Real World Computing

The first thing to decide is whether you're intending to run Linux on a server or a desktop machine. Some distros - for example, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS - are strongly weighted towards server tasks, while others are designed far more for use on the desktop. Of course, you can install whatever different components you want on any version, but when you're learning it's a good idea to start with something at least vaguely targeted at the tasks you'll be performing.

Allan said that he has copies of SUSE and Ubuntu Linux, and that he's leaning towards Ubuntu. That's actually a pretty good choice, since Ubuntu is one of the fastest-growing distributions and even comes in two different flavours: one for the desktop and one for servers. The desktop version is designed to be simple to use, and provides features such as one-click installation of security patches and the like. You can even download a "live CD", which lets you boot from CD straight into Ubuntu, without needing to disturb the current contents of your hard drive. That's a great solution for people interested in playing with Linux who don't have a spare machine and don't want to wipe their Windows installation.

However, we did point out to Allan that when choosing a distribution of Linux in order to learn about the OS, the most important factor is probably what the documentation is like. It's a simple fact that there are more books available for Red Hat distributions (and the totally free clones, CentOS and Fedora) than for any other distro, with SUSE probably coming second. In fact, if you're just starting out, we'd recommend going to your local bookshop and browsing the shelves, finding a beginner's guide whose style you like - regardless of which distro it covers - and then installing that particular distribution. Once you're more proficient, you may decide that you'd prefer a different version, but by that time you'll be armed with enough knowledge to make a more informed choice.

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