Re: A Newbie Nix Question

From: Ian Northeast (ian_at_house-from-hell.demon.co.uk)
Date: 09/04/03 

Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2003 22:53:02 +0100

Trish wrote:
>
> Hi guys!
>
> I want to install Linux and I want to know what flavor of nix I should use.
> I've been reading up on this and as far as I can tell, 'Slackware Linux' is
> the best.
>
> Question: From what I've read most network admin's use slackware, but
> 'Red-Hat' seems to be the most popular, Why is that?

I'm not sure about the *most*. Some certainly will.
 
> If RedHat is the most popular I would assume that it's the best, but the
> pro's seem to use slackware.

A big difference between Red Hat and Slackware is ease of use. Red Hat
is designed to be friendly, easy to install, helpful, have all the
goodies you expect out of the box etc. Slackware is not. Of course all
those features have a cost and Red Hat is much fatter than Slackware.
But ease of use counts for a lot and this is a major reason for Red
Hat's popularity. People with a lot of experience don't care that much
for ease, and so are more prone to use the likes of Slackware. Debian is
another in a similar vein, popular with similar people. I prefer it
myself.

Slackware will run happily on old low spec machines which Red Hat won't
even install on. As such it can be useful, for instance, to bung it on
an old laptop and tout it around as a network diagnostic tool, possibly
this is where you got the idea that most network admins use it. I have
an old laptop running Slackware which is a mobile serial terminal for
plugging into headless servers. This thing is a P90 with 40MB and 800MB
hard drive, and is an unpleasant ancient IBM one with dubious hardware
and BIOS. Most Linux flavours will not install on it.

Slackware is not really recommended for a beginner. It does take some
skill to get it all working. You have to do a lot yourself.
 
> Another question: What about this OpenBSD? Is it the most secure? If so
> where do you download the ISO? I found a place to download slackware & red
> hat.

It's one of the free offshoots of the original BSD, one of the ancestral
UNIX variants as developed by the University of California. It is also
extremely light in its basic form. It does have an emphasis on security,
as its founder is a security admin by trade. That doesn't necessarily
make it the most secure. See www.openbsd.org. I don't think you can
download an ISO, you can install it over FTP or download the necessary
images onto an FTP server of your own. Again, it isn't really aimed at
the beginner although it does have very good documentation so it isn't
that hard. But some experience is recommended before trying it.

> Is OpenBSD better than Linux?

No, it's different. Personally I use OpenBSD for my firewall, which runs
on another ancient laptop, as it performs fine on minimal hardware and
does the job very well with no unnecessary cruft, but Linux on my
workstation which is a much newer more powerful machine where I need to
run a wide variety of software.
 
> What do you guys think is the best? Red-Hat, Slackware or OpenBSD?

None are best, they do different things. But if you're a newbie looking
at trying out a free *nix, Red Hat will be easiest out of them. But look
at SuSE too, that's very good and very easy to get going with. It's also
pretty fat.

And if you're considering a BSD variety, don't forget the other two.
NetBSD is rather similar to OpenBSD, very light and simple. Its emphasis
is on supporting odd hardware. FreeBSD is a more general purpose system,
more similar to a mainstream Linux and better suited for many purposes
such as workstations. It's quite a bit fatter than the other two.

Assuming your hardware isn't too low spec, say at least
500MHz/128MB/10GB, go for Red Hat or SuSE to start with.

Regards, Ian

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