum", or "yum install apt".

Ubuntu 12.04 just dropped yesterday and is supposed to be the bees knees as the kids like to say. Plus that seems where alot of development is going on. That's where the community is. fedora is good if you have red hat based machines at work and want to learn to use them better.

just my 2 cents

Man you options list is off.. I always stick with the Ubuntu LTS versions...

Challenge yourself with the linux OS. Go headless with the install..

Ubuntu 11.10 + Gnome Shell checking in... that unity desktop is rubbish.

Ubuntu is amazing for getting into Linux, makes for a very easy transition. If you really want to learn Linux, install Gentoo.

Crunchbang.

http://crunchbanglinux.org/

I just dove straight into centos personally. If its worked based, do centos as its a nice server os to use. I would go this route if its for work and servers. Download a minimal install and do everything from the CLI.

For laptop/home computer linux fun, just use the latest ubuntu.

Ubuntu if you want to hit the ground running, pick CentOS or gentoo if you want to spend some time building & compiling and learning about linux in depth.

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Freebsd. IMHO it is more easily fixable when it breaks.
As an unexpected example, for the first time in many years of usage, today a binary (groff) which helps the "man" command
(as in "man -a sort")
broke; endless errors scrolling by instead of a man page result.
Locating each of the three places in the source code tree that the "groff" may be rebuilt from, an
unexpectedly-easy
five-second "make install" fixed the operating system command(s), freeing up four hours or so I had
planned (and already begun on another machine) to update to a later version.
(As of now, the other CPU has been updated, from Jan 2012 RELENG_9 to APR 27 2012 RELENG_9 )...
and result stored on a thumbdrive for use if I decide to upgrade this one (still at jan 08 2012 RELENG_9 version... )
Desktop versions are available (pcbsd.org etc...)

I started learning on Fedora, but we use redhat at work so I wanted something similar to learn on at home.

-Otanx

Debian at work so I use the same at home. Screw around with Fedora though.

Arch here.

I use CentOS mainly because it was what I use on my web servers.

Not really sure what you are going to be running this for but if it's for learning to admin mix boxes do yourself a favor and don't even install the GUI.

.

I started with ubuntu. Begin with a clean server install and install what you need.

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- Pete

Ubuntu server now. Used to only use Fedora.

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