🚀 go-pugleaf

Michael Strates wrote:
>
>Actually, I don't see why we're having this conversation -- heck, every
>distribution is easy to install, "even a chicken can install Debian",
>"Redhat's the easiest", "Slackware's Simple!"
>
>They are /all/ easy enough to install. Comments?

You are right.  All of the obvious candidates are easy enough to install.

The "best distribution" question is asked by people who have never
installed any distribution, and presumably are afraid of choosing
a bummer and getting burnt.  

The question might on this occasion be framed in terms of ease of
installation, but that is only one of dozens of criteria on which Linux
distributions might be compared.  Anyone who had the time, resources and
desire to conduct an exhaustive comparison would probably, at the end of
it, say that in summary there was no significant difference between them
in terms of overall merit.

I think the correct response is to say that all of the major
distributions are of good repute.  It is safe and reasonable to choose
any of Debian, RedHat and Slackware.  We may argue over others, but that
is sufficient advice.

Unfortunately the question can provoke an excessive response from those
who enthusiastically urge the merits of a particular distribution that
they themselves have embraced, and the person who originally asked the
question gets forgotten in the ensuing flame war.

It is silly, because that person really didn't want to know about that.
And different people are different.  If RedHat wins the war he might
install it, and months later come across MCC and find that it suits
him down to the ground.

It is silly also because even the most clueless Linux user, if he has
ever installed Linux, knows about some distribution.  He might not
know a single other thing about Linux, but he knows about that, there
is at last some advice he can post to the newsgroup, and he can get
into arguments with others equally clueless.

--Mike