selecting a second distro question.

[techieMoe]

between distros, does the command line setup change. id imagine that they are all pretty close, but ubuntu uses sudo and im kinda shure that is different than other distros (unless theyre based on ubuntu).

Ubuntu is a bit unique in that it turns off the root user account by default and requires that any system-level tasks be done using sudo instead. 99% of all other Linux distributions out there don't do this. Aside from the sudo thing, all distributions use pretty much identical console syntax because they all use the same console: some form of the BASH shell.

i guess another important question, since i am planning on an it career, which distros are popular in the business world? what would i see the most?

In the US, Redhat Enterprise Linux is probably the most popular for business, followed closely by Novell's SuSE Enterprise Linux. In Europe, you're likely to see Redhat, Mandriva, SuSE, or Ubuntu. That's not to say you won't see all of these in either market, though.

[devils casper]

its very easy to enable 'Graphical root Login' and 'su' in Ubuntu like other 99% distros.

[carlosponti]

Where i work we are moving our Oracle Databases over to Oracle Linux but its basically Red Hat Enterprise in every sense of the word.

[phantommaggot]

how different is fedora from redhat.
i know its built off of red hat, thats why im asking.
my guess is its more user friendly, but i can only guess and ask.

ill probably put slackware on my pc this weekend and im shure youll see alot of me in the slackware section lol.

Thanks!
been a while since my business was (for the most part) taken care of on a forum in less than a day!

[carlosponti]

the way i describe fedora to red hat enterprise is like Debian unstable to stable. fedora is the bleeding edge version of red hat.

[techieMoe]

how different is fedora from redhat.
i know its built off of red hat, thats why im asking.
my guess is its more user friendly, but i can only guess and ask.

The difference between Redhat Enterprise and Fedora is mostly who develops it, and how it's supported. The Redhat company stopped releasing a desktop-oriented distribution after version 9 (shrike). Up until that point you could walk into many computer stores and buy Redhat's desktop OS off the shelf.

Now the company focuses on selling licenses and software support for Redhat Enterprise Server and Redhat Enterprise Workstation. You don't really pay for the OS so much as the support the company gives you. This support is useful for businesses, but not really geared toward single everyday users. The software that gets put into Redhat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been thoroughly tested and doesn't really make any major jumps in functionality from one release to the next. This is to keep businesses from having to retrain regularly.

Fedora picked up where the old Redhat desktop left off. The kernel and most of the underlying libraries for Fedora come from Redhat's sourcecode, but the Redhat company does not officially support anything Fedora releases. Fedora is run by the community and its focus is to try out lots of new (and perhaps not as well tested) features, so you'll see a big difference in functionality from one release to the next. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, and sometimes it's broken. You're not guaranteed anything with Fedora really.

[mobrep]

If you want to learn about how linux as a whole works try Gentoo or Slackware, as others have suggested. Gentoo really isn't for the faint of heart. If you want to learn out to setup services and other admin typing things that you would do in a business environment, then try Redhat or Fedora. I am also going to suggest freeBSD or openBSD because I was supprized to learn when I started at my current company, we are using both instead of linux.

[phantommaggot]

well,
im home and downloading slackware as we speak.
im also downloading the live zenwalk disk.

from there im gonna fight linux mint and try to get my wireless working. i really like mint but it seems to hate me Wireless worked perfect after the install, but after the update it didnt work anymore...

if it dosent work then ill go ahead and install slckware and ubuntu.
if it does then ill just install slackware.

either way, there will probably be some slackware questions coming from me in the next couple days.

thanks again,
and keep suggestions coming.
i still love running live cds, and playing with virtual deskop at school ..
o, and ill have another computer up and running in another month or so..

-j

[tuxv]

Ooops, sorry I just created a single user