Heya guys!
I need a mature/sane linux distro that works out of the box and is actively developed by a strong core of devs.
Any rising stars out there or distro's worth looking into? I have some understanding in *NIX based systems but am kinda out of the loop on developments and hype.
In return for solid advice, I can perhaps share experience or answer questions related to infosecurity. I am professionally engaged in the pentest field.
Fedora.
I don't know how Red Hat or the developers do it, but Fedora has always been a stupidly stable and shiny distro for me, despite aiming to be relatively bleeding-edge.
It's shiny and it works. And it's all I can ask from a distro.
Xubuntu
Fedora or debian. It just depends on which you prefer.
Thank you for your input.
Unfortunately I have been at odds with Gnome, as I had some squabbles on design philosophy with some of their lead devs. Met them in Karlsruhe IT and voiced my worry regarding the direction Gnome is heading. Sadly, this had been met with a rather unsatisfactory response. So i`m steering clear from everything that reeks of it.
Ubuntu minimal install or a version of Ubuntu with a good DE.
Debian is also good, from what I've heard.
The only remotely usable distro is gentoo. Ubuntu is downright unusable now, fedora is a clusterfuck of cancer and bugs, opensuse is all but dead, slackware is deprecated, enjoy your broken X on arch, and everything else has all of 10 packages available in their repos.
well here are some choices:
Ubuntu/Debian: kinda all around great, comes in MANY desktop flavors. Gnome, KDE, CLI, XFCE, you name it.
If you need pentest stuff without a hassle check out Kodi Linux but I think the others have packages for it too, also wouldn't call this sane myself.
Fedora/RHEL: Fedora is weird. It's very customizable, I'm sure you can tell it to use KDE or something other than GNOME. But I personally find it installs a bit too much out of the box for me to properly maintain. Ubuntu has this problem if you don't use netinst and select the package groups yourself.
And OpenSuSE is also a decent choice, but idk how they've been fairing in recent years.
Same user here.
I feel you on the Gnome devs and how they react to people who aren't them. Though I recommended it because it's easy to install other desktop environments like Xfce and LXDE on them.
Debian is also a pretty nice and stable base. You really can't go wrong with it, because the devs lock-down each release and spend 3 years squashing bugs until it's ready.
Also, got any advice for an up-and-coming sysadmin who wants to get into infosec? I am but a plebian sysadmin, but I've always wanted to get into infosec/netsec, but I've never been sure on what kind of path to take.
And what's the hiring landscape like for someone reasonably skilled in infosec? And how scary is it to be liable for stuff that can cost some companies millions if they ever get their shit rocked by crackers?
>gentoo
>not using funtoo
It literally has "fun" in the name. What more could you ask for?
A maintainer who isn't retarded :^)
Try Fedora XFCE or MATE then.
kek, upvoted
>OpenSUSE
I used to recommend OpenSUSE for being a solid workhorse, and for having the most stable and polished KDE I've ever seen in any distro, but they've let me down release after release in recent years.
Something always goes wrong for me in SUSE, ranging from graphical driver bugs, YaST exploding, random things not working, and upgrades being a pain.
I made in case anyone's also curious about the state of OpenSUSE like I am.
Thank you all for your reactions. One question:
What is wrong with KDE?
>Also, got any advice for an up-and-coming sysadmin who wants to get into infosec?
It depends on what kind of sysadmin you are. If you are a windows-based sysadmin, breaking into infosec will be like hell for you. If you are linux oriented it will be very easy. I mean most of us whitehats are half-baked sysadmins anyway. What is important is to understand how stuff works, and having the mental agility to adapt and learn how stuff works. Add to this a fundamental understanding of TCP/IP and you should be able to tip your toes into infosec by getting a Security+ certificate.
From there on it`s all about engineering your boss into letting you gain infosec related experience by doing security stuff. This can be translated into CISSP if the technicalities prove too hardcore, or be a badass hacker and go OSCP route.
>And what's the hiring landscape like for someone reasonably skilled in infosec?
You drown in job opportunities. Literally. Skilled infosecurity specialists are very rare. Mainly due to the type of people you need(big picture thinkers), those are hard to come by. I personally have to snatch people as young as 18y to start working the field, otherwise I might lose them to a competitor.
>And how scary is it to be liable for stuff that can cost some companies millions if they ever get their shit rocked by crackers?
We lock risks down by a solid legal-team if we represent the crackers. But if it is an outsider, we are not held liable -as technical professional you are not the decision maker. It`s up high in tree where birds start falling down. I´m just the guy with the chainsaw at the bottom.
Use MATE brah
I know older laptops can't run GNOME because of its animetions
>out of the box
Ubuntu, Fedora, Manjaro, maybe Debian if an hour-two of config is still "OOTB"
pick your poison
>What is wrong with KDE?
It's the Windows ME of linux desktop environments
Used to be on Fedora GNOME, am now on openSUSE KDE.
Thoroughly recommend the latter. I use Tumbleweed, but perhaps you'd prefer the more stable releases.
>Kodi Linux
What?
Ignore retards, maybe they'll just go away if you do.