Linux Linux everywhere, and ice cream...

The moment you peek your head into the world of Linux is a moment that you realise things are not going to be a confusing as you thought. In fact, it is going to be far more confusing. You see, whereas Windows and OS X are kinda like icecream from Mr Softy, only one flavour, Linux is like an ice cream emporium in Florence - too much choice and you have no idea what you're choosing anyway. There are no fewer than 12 major distributions of Linux and literally hundreds of minor ones. A version of Linux is available for just about every type of computer out there, including the Playstation 2 and even the iPOD. Amazing.

What I found out is that each distribution of Linux pretty much runs the same engine under the bonnet, but the applications that come with it, graphical user interface (GUI) and desktop are all subtlely, although occasionally fundamentally different.

So today I spent a few hours browsing several Linux forums, including www.linux.org and www.linuxquestions.org These forums are full of newbies asking questions about where to start and the forum members are only too happy to impart their knowledge and experience.

For the newbie, the flavour of linux seemed to boil down to 3 finalists. SuSE, Fedora and Ubuntu. So, setting aside just an hour or so to research each one, here is what I found out.

SuSE (Mint with Chocolate Chips)

SuSE is a big hitter in the Linux world. A quick visit to the SuSE website (http://www.novell.com/linux/) reveals that this version of Linux has some heavy backing. Novell is a big industry player and their flavour of Linux comes with all the bells and whistles you could ever dream of. There are basically two versions of SuSE. An Enterprise edition, that costs $60 and a free version which takes a little bit of finding on the site.
SuSE is huge, even the free version requires 6 CDs to install (or a single DVD). A quick glance at what comes with SuSE soon reveals why this is the case, an insane amount of software including several GUIs, developer tools, office solutions and networking tools. Whilst this may be the answer for some people, the overly corporate feel and bloaty package rapidly put me off.

Fedora (Strawberry)

Fedora is a continuation of an old Linux favourite, Red Hat. In fact, I remember seeing Red Hat in computer shops years ago and wondering what it was. A visit to the Fedora website reveals something a lot simpler and attracively more modest than we got with SuSE. However, whereas with SuSE you got everything except the kitchen sink, with Fedora it looks as though they forgot their toothbrush. The website (http://fedora.redhat.com/) is so simple, it doesn't actually tell you anything. There are no lovely screenshots, no promised of an easy install and easy life and even the introduction is full of scary acronyms such as PIE which apparently stands for Position Independent Executables. Sounds all a bit scary to me!

Ubuntu (Chocolate Flavour)

And so finally to Ubuntu, subtitled "Linux for Human Beings". Their website (http://www.ubuntu.com/) is clean, friendly looking and full of pretty pictures. Just the kind of thing to lure the shallow Mac user or lazy Windows drone into the waiting arms of OpenSource. The site promises 3 key factors that are the essence of this project. Ease of use, simplicity and holding dear what Linux is all about - it's free. Ubuntu also has a small download and this can be used as a bootable CD so you can try it out on almost any machine before installing anything and taking the plunge.

So, distro chosen, all I need now is a machine to install it on...