🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <873dc928sn.fsf@toncho.dhh.gt.org>,
John Hasler  <john@dhh.gt.org> wrote:
>J. Bruce Fields writes:
>> Because $4 is nothing compared to the hour or more it will take to
>> install each of distribution. You're better off picking one and sticking
>> with it.
>
>If you are not willing to invest a few hours in the selection of a new
>operating system you would be better off sticking with Windows.

OK, fair enough, but we're talking about the choice of a distribution, not
an operating system.  I don't think the choice between Redhat and Debian
is worth investing as much time in as would be the choice between, say,
GNU/Linux and Windows.  It's worth thinking about at least a little, but
that's not the question--the question is whether it's worth actually
installing several different distributions yourself.  But what does a
newbie really learn by installing 2 or 3 different distributions?

The important differences between them are not all so obvious at
first--perhaps distribution A works great for you the first day, but is,
for various possibly rather subtle reasons, harder to maintain than
distribution B, and won't install as well on the hardware you plan to use
next year as distribution C would.

The time it takes to go through several different install processes is a
lot of time that would be better spent, say, learning to use a shell, or
learning how the boot process works, knowledge which will be useful to you
know matter which distribution you end up with.

For a newbie the best plan is to pick a distribution that they know they
can get help with (maybe a friend uses it), and stick with it for a year
or so.  After a year, maybe they'll be in a better position to make a
different decision.

---Bruce Fields