Hi all!

I've been using Ubuntu for a couple years now. I really love it!

Now I'm looking to "upgrade" to a more complicated distro so I can learn more about *nix. I also want to be able to contribute to the Free Software community.

The choices I've boiled down to are Debian and FreeBSD. I don't think I'm ready for Gentoo yet. I realize FreeBSD isn't Linux, but I've been told that it will increase my knowledge of all *nix systems and it can run Linux programs anyway.

So, which do you all recommend? FreeBSD or Debian?

Thank you very much in advance!

I would actually go for Slackware. Debian is close enough to Ubuntu that I think that you'll learn more from a different distribution. From what I've heard, Slackware also feels a lot like *BSD, although I've never worked directly with any of the BSD flavors, so I can't make a direct comparison.

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Slackware

You will learn if you use Slackware and also Arch.Depends what u want do do.If your current distro works why change?

Slackware.......tried them all, learned a helluva lot more with Slackware.

Slackware and Arch.

Whatever distro you're using, it's still Linux. Ubuntu may have a lot of fancy GUI tools, but all the standard stuff is still there underneath. With Fedora, for example, I've managed services with system-config-services and from the command line with chkconfig and service: it all depends on what I'm doing and the mood I'm in. So, if you look under the surface, you can learn a lot from Ubuntu.

If you've got the space on your HD, I'd suggest dual-booting Ubuntu and BSD. That way you'll be twice as knowledgeable, and seeing the different ways of doing things within the POSIX framework will be interesting.

As you'll soon discover if you hang out here, Slackware users recommend Slackware for everything; I've just come from a thread where they were recommending it for a complete beginner wanting to switch from Windows, and getting slapped by a moderator for doing so. Be patient with them: they just can't help it

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Personally, I started with Coherent which prepared me to run UnixWare on the job. Both are gone now, and Coherent was a toy, but it does point out one thing that you haven't quite asked: what are your reasons for wanting to know more about Linux? If you want to be a sysadmin at an RHEL shop, then you should probably get Centos. If it's just a personal goal, then just start using the CLI (command line interface) to do stuff rather than reaching for the GUI. If it's to enjoy the Linux experience more (whatever that is) then pick the one you like and use that. But, whatever you do, being goal-oriented is probably more productive than hoping one particular Linux distro will do what you want.

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have you identified some specific things you'd like to learn, yet?

Thanks all! I'm actually gonna go with FreeBSD and use that for a few months, then probably move on to Slackware.

Great. FreeBSD is NOT GNU/Linux... just so you know. It's a BSD-based operating system. It'll be a learning experience too, though. HAVE FUN!

If you keep notes on that, write something up in the reviews section of LQ and leave a pointer to it in the 'general' forum. I'm interested to know what you think.