Re: [PLUG] Mother board/ Linux OS suggestions

["Isaac Bennetch" <bennetch@gmail.com>]

I too use Debian -- but not for anything critical, just personal
stuff. I run the unstable branch which occasionally results in *minor*
problems with package upgrades, but nothing serious. The type of
problems I see are when an upgraded package depends on another package
that hasn't yet been upgraded, so you just "hold" the upgrade until
the new version comes along in a few hours/days. I don't have an SMP
processor, but understand that Debian handles those well. The whole
thing about Debian is stability, if you stick with "stable" you might
not get the latest updates to a particular software package (my wlan
drivers a few years ago suffered that problem, had to install them
manually since Debian didn't package the new version), but as Matthew
said, the stability is unmatched.

I haven't tried Kubuntu, Ubuntu, etc, but from what I hear they're not
worthwhile.

Hope that helps, good luck.

On 5/23/07, Matthew Rosewarne <mukidohime@case.edu> wrote:
> On Wednesday 23 May 2007 00:48, Doug Crompton wrote:
> > I was also looking at Kubuntu 7.04 as the OS. I have not followed the
> > Linux distributions lately, so I am not sure if this is a good choice. I
> > honestly have never run my current system in anything other than command
> > line mode! I am comfortable not using a windowing system and I have no
> > problem with continuing doing that so a linux flavor that would support
> > dmraid, the core 2 duo (I guess this is an smp kernel?) and no graphics
> > would be fine.
> >
> > I am use to the SUSE 7.3 file structure but I don't expect I would find
> > anything much like that now. I really just want a late, stable linux that
> > has a broad SW base. It is going to be hard enough to switch all this
> > over. That is why I want to get it going BEFORE I have a failure.
>
>
> While there is a server version of Ubuntu, there's very little reason to use
> it over Debian.    Ubuntu's server version is merely Ubuntu without its
> customised GUI, which is really it's only attraction. The Debian install
> process is at least as good as that of Ubuntu, and the administrative tools
> are the same.  I switched from Suse to Debian not long after I noticed a
> steady decline in the quality of the Suse distribution, and I would say I'm
> quite pleased with the results.  I was looking forward to Ubuntu when it was
> announced, but every version I have tried has suffered from serious quality &
> reliability problems, just what I was trying to escape.
>
> Suse's file structure is somewhat odd, I always thought it put way too much
> in /opt, but I suppose it worked well enough.  Debian obsessively follows the
> FHS, which at least makes the locations of things quite predictable.  As for
> stability and breadth of available software, Debian is unmatched.  However,
> the default installation results in a _very_ minimal system, far smaller than
> Suse's most spartan install option.  Great care also devotes a great deal of
> attention to the maintenance of the distribution, including the requirement
> for all of its packages to be updated cleanly and without breaking.  I found
> Suse quite frustrating when it came to upgrading, and would always expect to
> perform a clean install for each new version, but Debian I've only ever
> installed once.
>
> If you want some more info or help, check out the #plug channel, since a good
> number of PLUG members seem to be Debian users.  In any case, I hope all goes
> well with your upgrade.
>
> P.S. I'm also clinging to my old machine, coming up on a decade now...
>
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