150 boot choices with grub?

[MASONTX]

I'm trying to get a handle on what grub is, and how it is used. I found this article GNU GRUB - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia whch says:

"GRUB uses a scrollable screen for operating system boot selection. This means 150 or more boot choices can be easily controlled by GRUB by adding them to the "menu.lst" configuration file. "

Does this mean that if you had a large enough HDD you could in theory put all of the top 100 distros at distro watch on your HDD and use grub to select a different one each time you logged in?

[oz]

Yes, that's what it means, but I wouldn't advise doing it unless you want more on your plate than you might be able to handle.

[MASONTX]

No, my plates not that big yet. A choice of gnome or kde, ubuntu or openSuse, is about all I could handle now. Still, it is an intriguing concept, and nice to know that if my knowledge level ever gets that far, that the operating system can handle it.

[Swillis]

Yeah, and there's not "really" 150 distros. There's maybe a handful of "core" distros within the top 100 and the rest are based on one of those. Here's a quick breakdown to make it easy for you:

## List of "core" distros ##

1) Red Hat. THE distro in North America. And I'm not talking about number of hits on distrowatch, I'm talking about actual companies making actual money running this. Most popular offshoots are Fedora, CentOS, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS. These each have some kind of tie to the Red Hat core, though have spread a bit since the early days.

2) Debian. Probably the BIGGEST distro, in more ways than one. It has tons of pre-compiled packages, supports tons of hardware, and has probably the most "derivative" distros. Ubuntu is by far the most popular offshoot, and even has derivatives of its own (ie. Linux Mint). Great way to go for newcomers, but different enough from Red Hat to justify trying both.

3) Slackware. This is the oldest surviving distro (actively maintained). Many old timers or "hackers" will advocate this distro. It's great for a learning experience, but don't expect the latest bells and whistles (the advocates will say these don't matter anyway). There are a few decent derivatives, but I haven't really messed with these (Vector, Zenwalk, SLAX).

4) Suse/OpenSuse. Many would put this in the Red Hat category, but the roots of this distro were originally from Slackware. Over time it has adopted RPM from Red Hat, as well as /etc/sysconfig. This is the one distro that doesn't really have any notable derivatives, so it kind of lives in a category of its own at the present time.

5) Arch Linux. This is a newer "from scratch" distro that is very popular. It's a "hacker" distro like Slackware, only with some more current bells and whistles to make certain tasks easier. If I had to compare it, I'd say take the barebones (KISS) aspects of Slackware and throw in Debian's package management system and you get Arch. It's not really as simple as that, but it's an easy way to explain it to newcomers.

6) Gentoo. Another more recent "from scratch" distro that uses "ports" like FreeBSD (not a Linux distro). Ports serve a similar function to binary packages, only they are in the form of source code. This setup allows power users to set compile flags and such (I'm kind of a noob in this area) to optimize the hardware the OS is installed on. This point, however, has never really been proven to be any better than binary package management, and lately many former Gentoo users are moving towards distros like Arch, that still offer "control" of the system, but a much faster method of installing/updating packages. Forgot to mention... installing from ports is SLOW.

That's about it. Others will certainly flame me for this post, but most of them will be fanboys of one distro or another, so their opinion is likely to be biased. If there are any other distros that beyond what I mentioned that are not deritives of one of these, then they probably aren't worth your time until you get more experience. I recommend starting with a Red Hat or Debian based system to start. Easy to install and manage and get a feel for things. Then move on to the more advanced distros like Arch and Slackware when you're really ready to get under the hood.

Important Note: Don't listen to people who tell you that distros like Arch or Slackware are better for helping you "learn" linux. This is terribly false advise. Using Arch or Slackware will help you learn "Arch or Slackware". They're great distros and make you tinker, but they have very little in common under the hood with the "big" distros that are used by major corporations. If you're looking to get into the Linux IT world, stick with a Red Hat (or maybe Suse) based distro. This is where the money is and learning a "hacker" distro won't give as much of a headstart as you'd think with these.

- Swill

[Mudgen]

No, my plates not that big yet. A choice of gnome or kde, ubuntu or openSuse, is about all I could handle now. Still, it is an intriguing concept, and nice to know that if my knowledge level ever gets that far, that the operating system can handle it.

Just a distinction: gnome and kde are alternative desktop environments, not Linux distros.

_Great_ thumbnail summary, SWillis!

[qajaq]

Very nice summary, Swillis!

I would just add that once you've got fairly comfortable with whatever your first choice is, I'd suggest trying one of the others. I started with Fedora/Gnome, moved to OpenSuSE/Gnome about six months later, then ran OpenSuSE and Kubuntu (on two different machines) for about a year before finally deciding that I am happiest with Kubuntu for what I do.

Not only did the experimentation give me the opportunity to find what is best for me (in my present situation), but by giving me a taste of several different Linux "cultures," the experience sharpened my awareness of what Linux can do in ways that I never imagined when I was using Windows (or MS DOS) exclusively.

[kurtdriver]

Swills, that's a nice summary, but a couple of points.
You list Fedora, Mandriva and others as derived from Red Hat. Not exactly correct in the case of Fedora. While Red Hat 9 was split into two in 2003, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the product sold by the corporation, is based on Fedora, Not the other way around.
Mandriva is based on the old Mandrake of the nineties, if it was once based on Red Hat, it has not been in this century.
There are other *core* distros out there. Puppy comes to mind, there are others as well.

I'd say that a distro is good if it regularly boots to whatever state it's designers intended.
We seem to have derailed the thread.
Kurt
Fanboy of Fedora, Puppy, Slax, and others.

[Swillis]

Yeah, I wasn't really intending this as a "this distro is better than that one" post. My main issue with this topic, in my experience, is that many advocates of distros like Slack and Arch (both totally awesome, btw) will use the "this distro will force you to learn how linux works" argument in direct competition against distros like Red Hat and Debian, which are perceived by these advocates as being "noob" distros.

My main point is simply that that particular argument (ie. Slackware helps you learn Linux) is technically false, since Slackware, as an example, has a far different structure to the init system and configuration than, say, Red Hat. So yeah, using Slackware may help you learn "Slackware", but it should not be considered a general reference point for "linux" in general.

- Swill

[hilly53]

I am impressed Swillis - this is a very good summary, it is a shame others don't copy your style at times

..Phil

[maria-n]

@Swillis

Wow, what a great post!

I had been putting off double-booting out of laziness and because of not knowing what to chose.

But you've convinced me: I SHOULD install Fedora next to my Ubuntu and now I know why (a future in IT???)

And after that? Your guidelines might come in handy to experiment further...

Thanks!

Maria