[Tyler1989]

Despite our own personal refrences to what we think it the overall superior Linux distro I think Fedora has a easy Server setup using HTTP Mail FTP etc. Also has Apache as a packadge.

[filter996]

Ubuntu was a complete pain for me. Never again. Tons of crashing. I recently downloaded Mandriva. We'll see how that goes.

[Qiranworms]

(and I forgot to set a root password...oops)

Last time I used Ubuntu (sometime before March when I discovered how much I love Gentoo) it has root disabled by default. You use 'sudo' to do things with root-level permissions, which means that your original user account should already have the permissions to sudo, using its own password.

[AND_YOU_ARE]

So many differnt opinions, which to choose? Urg. Thanks for the suggestions and experence, keep it coming.

I dont plan on making a ftp server, but a game server on a network.

[horndude]

well, there's hundreds of linux distro's, what do you expect

best way, find someone that knows what their doing, that isnt too tough to figure out, just have a look around here

browse some of the linux distro websites too, it would suck to install a distro then goto their website for help and find out their website is garbage huh?

[AND_YOU_ARE]

Yeah, well that is just about what I did. I was told FC4 was the easiest one for creating a game server, so i went through got it to install fine, and then was trying to find a guide or tutorial to understand how to use it as a os, and for setting up a server. I havent found anything helpful, I spent a full day browsing site after site.

THis is why I have resorted to finding a distro and a book, and go through it that way. Unless some one has a better idea.

I know it takes some time to learn any linux, and i dont expect to be able to use it to its fullest in a day, I would just like to find some literature that will walk me through any particular distro.

I guess I need to know what distro would be easiest to create a hlds, and use it as a primary os.

[horndude]

a good distro will have a decent getting started guide, slackware, ubuntu, debian, and a few others have these........
http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/fedora-install-guide-en/
^^^^redhat's fedora guide^^^^

hlds...that a half life server? If so, google for "linux half life server", there are guides for that sort of thing

bottom line, unless you have some unix skills and linux experience, none of them are easy.........I see guys come here all the time stuck cause they chose a distro that has lots of automated install apps but they failed to deal with their hardware and they dont know what to do, or they jumped right in and didnt even check to see if their hardware was compatible at all

[jhunholz]

First, everyone who is saying Ubuntu is a pain is in the minority. Since 5.10 it has been the easiest distro to install and work with probably...very comparable to Mandriva. But here's the catch: the best way to learn linux is to mess up and figure out how to fix the problems. It's not meant to be like Windows where you just pop in a CD and go. Rather, it gives you the power of options and choices!

My advice now: learn the power of the console! Of course a GUI can be useful for many things, but learn to do things by command line. You will thank yourself later. Especially when you're setting up stuff on a server...a linux server doesn't need X (the GUI for linux). All you need is a command prompt!

Personally, I wouldn't buy a book. They are expensive and very short-lived. Anything you can learn from a book you can learn online as well. That's one plus to going with Ubuntu...they have a VERY active community and are quite helpful. After you get a handle on the basics and are ready for something a bit scarier, give Gentoo a try! I think that's the best way to advance from a beginner to an intermediate/expert. Gentoo is installed all from source, so you learn how the different tools all work together.

Anyway, good luck! And if you need help, post in a forum...there's lots of great ones for help.