I have been using the
Linux OS for past 4 years, and have been attached to it.
Who should opt for it?
Any house wife? Any kid? or a hardcore professional....
well I would
say that Linux has been a part of UNIX and Free BSD system, it’s certainly complex for thing ( sometimes horrible) for newbies, house wives and Microsoft Windows addicts.
I have seen in fact that good programmers at MS-windows fail and feel dizzy over any unix based system. But this was the condition much ago when the community was not so big as well as the system was much console based and lesser desktop, GUI based. But today, Linux has come through ages. First most comfortable entry of RedHat was version 7.2.
Now the present options in linux are going to make it very very user friendly if housewives have got a bit of guts! Linux 10 or say Enterprise edition is excellent and very userfriendly. Those who are scared too much are adviced to use KDE desktop as their default instead of Gnome. On the otherhand the literature and documentations are now available in ample though India still lacks good books on Linux which are not available here currently. But basic books are available easily.
I Suggest some books of basic which you get with the CD, to go through. Related programs and softwares have got ample of free online books and tutorials to make you master.
System Requirement: I strictly advice that don’t go below 256 MB RAM, and 1 GZ processor with at least 10 GB HD.
Most Stable version?
It is anyway RH 7.3 and Enterprise( RH 10).
Benefits of Enterprise edition:
It’s got great look feel easily handled, updated libraries. Earlier linux was only programmers, techni boys machine but now it is housewives too! Enterprise edition comes with lots of packages to work with, and very comfortable to user enterface. Sometimes you may confuse with XP! What it lacks? If you are looking for free RedHat Linux, you are free just upto version 9.0. Enterprise is no more free !
This is the major drawback and a black spot on Linux. It has sent wrong message tot he community. But same side it saved it’c craze by launching Fedora, where all open source community is involved. This is the reason that in newer linux 10 you may not get some older open source softwares like movie players, media players, netscape, etc ! you need to download and install them. Fedore has full open source community support as well as Red Hat’s too.
For Programmers: Still JAVA is not the part fo the package. You will have to download it. It has got other wise vast number of softwares compilers and interpretors. For c/c++ programmers this si adviced to use the standerd ANSI the most authentic library which si in full form here. Must use using namespace std in your source codes.
The beauty lays with Python:If you have got RH Linux and you have technical background, I suggest relish python programming over it with CORBA etc. Amatuers can do a lot of things..like makign own movie players etc adn full automation to developing hacking codes!
Verdict: If you understand the depth of RedHat Linux, I promise you will start detasting the Microsoft. Red Hat linux is any programmer’s love OS.
Though still the most powerful OS is a free BSD based Panther OS, but in overall Linux is best. It has got a sea with lots of jewels to dive and find out. House wives can use it, but still this system belongs to high level programmers, who can get thousands of free softwares and packages here for which they have to pay in MS windows!
Long live RedHat Linux!