I know nothing...

tolinrome

I know nothing of Linux and after reading a few articles etc I'm currently downloading linux mint. I want to though, run it on a Windows 7 platform. What VM can I use that will host Linux Mint?

Also, Since I know networking\sytem admin (but its all Windows), I read on a forum here that releases such as slackware are the best to use to really learn linux since you have to do all the leg work to get the OS running. I guess this is a common way to learn?

What, though, is the best or what should I start with as a linux Distro for Server Administration?

Thanks!

zdenek.styblik

Hi,

I don't know Windows, but Virtual Box sounds as a good bet on Windows. It's for free. The second bet is VMware, but I'm not sure whether it's free or not.

As for distribution for server; what's wrong with Slackware? No, it really depends on the scale. Personally, I think Slackware is ok if you have a dozen servers. But I don't think it's manageable on larger scale. Also, I have seen only one job post related to Slackware in ~ 13 years. Despite it's really good for experience, as you've pointed out, despite I like Slackware and I'm using it for 13 years, I recommend you to look into Debian. But then, once you tame Slackware you'll see other distributions as "just another Linux, no problem" And it's true in the end. It's all Linux and difference is in details.

mfillpot

I agree that virtualbox is the best personal VM to run within windows.

in the other post I used slackware as an example because of all of the distros it is the one that tries hardest to be the most unix like and similiar to enterprise unix systems. Slackware 32-bit does have a little bug when trying to run it in virtualbox for now because it is using an smp kernel that virtualbox does not like. If you aiming more to learn about enterprise support and administration then fedora or centos would be a good bet because they are widely used and very similar to redhat enterprise linux even with some of their unique tools.

zdenek.styblik

mfillpot wrote:

Slackware 32-bit does have a little bug when trying to run it in virtualbox for now because it is using an smp kernel that virtualbox does not like.

Slackware ships even with non-smp(kernel-generic, kernel-huge) kernel. Also, using 32bit anything nowadays doesn't make much sense, unless you have a good reason, eg. your (x86) platform isn't 64bit yet.