Linux distro recs?

[blnchflr]

I've been using Ubuntu as my primary OS since May last year, and while I'm extremely happy with it, I would like to become more Linux-savvy.

I'm looking for another newbie-friendly/newbie-semi-friendly distro to dual-boot with Ubuntu, to see what the differences are, etc. - any recs?

(P.S. I've been giving OpenSolaris - I know it's not Linux - a couple of goes over the last weeks, but in the end, I just could not get it to play nice with Ubuntu, so I gave it up. Very shiny OS, though!)

Comments

[ex_crywolf268]

Agreed that Ubuntu is probably the most newbie-friendly. If you want to be familiar with *nixes in general, first off, spend as much time on the command line as possible. To get a feel for the Redhat side of the world, try CentOS. I'd avoid Fedora - it's known as "bleeding edge" and you never know what will break.

Also consider FreeBSD (just don't call it Linux). It does take getting used to, but one of the things I really like about it is that it has a stable core (that is now much easier to update), and source-based add-on software (ports), so you generally are pretty up-to-date in that area. The downside is that Flash can be tricky to get working.

And if learning all about Linux is your goal, set up a machine using Linux From Scratch. It's just a learning exercise, though. Don't expect to keep such a machine for day-to-day use.

[blnchflr]

Oh, my goal isn't to learn all about Linux - just more than I currently know (and unlike what Microsoft preaches, I believe knowing how to use more than one OS teaches you more about each individual OS). I will give CentOS a look, thanks!