Re: [PLUG] "Distro" advocates

["Matt Heyer" <mheyer@quarterleaf.com>]

Jason,

I have also used several of the distro's that you have mentioned and I would agree with
your description of Debian, Red Hat, and SuSE. Yet I would disagree with you on one
point, Caldera's OpenLinux 2.4.

While it may not suite you as a 'hard-core' Linux user, it does do exactly what it set's
out to do. Bridge the gap between Windows and Linux. A few of my friends (and family)
who were part of the 'Microsoft Collective', finally detached themselves and got started
on Openlinux. They love it. And isn't that the point? That's not to say the will stay
there, but it's a great starting point. Most people can't start out using Debian or even
Red Hat, it's intimidating to some people.

I am not going to try and change your mind, you probably have some good reasons why you
feel like 'puking', but I just wanted give another prospective.

-Matt

Jason Costomiris wrote:

> On Thu, May 25, 2000 at 10:44:10AM -0400, Trevor J Martin wrote:
> : My question is : What would be the best distribution of linux to throw
> : on this box?
>
> I've used most of the mainstream distributions at one time or another.
> Here's my take:
>
> Debian: Rock solid stability.  As a package management tool, I prefer
>                 dpkg to rpm.  dpkg offers more flexibility, such as diversions,
>                 and of course the whole integration with apt thing too.  The
>                 distro is the most stable I've seen.  The problem is that with
>                 that stability comes rigidity.  While Debian was the first
>                 distro to ship kernel 2.0, they've fallen WAY behind with their
>                 releases.  Debian has not yet shipped a release containing
>                 glibc 2.1 or higher.  2.1.3 is in the "frozen" distribution,
>                 which will ship some day, but no releases with a recent glibc.
>
> RedHat: Feature packed, sometimes to its peril (ref: the RH 6.0 GNOME/E
>                 setup).  As a package tool, rpm is good, but lacks some of the
>                 refinements that dpkg offers (and who can't use a few refinements?).
>                 Package versions tend to be more "bleeding edge" than Debian.
>
> Mandrake:       RedHat, with even more bleeding edge stuff.  They've finally
>                 started to diverge from RedHat, with the 7.0 and 7.1 releases,
>                 which sport a nifty Qt-based installer.  Very KDE friendly, but
>                 not unfriendly to GNOME.  Uses RPM for package management.
>
> Slackware:      It's gotten better since Pat Volkerding started paying
>                 attention to what's going on again.  For a LONG time, this distro
>                 lagged behind.  No serious package management to speak of here.
>                 IMHO, it's a nightmare to maintain stable Slackware systems,
>                 especially when you've got more than one system to maintain.
>                 With RedHat, Debian, Mandrake, Caldera, SuSE or Corel, I've got
>                 a reasonable package management system that keeps my machines
>                 consistent.
>
> Caldera:        Puke.  I hate it.  It feels like a bunch of Novell guys
>                 created a Linux distro.  Oh wait, they did. :)  Everything about
>                 how it works annoyed me.  When I installed OpenLinux 2.2, widely
>                 heralded as "wonderful", it insisted on inserting every kernel
>                 module under the sun, and I had a heck of a time making that
>                 stop.
>
> SuSE:   Almost feels like RedHat, but ickier.  YaST (their system management
>                 tool), annoys me endlessly.  Good package management (RPM based).
>
> My recommendation?  RedHat 6.2.  Very stable, very up to date, good, but
> not amazingly good package management system.  Lots of hardware support,
> even for my emu10k1 based PCI sound card (sb live!).
>
> --
> Jason Costomiris <><           |  Technologist, geek, human.
> jcostom {at} jasons {dot} org  |  http://www.jasons.org/
>
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