Distro Recommendations?

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Nonconformist Geek
I’ve been asked to help a small organization migrate from illegal OSes & software to a legal, open-source software environment. They don’t know the first thing about *nix, so I’ll basically be handling the whole thing from the ground up, including training. That means it’ll have to be super user-friendly (i.e. out-of-the-box with KDE or Gnome, etc). They are on a tight budget, but not zero budget. So preferably, the distro should be readily downloadable and have the option of site license tech support. Also, this is a long-term solution, so I’d like to stay away from distros like Lindows, which costs quite a bit and may or may not be around tomorrow. Currently I’m considering the likes of Mandrake or Redhat, with perhaps BSD on the server end. Any suggestions?
 
Well I don't know much about Linux, but what I know is that Mandrake is the closest to windows you'll ever get.
I knowRedHat is another big distro. They're backed up by a big company so packages and info on redhat is very easy to find.

But if you want tons and tons of features, programs, etc. Go with SuSe. I had installed the 8.2 Pro version and ended up with 8gb of stuff !!
It includes drawing programs, developper suites, etc. There's something called KDevelopper I think, which is the exact same thing as Visual Studio, the only difference is that it's completely free !

That's all I can tell you, maybe someone else knows more about Linux here.
 
I've played around with Linux a little, and basically with Mandrake. I did have it running on my file server for a little bit. I'm not a real Linux guru, but Mandrake has been getting better over it's releases. I've briefly run across one of the newer distros of RedHat and it was pretty smooth sailing to setup, but it was just one day in my networking OS's class.
 
Yeah, I've used Mandrake and Redhat quite a bit, as well as Slackware, Debian and Caldera. I haven't used Suse yet, but I've heard good things about it. So far, I'm thinking Redhat has the most palletable platform, since they have a very regulated distro with good QA. But before I make any decisions, I'm going to check out Vector Linux, which is based on Slackware. The cool thing about VL is that it actually has a nice installer and front-end, but it's still non-bloated like Slackware. We'll see how that goes. Suggestions still welcome!

P.S. - Big B, a few questions: how did Mandrake perform on your file server, what version were you running, and was it a SAMBA server or Unix share (or both)?
 
It was 7.1...or 7.2 I have both and forget what one I used. I ran Samba and it worked well. I ended up reverting to XP as there was something that was fscking with the rest of the network so Linux had to go if I couldn't fix it.
 
Thanks for the info, Big B.

Has anyone tried or heard anything about Lycoris? http://lycoris.com It looks like it might be a good way to ease these guys into Linux. My big concern is that they'll become quickly frustrated because of the learning curve and give up on open source altogether. That means that a small, non-profit organization will have to fork out $10,000+ in licensing fees. Not good. And that's just a one-year projection, imagine the long run...
 
I've heard of it, but that's about it...I know alot of people over at 2CPU like Slackware and Gentoo. I'd check their forums out. Alot of professional geeks are there that are likely to have more info about Linux than what I can give ya.
There's gonna be a learning curve going to Linux, period. It is usable, but it might be wise to have an intro class to help them get around, if at all possible. I don't know what you're thinking for the desktop, but KDE's probably going to be the best choice for them, whatever distro you use. I personally don't like anything else. I don't like StarOffice as well, but that's a feebie too and alot of newer distro's have it included. If not, Corel Office is available for Linux...
 
Star Office, Slackware, Gentoo...

To be honest, I haven't even used Star Office yet. I have been using OpenOffice.org for some time though, and everyone in the organization in question has a copy on their system as well (in Windows). I’m definitely going to check out Star Office 7 before making any decisions, but since OOo is readily available for download with no registration, that’ll probably be the direction we go.

As far as Slackware goes, it is a very good distro, but not my first choice for a desktop distro. It’s great for servers, and it may end up on some yet, but not a good choice for this group as a desktop platform. Part of the reason is because it’s difficult to set up, and since I’ll have to deploy it single-handedly, that’s a big deterrent. Also, the packages for Slackware tend to be a little older, which again is good for server application but not so much for desktop.

Regarding Gentoo, the difficulties it presents are almost the opposite of Slackware’s. Its packages are highly up-to-date, and the installation process is fairly straight-forward. However, since packages on Gentoo are not pre-compiled, the system is custom tailored to each individual machine upon installation. While this makes for a fast, clean-running OS, it takes 36-48 hours on a modern system to compile. :( Imagine trying to deploy that on a tight deadline, or redeploy it after catastrophic system failure...
 
After posting over at forums.2cpu.com as recommended by Big B, I think Fedora Linux will be the best choice for the situation. Since it's really Redhat (only open, free and improved), it should be perfect for client and server alike. And like Redhat, easy to manage.
 
AN UPDATE

on this dusty thread:

It seems that Fedora is simply a beta version of Red Hat's Enterprise product. That simply will not do. After running it on a few machines myself, I despise it. At this point, I'm pushing for Mandrake (currently 9.2). Fast, cheap, excellent package selection, and still supported.
 
I say go with Red Hat

I love linux since I first ran it over 6 years ago. But the easiest way I was able to learn the OS was install Red Hat for the simple fact that there is TONS of documentation on the internet and tons of support to get you started like this beauty of a site http://www.tldp.org.

Let me know how it goes :)

Andy
Admin
http://www.torontoitsolutions.com
 
We ended up going with Mandrake and CentOS (free Red Hat Enterprise) on the server end, and Windows 2000 Pro on the client end. A major university donated 2-dozen licenses, so we went ahead and went that way. As much as I'd like to get these guys totally open-source, they're simply married to Microsoft. At least the servers never crash (Samba 3.02 PDC & file servers). :)
 
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