EH-Net

Ubuntu running gnome classic for daily use, Backtrack for security tools

Many of the distros that are out there are forks of either redhat (fedora, cent, etc..) or of Debian (ubuntu, mint, oracle, etc...) I tend to prefer the debian route myself, largely because I've spent more time with it, however, you'll find redhat or derivatives in business use more often because you can find support more easily.

I prefer Ubuntu for normal day to day use personally (although I do also use Fedora), and Backtrack for security tools.


What's your motivation for learning Linux, and why are you thinking of changing Fedora?

I'm a fan of Mint.

I tried mint briefly. It was just different enough to irritate me into going back to ubuntu.

I had an appliance running Arch a while back. When it came down to it, I wasn't going to switch all of my boxen to it, and it was more aggravation to deal with an odd-man-out distro. Standardization is (usually) your friend.

Ubuntu for desktop/laptop (and derivatives like Helix, SIFT, MobiSec, Samurai-WTF, Security Onion and of course Backtrack for specialized needs)

Centos and Redhat for servers. Redhat if it's a user facing box or one where uptime is critical, but mostly just run Centos for those systems I am using for security tasks.

OpenBSD for firewalls (have been known to use IPcop (not BSD) but these days it's a m0n0wall (freebsd)or more likely pfSense (freebsd) if I need a ready built firewall)

Ahh totally spaced pfSense. I use it as well. This is, however, a specialized distro for firewalls, not a general purpose system. Definitely worth taking a look at though. I've also used IPCop and Smoothwall at one time or another, but I like pfSense better.

Not knowing how new you are to Linux, I've heard quite a few people recommend Mint for someone coming straight from a Windows background.

An advantage of learning a Debian based distro is that Backtrack is currently Debian (Ubuntu) based.

If your goal is to learn, then try them all for a month or two until you're familiar with them. At some point you'll figure out which one you prefer and then you can use that. I use Ubuntu these days but I wouldn't recommend it if your goal is to learn Linux. I'd rather you start with something more bare bones and go through the pain of setting up everything so you learn how it works. When I started off, it was with Slackware, then RedHat, then Gentoo, and then Ubuntu.

It was Yggdrasil for me. Talk about doing things manually  :P

Nice. My Linux choices early on were limited to whatever came packaged in Infomagic CD cases.

Top 100 listed on the right: http://distrowatch.com/

maybe I'm really just a gray beard in disguise.

Day to day I run Debian on all systems. Some have XFCE some have Gnome2 (those will be XFCE soon). I have several CentOS based virtual test boxes, since I found those in the enterprise (used to be an enterprise Linux admin). My web / mail server runs debian command line only.

I also have a sun ultra Sparc kicking round with Solaris 8 on it, at least I don't think I upgraded to Solaris 10. The ELA job we had Sparc stations I had to maintain too, but have had my sun box since 1999.

I also have a couple of BSD virtuals.


If you really want to learn, try to avoid a gui as much as possible. Not saying they're bad, but if you're serious about learning linux you need to know what is under the hood.

Oh, and learn to compile from source / tarball.

I'm relatively new to linux, started with Ubunutu and Mepis, been running BT4 and 5 as my main OS to force myself to learn how to do basic things with it in addition to all the tools.

Considering that it wasn't designed to be a day to day operating system that sounds painful. Are you using it as a desktop or just a server where the fun lives?

You may already know this but I'd suggest being careful using Backtrack as your main OS. Backtrack by design runs as root, and running as root can be dangerous from both a usage and security perspective.

I've done this in the past and just locked down SSH and created a lower privileged user, modify visudo, etc. Even doing so, you are running a crapton of services and often times older vulnerable versions of software. I'd be very careful here. You will get the same benefit from just running Ubuntu. I'd recommend running Ubuntu as baremetal OS and then running a BT5 VM or booting off USB/DVD when you need it.

I initially used it for everything, just to get used to the interface, learning how to install and update new stuff, manage files, find where stuff lives, get comfortable with the command line. All my important stuff I've got in Dropbox, email via webmail, so if I screw it badly reloading is fine.

Using it as my main OS for awhile was really the only way I was going learn it.

Did you at least harden it? lower privileged account, firewall, disable un-needed services, etc? (ok bad plug for my derbycon talk).

Hey cool, you've got the nap slot. I'll have to be sure to drop in :)

No, I didn't harden it at all, just dove right in total noob style. I learned about what to tweak later on. Not storing any gold bars on it, and it really just gets use in my home office / lab / mess.

Nap slot? people take naps on Sundays? I think it's a lot better than my slot for GrrCON (8pm on Thursday night).

Heck yes. Right after lunch is prime napping weather  ;D

A friend of mine did that. Went out on a pentest. got a little surprised when the box popped up saying shutting down now, you got caught.

Another friend does that where he works, works for a college. He's got stuff running looking for the backtrack box names connecting to his network, and then shuts the ports down.

That's funny. Does he just ssh in and try the default username / pass?