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I'm getting into IT and wanted to check out Linux. I'm not sure which version to download. To start, it would be good if I had an OS that can handle CCNP router/switch simulations. Any recommendations? Someone mentioned Red Hat as an OS to try. Perhaps that info was outdated?

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Hi, Welcome to LQ!

LQ has a fantastic search function that may save you time waiting for an answer to a popular question.

With over 4 million posts to search it's possible the answer has been given. :)

...
your question heading is very broad.

A quick lookup revealed...

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What is GNS3 ?

GNS3 is a graphical network simulator that allows simulation of complex networks.

To provide complete and accurate simulations, GNS3 is strongly linked with:

Dynamips, a Cisco IOS emulator.
Qemu, a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer.
VirtualBox, a free and powerful virtualization software.

ref. https://www.gns3.net/

free version is available.

some other info here...
http://www.linux-commands.com/what-t...-routerswitch/

All the best with your studies, Regards Glenn

Depends on you and what you're looking for in an operating system (yeah not a very satisfying answer but you'll get it a lot with this kind of question).

Here's my opinion (you know what they say about opinions...):

Want an OS that requires the minimal amount of user involvement and computer knowledge? Personally I would probably agree with your friend that Fedora (Red Hat) would be a good way to go. Or perhaps Linux Mint, which is based on the popular Ubuntu distro. It is currently the most popular distro according to distrowatch.com as far as I know.

Want to learn more about how Linux works and be more involved in running it? Debian is probably the first choice here, it is a good balance between the two extremes based on what I hear. I would of course also recommend Slackware; the learning curve will be steeper (especially the initial installation) but the official Slackware support community happens to be located on this very site, and once you get the hang of it, which will be quicker than you'd think, it's every bit as easy, and maybe in some ways easier, to deal with than the "easier" distros. In this vein there is also Arch Linux, and to some extent Gentoo.

As far as your router/switch simulations, I'd imagine that if you can get it to work on one distro it'll work on the others too.

EDIT: Oh, and welcome to the forums and all that, of course!

To be more specific, I wanted to know what linux/unix OS to download for the purpose of doing router/switch programming simulation and possibly doing OS virtualization later on. I'm doing CCNP router & switch programming.

Thanks. That sounds like the answer for which I was looking.

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Originally Posted by derstephen (Post 4519408)