Holy Wars - UAFLUG Wiki

Ubuntu is an easy-to-use introductory linux distro that is enjoying insane popularity among new linux users and those tired of waiting for debian to join the modern world.
Red Hat, and its new versions "Fedora Core" are the most popular distros. Red Hat-derived distros use "RPM" (Red Hat Package Manager) files.
Mandriva (Mandrake) is a similar RPM-based distro.
SuSE is a RPM-based distro with "YaST" package updates. SuSE is quite complete, which makes it heavyweight (8 CDs!) but full of good stuff.
Debian is a stable distribution based on .deb packages, with the nice "apt-get" tool. Debian is popular on servers since its desktop side is a bit stale.
Gentoo is a sourcecode-based distro that's popular with programmers. They manage packages with "emerge".
Slackware is a minimalist command-line distro for hardcore UNIX lovers. Slackware packages are just .tgz tarballs.
LFS is good for those want to learn about the internals of a Linux system. Using LinuxFromScratch(book/livecd) your linux system piece-by-piece. For more info visit http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ .

NEdit is just like notepad, but functional. Save is just "control-S".
Emacs is highly configurable. It's a horrible LISP-based interface, but at least it's graphical. Save is "control-x control-s"
Vi is available on every machine. You're likely to encounter vi as a console application. Save is "ESC : w". learn-it-use-it-love-it
Nano is a character-based but GUI-lookin' editor. Even mortals can use it. Save is "control O", but it tells you this at the bottom of the screen.
Joe is an emacs-style character-based editor.
SciTE is like notepad++ and Scintilla. Syntax highlighting, tabbed, etc..