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Honestly enough, I have found RedHat 8.0 with KDE is the best way for n00bs to hop from Windows. Once you get in the swing of things with it, it navigates and functions a great deal like Windows (only without the enormous suck power of MicroShaft Winblows).
But it really is true that you should try them all and see which one YOU like best. But one thing I CAN assure you of, is steer clear of the horrific distro known as Caldera, and if you are a n00b, you are a sitting duck with Debian.
I tried to install Mandrake 9.1 on two (very) different PCs and they both showed the same problems.
It took about 35 seconds for it to check each user's password when they logged in. That wasn't a good sign, and from there on in it was nasty.
I slapped RH 9 on the both and they worked firtst time, no issues, no problems. Detected very different sets of hardware with no probs and away we go.
I'd say that during the install with RH you have as much flexibility as you do with Mandrake with regards to selecting packages etc, as long as you go for the custom setting.
well i guess everyone seems to be divided, i really dont know what to choose, but i dont think there is much difference so i will go with mandrake jsut because i fell in love with their outlook.
Originally posted by Zohra\ well i guess everyone seems to be divided, i really dont know what to choose, but i dont think there is much difference so i will go with mandrake jsut because i fell in love with their outlook.
Zohra
well as a newb you can't really go too wrong with either one. they are very similar, and both will have good points and bad points depending on your hardware and other factors.
the one other point i would make is that redhat somehow seems to make it easier to learn linux, while mandrake is so windows-like that as a newb one can tend to get stuck in doing everything through a GUI. ultimately the decision to "turn off" the gui and get your hands dirty with the CLI is yours no matter which one of them you choose, but IME i found that easier to do with redhat.
I had used only RH until its version 8. Then tried to install RH 9 but never could get the X run only laptop. Even with older versions I had choose generic video drivers but on 9 nothing helped. So tried Mdk9.1 and works fine. So just stuck to it.
I like both equally; no big difference if you work on command line mostly. In some aspects RH was better and in some Mdk. Overall you won't go wrong with either.
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