What Linux distro for use on hyper-v

[StrikedOut]

What would you all recommend to someone who want to learn more about Linux? I spend my life on Windows and have installed and played around with Ubuntu and Mint a couple of times but lost interest. I am in the process of installing Windows Server 2016 and will be install Hyper-V to play with some variations of Linux but want some ideas on what to do to learn more about the running and administering of both a client and server?

[Jim K Global Moderator]

I went ahead a split your question into its own thread. I really do not have an answer (Linux isn't really my area of expertise)...but hopefully someone can give you sound advice. If you want the title changed...just let me know.

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

If you really want to learn the insides and outs of Linux, use Arch. But as I see you are rather new, I'd get Debian.

[Barney T. Administrators]

https://dzone.com/articles/hyper-v-how-to-run-ubuntu-or-any-linux-on-windows

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/supported-linux-and-freebsd-virtual-machines-for-hyper-v-on-windows

 

https://www.5nine.com/linux-on-hyper-v/

 

[GrayW]

Server side:

DEB: Ubuntu https://www.ubuntu.com/ - Not my personal choice but everyone and their dog is happy to use it. Also as @Mindovermaster mentioned, you could just go plain old Debian: https://www.debian.org/distrib/ too.

 

RPM: CentOS: https://www.centos.org/ - This is pretty much RedHat without the licensing fees. My go-to choice whenever possible. A lot of people will just go straight out and change SELinux to permissive. Take the time to work with it, not fight it if you can... easier said than done sometimes though.

 

Client side:

Ubuntu: https://www.ubuntu.com/ - Again, not my personal choice but so much support out there for everything

Fedora: https://getfedora.org/- The client side of RedHat/CentOS. Their server offering is cool to play with too

openSUSE: https://www.opensuse.org/ - My personal fav. I can't tell you why but it just feels right for me, and that is the joy of Linux. There's something a little different for everyone! Will also give you a feel for how SUSE server would act.

 

Arch: https://archlinux.org/ is also fantastic, and definitely something you should look into once you have a good grounding. There is just no beating the AUR for package availability https://aur.archlinux.org/

 

I'm a VMware person, so not sure about HyperV and snapshots, but whatever the equivalent is, make use of them and BREAK things so you can learn how/if you can fix it.

 

Oh, and if you're not sure which desktop environment to choose when experimenting... KDE: https://www.kde.org/plasma-desktop.php all the way ;).

 

There's so much more out there too, although these are probably the most popular. Enjoy the journey, it's awesome.

 

[satukoro]

I recommend Ubuntu (Budgie or Gnome) to get a Linux 101 experience.

[darkz]

CrunchBang++. It's Debian based too, so fairly easy, still has a lot of GUI tools, if You're bored with that then I would suggest Arch

[linettereed]

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS runs great on Hyper-V server. I am also running on FTP server and gitlab server on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and they all are working fine and pretty stable. I would certainly suggest it for Hyper-V at any point of time.

[adrynalyne]

There are better hypervisors for Linux. That said, your best user experience with hyper-v will be with Windows 10 1803 and Ubuntu 18.04. 

https://www.tenforums.com/virtualization/107147-guide-how-run-ubuntu-18-04-enhanced-mode-hyper-v.html