Trying to make career move with Linux

[juliag]

Hello all,

I am a noob to the 1000th degree when it comes to Linux. I feel I have been hindered from getting my foot in the door of the IT field due to my lack of Linux experience. What distros should I start with that would be useful for a business environment now?

This is minor, but in your opinon, is it better to start with multi boots of Linux or should I run them virtually on my windows machine since I want to experiment with different distros simultaneously?

[jmadero]

Okay second question first. I think it's better to have linux on it's own partition and dual boot, a lot of the times virtual machines turn into a piece of software instead of the powerful OS that Linx is.

As for the distro that is industy based, Red Hat is by far the most used in industry but it costs. You can try CentOS as it is a red hat alternative that is free

A lot of servers are running off of Ubuntu these days so you can check that out

If you want to really learn linux you can try one of the harder distros such as Gentoo. If you learn it....you're pretty much set for using any other distro with relative ease

[GNU-Fan]

Hello all,

I am a noob to the 1000th degree when it comes to Linux. I feel I have been hindered from getting my foot in the door of the IT field due to my lack of Linux experience. What distros should I start with that would be useful for a business environment now?

By all means RedHat (CentOS) and Debian, but don't look just into GNU/Linux. Open/Net/FreeBSD and (Open)Solaris can be important as well.

Depending on the place, there are some local favorites too, like Mandriva in France or SuSe in Germany.

This is minor, but in your opinon, is it better to start with multi boots of Linux or should I run them virtually on my windows machine since I want to experiment with different distros simultaneously?

Do the latter until you find the distribution you enjoy most. If you found one, install only that one.

[GNU-Fan]

If you want to really learn linux you can try one of the harder distros such as Gentoo. If you learn it....you're pretty much set for using any other distro with relative ease

Yeah, that's right. How could I leave out Gentoo...
Using Gentoo kind of gets you this "Oohoo" response whenever you tell somebody

[juliag]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I might begin with Ubuntu and CentOS, then eventually try Gentoo as I get more comfortable. I did get a chance to play around with Sabayon sometime ago, which was rather fun. Loved the giggly GUI effect lol. So, I've narrowed it down to 4 at least. I've seen solaris experience requested numerous times so I'll definitely work with that as well. Looks like I am going to be so busy this summer.

[juliag]

As I have been trying to look this up, it seems I'm going to have to sacrifice my wireless bluetooth keyboard and mouse in order to work with Linux or at least during the initial set-up. Please tell me there is a work around.

[jmadero]

that could be right. Some times it requires a little fooling around with. Ubuntu will have the best support out of the box (one of its strengths is that it works out of the box a lot of the time, this causes one of its biggest weaknesses....it's bloated like no other Linux distro)

Edit: Before I had OS instead of "other Linux distro" but that's just wrong...Windows is more bloated than any Linux distro

[computerophil]

That's courageous ! - Gratulation.

I'd start multiboot. I think virtual machines are good but in some cases the react a bit different than a real installation.
For business
Debian, Redhat-Enterprise, Novell Suse
and for private clientel Ubuntu