Linux Distros

[pbsmind]

...If you are looking for business related reasons, stay away from Fedora...

I wouldn't say stay away from Fedora, it's Red Hat's testing ground. Makes a good desktop and can use it for test servers. Just wouldn't use it in a production environment as it has a short life cycle.

[ibanezfoo]

While ANY Linux experience is transferable to any distro, if your looking to really get to know a particular flavor that would be of value on a resume, then CentOS i the way to go.

Lets you learn Red Hat without the cost of buying Red Hat. Red Hat is going to be what most places are going to be looking for. Not all, but a lot. Fedora is close, but not identical to for purchase Red Hat. CentOS works to be identical minus the branding.

Actually a lot of places I've seen have dropped Red Hat and are just using CentOS these days...

[NytWolf]

If you truly want to learn Unix at home, then get FreeBSD and build your own kernel. And get used to the cshell.

If you want to go mainstream, then get RedHat. All Linux distributions are just that -- distributions. The packaging is what is different -- inside the box, it's all the same.

[Coded-Dude]

Linux From Scratch(LFS) is a good way to hone your skills as a power user. I'd say like the others said. CentOS or RedHat.

[Akers]

Send me a PM and I will guide you where I can. I am a systems engineer and have been for 15 years at two of the largest companies in San Diego. I can help with questions you may have and give you example of what we use in our enterprise.

To be as quick as possible, Redhat (because it is widespread and you can buy support for it) and a good scripting language will get you far, something simple and powerful like Perl or Python.

Also let me know what area of Texas if your still there, we have an office in Coppell and might be looking for people who are willing to learn and work.

[Akers]

If your looking for futures, learn ESX....as much about vmware as you possibly can. Every single company I know is going virtual. SDG&E is offering credits up to 200k to decrease power and cooling in data centers, not to mention the increased interest in disaster recovery sites and ESX's ease of use with SRM making it much easier to adopt.

[chaunbot]

UbunTu and mint are both based off the same distro, debain. Would switch it up with gento or something if you are looking for variety

[exklusve]

Any distro will work. Just stay at the CLI and don't use the GUI.
You wont really 'learn' any skills by relying on the GUI.

Setup services like mentioned in previous posts, harden your system and services, and any *nix admin worth a youknowwhat has to be able to compile their own kernel from source. (This can also be said for other software.) It's a pain in the *** but it's good practice, install something simple like irssi from source with SSL support. Then try other packages. Is this what happens on *nix systems in production in the real world? Not on many machines no. Is it great practice to help you familiarize yourself with the OS, libraries, syntax, etc? you bet!

Good luck in your *nix adventures.

[AAShooter]

I am currently reading Tannebaum's Operating Systems Design and Implementation (Minix). It is very helpful in figuring out the details for O/Ss.