Equal parts higher-ed IT, web dev and support; with a dash of freelance consulting thrown in for good measure. (Oct/19: Seeking change of pace. Not afraid to take a step back in order to move ahead!)
I use Linux Mint (Cinnamon edition) as my primary desktop operating system both at the office and at home. The core of Mint is based on Ubuntu LTS; and the Cinnamon desktop environment is reminiscent of Windows 7. Software/Package management is a breeze using Synaptic (and/or Apt), and OS updates are tidy and swift.
I've been a "Linux on the desktop" user for about a dozen years and see no reason to return to the Windows/Mac world anytime soon. For the odd piece of software that only runs on Windows, I have a Windows 10 VM set up in Virtual Box.
In all honesty, you can't go wrong with any of the mainstream distributions whether Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, etc. Likewise, many of the mature desktop environments work well: Cinnamon, Mate, Unity, Gnome3, KDE, XFCE, LXDE, etc. Desktop environment is largely a matter of personal taste, however; so choose one that feels "comfortable".
Most distributions and their various desktop environment flavours offer a Live-CD download. Grab a few and give them a try using Virtual Box. You'll know when you find the right distro for you. :)
Used to do DevOps before they even called it that way: Linux. Python. Perl. Java. Docker. For fun and profit. CTO level generalist working for a mid-sized tech-centric company.
Dresden, Germany
Generally I second the idea of giving many distributions a try and figuring out what "feels good" to you. But this is mostly for "personal" use. In order to build a career, it possibly depends on what you have in mind:
If you really want to go deep into things, you should possibly look at Arch Linux or something built atop of it. This might be a learning curve a bit steeper, but this way you'll learn a load of very basic things about how a Linux environment works. This is something that will come in handy if you look for a career close to the Linux system itself (in example working for RedHat, Ubuntu or some Linux vendor, or maybe some company using Linux for embedded devices).
If you rather intend to do software development and want to work with Linux in a business environment for hosting other services and deploying applications to, you should have a look at Ubuntu (Server/LTS) or RedHat (Enterprise) / CentOS and figure out how to manage these specific systems in terms of overall system administration, package management and the like.
Equal parts higher-ed IT, web dev and support; with a dash of freelance consulting thrown in for good measure. (Oct/19: Seeking change of pace. Not afraid to take a step back in order to move ahead!)
I'm interested in software development, so I think I will start with Ubuntu. However I will try to use more distros in my spare time, maybe I will find another one more comfortable for me. Thank you for the advice guys!
HIGHLY recommend using Virtual Box to test out different distros. It's incredibly fun to fire up virtual machines in a matter of moments. I've found I truly do get the feel for the "right" distros very quickly. No need to endlessly boot from live CDs on a physical machine. VMs are vital experience as it is, so for me it's a no-brainer.
Yeah, In the class I made a disk partition in my laptop, but Im starting to think that it will be easier and faster just to use the virtual machine to discover new distros
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I use Linux Mint (Cinnamon edition) as my primary desktop operating system both at the office and at home. The core of Mint is based on Ubuntu LTS; and the Cinnamon desktop environment is reminiscent of Windows 7. Software/Package management is a breeze using Synaptic (and/or Apt), and OS updates are tidy and swift.
I've been a "Linux on the desktop" user for about a dozen years and see no reason to return to the Windows/Mac world anytime soon. For the odd piece of software that only runs on Windows, I have a Windows 10 VM set up in Virtual Box.
In all honesty, you can't go wrong with any of the mainstream distributions whether Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, etc. Likewise, many of the mature desktop environments work well: Cinnamon, Mate, Unity, Gnome3, KDE, XFCE, LXDE, etc. Desktop environment is largely a matter of personal taste, however; so choose one that feels "comfortable".
Most distributions and their various desktop environment flavours offer a Live-CD download. Grab a few and give them a try using Virtual Box. You'll know when you find the right distro for you. :)
distrowatch.com is a good starting point for discovery.
Generally I second the idea of giving many distributions a try and figuring out what "feels good" to you. But this is mostly for "personal" use. In order to build a career, it possibly depends on what you have in mind:
If you really want to go deep into things, you should possibly look at Arch Linux or something built atop of it. This might be a learning curve a bit steeper, but this way you'll learn a load of very basic things about how a Linux environment works. This is something that will come in handy if you look for a career close to the Linux system itself (in example working for RedHat, Ubuntu or some Linux vendor, or maybe some company using Linux for embedded devices).
If you rather intend to do software development and want to work with Linux in a business environment for hosting other services and deploying applications to, you should have a look at Ubuntu (Server/LTS) or RedHat (Enterprise) / CentOS and figure out how to manage these specific systems in terms of overall system administration, package management and the like.
*nod* What he said!
I'm interested in software development, so I think I will start with Ubuntu. However I will try to use more distros in my spare time, maybe I will find another one more comfortable for me. Thank you for the advice guys!
HIGHLY recommend using Virtual Box to test out different distros. It's incredibly fun to fire up virtual machines in a matter of moments. I've found I truly do get the feel for the "right" distros very quickly. No need to endlessly boot from live CDs on a physical machine. VMs are vital experience as it is, so for me it's a no-brainer.
Yeah, In the class I made a disk partition in my laptop, but Im starting to think that it will be easier and faster just to use the virtual machine to discover new distros