[Wylug-discuss] What Distro to give away....

[Christopher Brown]

2008/10/10 Phil Foxton <phil at thefoxtons.org.uk>:

> And my advice to people considering a career in IT? Don't do it unless
> you have a real passion for it, the starting salaries are poor and the
> work menial, it can take 10 years, and a real talent, before you start
> seeing decent money.

Sorry to follow on in a completely separate email. I'd mostly agree
with the above, though I'm now earning what I consider a decent salary
after six years, including three at university. I think everyone
should have a real passion for their work, otherwise they are an
example of a wasted life, though I.T. in particular is demanding and
often thankless. I wouldn't say the work is menial as I have never
experienced it as such but an awful lot of people have a train wreck
of a personal life as a result of the long hours often involved. I
still love it and never think of changing.

As for a distro, I'm a little annoyed by the comment that "Ubuntu
would be the obvious choice" though I understand the sentiment behind
it. As the saying goes, "The path of least resistance is also the
worst possible teacher of how to administer Linux". I am a Fedorite at
heart though have great respect for the Debian folks and would
actually recommend something like Debian, Slackware or Fedora as a
start rather than Ubuntu which I find too frequently kowtows to the
whims of the big hardware vendors, is not deployed to any extent in
the corporate environment and is backed by a rich bloke with limited
funds, albeit worthy ambitions.

Anyway, hope it goes well and it would be lovely to hear back from you
post-event.

Regards

-- 
Christopher Brown