>
>
> Now, if you're an enterprising newbie, and
>you're not afraid to get your hands extremely dirty and ask a lot of
>dumb questions and persist until you get it, then Debian could work for
>a newbie. But I don't recommend it unless I see that a person has a
>Unix background or is extremely technically savvy.
>
I think it depends on why you want to run Linux. If your objective is to
learn enough to become a competent Unix/Linux sysadmin, Debian is a fine
choice -- and Slackware or Gentoo would be just as good. In that case,
the "learning curve" is the *point* of using Linux, so it's not a barrier.
I started using Linux because I got tired of Windows crashing on me. I
didn't want to mess with command line configuration then and I don't
want to mess with it now. I would just as soon never log in as root and
never see a terminal window. I use my computer to perform ordinary
office-type tasks. I do not want to be a sysadmin or a programmer.
For "desktop" Linux users just starting out nowadays I recommend Lycoris
or Xandros, and for desktop users who like to fiddle with things now and
then I think Mandrake is probably the best bet.
I have been using Mandrake for over three years now, so I know most of
its quirks.
Someone who has been using Red Hat or SuSE that long is going to prefer
what *they're* used to.
I installed Debian once and got everything working, and I've compiled a
kernel just to see if I could do it, but I got no special thrill out of
either accomplishment.
Different people, different needs, different tastes.
- Robin
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