Question for Linux geeks!
 

I just got my hands on a free server. It's a dual PIII with 1 gig memory, four hot swapable HDDs, redundant power supplies, etc... :D I want to learn Linux and eventually move some of my websites over to Linux/apache on this new server. I'll probably use it as a test server until I get comfortable with Linux. Can some folks reccomend a good distro to start with. I'm a total Linux newbie so I don't know much of anything about it so I'm also looking for any advice. Thanks!

Fedora - easy as pie.

http://fedora.redhat.com

Take a look here.

As a total Linus newbie myself, I downloaded SuSE Linux a couple of nights ago. Burned the ISO to CD-ROM and after a few little snags, mainly hardware related, I now have SuSE Linux 9.1 up and running on a spare laptop. Despite years of experience with all flavors of Windows, I must admit, the Linux install was a piece of cake once I got past the hardware bumps.

Randy

Oh, forgot to add.....it was FREE!!!!! WOOHOOO!!!! Can't beat that deal...even if you're a 300 lb man in a pizza shop! :eek:

Randy

Wow, that was fast! Thanks for the input. Maybe I'll dual boot with different distributions until I find the one I like. I'm downloading Fedora now, and checking out SuSE at the same time. I LOVE free stuff! Are all of these bootable from CD?

Randy, what type of hardware problems did you have? I'm thinking I'm probably going to have issues with the RAID array card at the least.

The dual-boot was pretty slick. When I originally booted the Linux CD, I was under the assumption that it would format the drive and install Linux while wiping out Windows. I've dual booted with Windows before and they make a huge deal of it, with loads of prompts and questions. The Linux install just went right on. It wasn't until I started exploring around that I noticed all the Windows files still intact. So now I'm dual booting W2K and SuSE Linux 9.1.

The hardware issue was most likely the CD drive in the other laptop I was trying to install onto. It just didn't want to read the disk. Wouldn't even try. Scrapped that idea and put it on a different one instead. Took about an hour to install, once I got it going. Heck, it even picked up the Dell TrueMobile 1150 Wireless NIC. Windows couldn't even do that!

Randy