If you decide to go with Suse or Redhat, one of the bonus items is that there are IBM Redbooks constructed just for mainframe types trying to use this, foreign, ascii, thing.
The vast majority of documentation is written for the PC world, along with their hardware. The Redbooks, such as "z/VM and Linux on zSeries, from LPAR to virtual Servers in two days", can really walk you thru a lot. However, every Linux distribution is slightly different. Suse V8 installed differently then V7. V9 was slightly different than V8. And then, each service pack may change the panels (Yast in the case of Suse). So you can't just follow the cookbook unless you are installing that exact version/service pack release. The documentation from Suse, changes for each release, but they don't tend to change the mainframe documentation with each one. So, in the early days, I took the Suse documentation, and used the Redbook as a "roseta stone" to help translate. And you really need to get on the Linux390 listserv. There isn't a question that won't be pondered. Whether you get an answer is another story. (usually you do get an answer) Tom Duerbusch THD Consulting
