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Originally Posted by slacker_
Well I said rpm based not just referring to the different package types, but also meaning different systems entirely since systems that use rpm are often very different from deb/dpkg systems in other ways than just their package management.
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True. The real variation is between
families: distros derived from a specific independent distro, which is built from scratch. e.g.
Slackware, Salix, Vector
Fedora, CentOS
PCLinuxOS
Arch, Manjaro
Debian and most others
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I'm looking for something non-debian, but also something that will give me experience in something that would actually matter (Arch for example will teach me LOADS about manual configuration of various systems that are very arch specific, doesn't carry over to real-world jobs much unless someone has arch installed on enterprise equipment). So that in mind, would a Slackware based OS have skills that carry over? PCLinuxOS, from their website seems to be Debian based as well (using apt and synaptic), am I mistaken? How would that be much different than another debian based os? Manjaro, Arch based? Would that really be useful for building skills that can be applied to many other areas?
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Arch is not very off the beaten track in that respect: I often use the Arch wiki, as it's some of the best Linux documentation available. Arch is very bleeding-edge though, and I recommend Manjaro for non-tinkerers.
Salix/Slackware skills are not so transferrable, as Slackawre does stick with old technologies: not bad ones, but just unfashionable ones.
PCLinuxOS is odd in using rpm packages but managing them witha special version of apt-get! It's not Debian-like in other ways, though.
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I've been considering openSuse because I do like the look of the system, and yast does look appealing. Does yast have any application outside of opensuse distros though?
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No GUI "housekeeping tool" will teach you anything transferable: you need to have done your configuration manually for that.
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So last question about SL/Centos: since they have the same parent os, will the documentation be fairly interchangeable? If not, what exactly is the difference from cent to sl?
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Actually, you mostly use Red Hat's documentation for both. CentOS is basically Red Hat with some improved hardware support. Scientific Linux, being produced for CERN, adds thing they want, like better support for elderly computers and a few scientific programs. As you see, I use CentOS happily. Using it at home, you do need to get extra software from third-party repositories, so it's cusrrently best to avoid version 7 until they've caught up.
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Looking at Mandriva it seems they have some enterprise focus with their distro. What do you know about it in that context?
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Mandriva is now only for servers, and no-longer free. It was forked to give Mageia, but that didn't impress me.
