Which Linux Distro (and Solaris ...)

[clonmult]

Starting a new job in (roughly?) a months time, and reckon I best get some Linux experience in before I start.

The employer has a mix of systems - windows servers (plenty of experience on those), as well as Linux and Solaris, I'll be working on all of them.

So I intend to install both Solaris and Linux in VMWare sessions on my laptop. Solaris is fine - that'll just be Solaris 10.

But I'm unsure what to go for on Linux - Red Hat/Ubuntu/some other? Its just for some basic education - I haven't used either Solaris or any Linux install practically since my student days back in '91.

[Munter]

Ubuntu always gets a vote on PH! But it's likely your company will be running Red Hat or possibly SUSE. Those are the 2 I come across most at businesses.

Good idea running in VMWare though. I'm a big fan of the stuff.

[clonmult]

Munter said:

Ubuntu always gets a vote on PH! But it's likely your company will be running Red Hat or possibly SUSE. Those are the 2 I come across most at businesses.

Good idea running in VMWare though. I'm a big fan of the stuff.

Ta for the suggestions - the guys here are Ubuntu fans, but you're probably right on the corporate level - red or SUSE is more likely. Nothing to stop me from setting up 3 sessions - Solaris, Red Hat and Ubuntu.

I've setup a few VMWare servers here, mainly for dev/testing of systems (Remedy AR System), it runs incredibly well, performance is pretty surprising.

VMWare install, two OS installs, install of a suitable SQL environment on both, then application installs ... on an OS I haven't touched in over 15 years. Should be "challenging".

[Munter]

clonmult said:

Munter said:

Ubuntu always gets a vote on PH! But it's likely your company will be running Red Hat or possibly SUSE. Those are the 2 I come across most at businesses.

Good idea running in VMWare though. I'm a big fan of the stuff.

Ta for the suggestions - the guys here are Ubuntu fans, but you're probably right on the corporate level - red or SUSE is more likely. Nothing to stop me from setting up 3 sessions - Solaris, Red Hat and Ubuntu.

I've setup a few VMWare servers here, mainly for dev/testing of systems (Remedy AR System), it runs incredibly well, performance is pretty surprising.

VMWare install, two OS installs, install of a suitable SQL environment on both, then application installs ... on an OS I haven't touched in over 15 years. Should be "challenging".

Urrgh Remedy. I had to use that for a while and I cant say I enjoyed it.

VMWare ESX performance is very good (say 3% overhead). Player/Server/Workstation where you have another OS underneath take a much bigger performance hit (say 15 - 20% overhead), but it's very useful for running seperate OS's like your planning.

[clonmult]

Munter said:

clonmult said:

Munter said:

Ubuntu always gets a vote on PH! But it's likely your company will be running Red Hat or possibly SUSE. Those are the 2 I come across most at businesses.

Good idea running in VMWare though. I'm a big fan of the stuff.

Ta for the suggestions - the guys here are Ubuntu fans, but you're probably right on the corporate level - red or SUSE is more likely. Nothing to stop me from setting up 3 sessions - Solaris, Red Hat and Ubuntu.

I've setup a few VMWare servers here, mainly for dev/testing of systems (Remedy AR System), it runs incredibly well, performance is pretty surprising.

VMWare install, two OS installs, install of a suitable SQL environment on both, then application installs ... on an OS I haven't touched in over 15 years. Should be "challenging".

Urrgh Remedy. I had to use that for a while and I cant say I enjoyed it.

VMWare ESX performance is very good (say 3% overhead). Player/Server/Workstation where you have another OS underneath take a much bigger performance hit (say 15 - 20% overhead), but it's very useful for running seperate OS's like your planning.

Later versions of Remedy have improved quite a lot, although you have to separate the application and server side. The server is pretty robust, and the early ticketing applications on it looked pretty rough. Later versions are considerably slicker.

Thats exactly how I intend to use it - its not going to be in anger, just basic education and bringing me back up to speed.

So any spare time I get over christmas will be spent playing with new operating systems ....

[paul99]

I think Fedora looks a lot like Red Hat and would be a good one to start with.

[clonmult]

What are the big differences between the various distros?

The core OS architecture is the same between all of them, but they're running different window managers, with slightly different subsystems for various bits and pieces?

[qube_TA]

paul99 said:

I think Fedora looks a lot like Red Hat and would be a good one to start with.

Fedora is the community version of RH Enterprise, it's basically the cutting edge/beta version of the OS, they let the code mature on their, once it's proved to be stable/secure etc it's then ported to the Enterprise version. From a functionality version they're the same. Updates are free and there's no support (you pay a subscription for the enterprise version which gives you access to updates and support), also after 18 months from release you're expected to have upgraded to the current version (new one every 6 months), a bit impractical if you're running it on hundreds of boxes but fine if it's your home PC.

It's the same deal with Novell's SUSE Enterprise and OpenSUSE.

There's also an unsupported free version of RH Enterprise called CentOS (no support but updates are free), it's 100% identical bar a name change.

[qube_TA]

clonmult said:

What are the big differences between the various distros?

The core OS architecture is the same between all of them, but they're running different window managers, with slightly different subsystems for various bits and pieces?

Basically it.

[Globulator]

Kubuntu or Ubuntu is good - they all use the debian packages therefore there are more and they run on more stuff than anything else.

I suspect RedHat is the most widely used in industry however.

This:
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

is fun to play with to get the basics of Linux practiced.

[SystemParanoia]

You could try CentOS, its basically redhat repackaged.

[fredf]

Can't you phone them up and ask them what they are using?

Otherwise, as other have said, they are probably going to be running Redhat ES (CentOS/Fedora), SUSE (OpenSUSE) or possibly Debian (Debian/Ubuntu) depending on how technical their IT dept is.

[clonmult]

fredf said:

Can't you phone them up and ask them what they are using?

Otherwise, as other have said, they are probably going to be running Redhat ES (CentOS/Fedora), SUSE (OpenSUSE) or possibly Debian (Debian/Ubuntu) depending on how technical their IT dept is.

I know that one of their live systems is Solaris, the others were just described as Linux.

Its going to be a hectic month regardless, I could spend all my time just playing with one of the OS's, let alone a few variants.

[qube_TA]

It's best to pick one and stick with it, once you know your way around it, it's not much of a stretch to manage a different flavour.