Linux: which penguin for you

[ky toker]

I've liked the looks and feel of Red Hat and I'm planning on downloading the latest version of something, but which one.

What is your preference? I'm looking for a good user friendly interface and strong firewall & router functions. So, something I can play around with on the command line.

Anyone up to date with IP Cop or Smoothwall? Who's leading? Planning on downloading the updated version as well.

[earnold25]

are you looking to install it, or to run it from the cd/dvd?

[havana_lover]

I use the ubuntu kernel 6.11 I think.. Love it

[cman78]

CentOS 5 (RHEL) is what we run at work on all our linux machines.

[hova45]

I am the lucky owner of a macbook pro and am able to run 3 different OS's i have windows ultimate, mac os tiger and ubuntu linux. I would go with ubuntu very user friendly and comes with a bunch of knick knacks.

[Smoked]

I have used all of those and if all that you are looking for is a firewall than go with pfsense. If you are looking for a distro of Linux to use on your desktop you can't go wrong with Fedora, Debian, or Ubuntu. I would stay away from Mandriva but that's just me.

[jinny]

I haven't looked into this sort of thing in years...

My red hat box and FreeBSD box are so stable, I don't touch it. they've been running strong for at least 3 years...

I also have a Sun Cobalt Cube I use as a general use web server that has also been trouble free... except for upgrades every several months of so, over 3 years of up time... knock on wood.

[yayson]

ubuntu cuz it was easy to get up and immediately use as a desktop environment

been using debian webservers for many years and love the stability but it's usually a step or 2 (or 3) behind in porting the latest and greatest

[CEC_Tech]

Fedora and Mandrake are really user friendly. If you wanna get a really easy, user friendly version, get Lindows. I'm pretty sure you have to pay for it, but I've tried a demo and it's as close to windows as you'll get. Mandrake is not very user friendly as far as the command line goes, Fedora is a definite yes.

If you want security, definitely go with slackware. It's not user friendly at all, but if you wanna get better at your command line skills, then use slackware for sure. Biggest problems will be your drivers, but i'm sure you know that already.

[hova45]

this is what the ubuntu looks like on my mac.

[hova45]

bump

[tiptone]

For a server I prefer Red Hat (RHEL, Fedora Core, or CentOS your choice), I think they've got the nicest server tools and I like the way the've modularized some components.

For a desktop machine I run Ubuntu, it has the best user/support base and just about anything you want to do can be quickly found with Google. The Debian base means there are tons and tons of packages of software at your fingertips. I also think Synaptic is the nicest visual package manager available right now.

[sonick]

server: centOS & Debian
workstation: Fedora & Ubuntu


As far as the ip filters and net stuff, that will be available with the kernel, so distro isn't really important. General considerations like not using workstation deployments for dedicated routers and general common sense like that are the only real considerations (extraneous services, especially large, complicated binaries like X on a border router is an egregious no-no). So long as the functions are built as kernel modules or monolithic into the kernel, all you need to do is configure them and you're good to go. Once the kernel is ready to go, iptables will be able to do most anything you need to do filtering, forwarding, natting and mangling-wise.

Don't forget to play with FreeBSD and OpenBSD as well; openbsd especially with ipf for routers is an excellent choice.

[Smoked]

Originally Posted by ky toker

I've liked the looks and feel of Red Hat and I'm planning on downloading the latest version of something, but which one.

What is your preference? I'm looking for a good user friendly interface and strong firewall & router functions. So, something I can play around with on the command line.

Anyone up to date with IP Cop or Smoothwall? Who's leading? Planning on downloading the updated version as well.

If you are considering IPCOP or SmoothWall than you are looking to build a dedicated firewall out of a spare machine that you have. Try pfsense. It is based on FreeBSD and I have actually used it in a pinch on an Enterprise level network. It really is the best way to go.

[ky toker]

Thanks for the replies people. I'm not a big Unix/Linux person. I've worked with a Sun system years back and have dealt with serveral Linux servers, but I'm really still a novice.

Originally Posted by earnold25

are you looking to install it, or to run it from the cd/dvd?

Kind of both. I was looking at Knoppix to just play around with and see how it works and I was also going to load up a desktop.

I've run Red Hat as a desktop on a second computer and preferred it over others. We also ran a RH server here at work which was very stable. Plus, Red Hat is usually easy to install. As someone mentioned, DRIVERS, can always be an issue depending on computer and linux dist

Originally Posted by smoked

I have used all of those and if all that you are looking for is a firewall than go with pfsense.

I have an old computer I installed Smoothwall on for testing out firewalls and it was pretty nice. Except I could never get Squid to work. pfsense looks interesting, thanks for pointing that out. I think I'll download that and give it a try.

Originally Posted by sonick

As far as the ip filters and net stuff, that will be available with the kernel, so distro isn't really important. General considerations like not using workstation deployments for dedicated routers and general common sense like that are the only real considerations (extraneous services, especially large, complicated binaries like X on a border router is an egregious no-no).

Yeah, I'm with you there. Always good to cover those type of considerations, though.