Linux Distros

Interim · 2003-09-05T09:07:12

I decided to take a new look at a lot of the mainstream and popular distros the past week, just sort of seeing how things are and keeping myself current with changes. Thought maybe we could generate a non-flame based discussions on opinions of distros. ::::RedHat Severn. I can't tell the difference from RH 9. Minor kernel version update. Most of the RPMS I've messed with from the CDs are smooth, which I don't remember being the case with 7.3. I do have to admit, I think they made a solid move with BlueCurve despite the backlash they got. It's consistent and once you learn their menu layout, does a decent job of administering your UI environment. I did find some bugs here and there with some of the UI config tools, but nothing mind shaking. I still find the script-chains for network configuration annoying (x.script -> y.script -> z.script -> zz.configfile). But once you learn where settings are stored, you can see the logic. I think RHat is on track to cement itself in as the server platform of choice for Enterprise customers. The UI will goes a long way to helping companies create mixed environments without needing a massive team of Unix gurus. (they'll still need a few though *grin*). I think the top distro breaks down by region: USA->RHat, Europe->Suse, Asia->TurboLinux ::::Slackware 9.0 I never tried this, but gave it a shot. I loved the install (still like to run fdisk myself and create my filesystems). The install being simple and typical unix geek appealed to me. I liked the basic system, though I think they're init scripts are way too simple. Still, with some time, I think it would customize nicely for a dilegent admin. I can see why it appeals to the minimalists. Its easy to get swamped under all the software installed on some distros by default. Slack seemed to keep to the core basics. I have to admit though, the thought of tracking dependencies for make; make && make install isn't appealing anymore. I don't mind the occasional custom job and tracking bugs, but I really don't want to go back to doing that daily. OSS is getting too mature for that IMHO. Though the package system was nice, there were not as many pre-built packages compared to RPM, APT, PORTS, or PORTAGE. (I guess Alien would help quite a bit). :::::Debian "sid" Been unlucky with this one the past few times. Had hardware conflicts with the sid images I got and didn't have the personal time to really track them down. I tried sarge, still good old Debian. Have to love apt-get and dpkg. Only thing is having to jump some hoops to get XFree86 4.3.0. I saw the experimental package, but convinced it was still the rock solid Debian I remember and use *grin* I just moved on. :::::FreeBSD 5.1 Well, not Linux, but I like it. Been using this for some low priority production servers without problem. I had some problems with my HP CD Writer and my Firewire DVD RW, looks like a driver bug. Got to love ports and packages on BSD and the common administration tools and config files. Probably need to wait for STABLE to come out in a few months. :::::Gentoo 1.4 The last one on my list. I'm finising the install on this up today. I didn't find it that hard to install, though I was suprised to see they do it all manually. But the LiveCD shell was nicely done. Emerge looks great. I personally don't mind compiling some OSS (almost always port stuff on BSD anyway), but the big boys and girls (XFree, Gnome, KDE, OpenOffice, Mozilla, etc) I just don't want to be bothered with, especially since most are in an event-wait loop most of the time, not much to gain with optimization in most cases (let me know you find this to be wrong from your experiences, please). However, I do like the USE flag option for compiling packages. Makes it easy to rebuild say PHP for Apache with the various options you might require (well, should make it easy, haven't tried it yet). I also like the rc-update and env-update scripts. Convienance is nice. I nearly skipped this, but the positive opinions of people here on the boards as well as some geek feedback on the net kept me looking. Once I found the Stage3 tarballs and the LiveCD for the P4 I gave in. I also found their forums pretty helpful and constructive. You don't find that too often, usually a lot of flaming and attitude. But it looks like they actively run their boards so might be a good reason. Drop your opinions of your distros here, curious what many people are using, why and how they like the experience. Interim. [edited by - Interim on September 3, 2003 1:12:33 PM]

Everything Unix Technical

Started by Interim September 03, 2003 12:10 PM

15 comments, last by Interim 20 years, 8 months ago

Anonymous

September 03, 2003 09:07 PM

Mandrake, for what it is (a friendly, "Windows" oriented distro) is quite nice. It''s just as bloated as RedHat, if not more so, but it makes a lot of things really easy. Just use Mandrake for a while then switch to say Crux or Gentoo and you''ll suddenly realize all the things Mandrake does.

As for Gentoo... to me it doesn''t seem to "fit" anywhere. In many ways it tries to be Linux''s answer to FreeBSD, except it''s not nearly as nice. I''d rather just use FreeBSD. If for nothing else, having both ports and packages under FreeBSD is very nice, compiling absolutely everything gets real old after a while. I never noticed any speed increase with Gentoo compared to other Linux distros.

CoffeeMug

852

September 04, 2003 01:54 AM

quote:Original post by Interim
However, I think the the community should invest in putting more pre-compiled binaries out with emerge. But I don''t know if that appeals to the Gentoo user base.

I''m using Gentoo. I have no problems with compiling most software packages. I do start to have a problem if it takes longer than 30 minutes to compile. The only reason I don''t have OpenOffice installed is the enormous compilation time. I''m pretty sure Gentoo has binary packages of OpenOffice but I''m too lazy to look it up. IMO there should be a general rule: if a software package takes longer than 30 minutes to compile on an average Gentoo system (according to available statistics) there should be a binary available. Hmm, may be I should bring it up on Gentoo''s forums.

quote:Original post by Interim
I''ll find out, going to give it a try for a bit. There was no way I was going to wait a few days for X, Gnome and OpenOffice to compile, but with the Stage3 I should be able to cut that down signifigantly.

AFAIK Stage 3 doesn''t include any of the packages you listed.

quote:Original post by Interim
What''s your experience with the ebuilds? Fairly solid, buggy? Minor errors or blanket conflicts?

Solid 99.9% of the time. I''ve been using Gentoo for a few months and have a lot of packages installed. I have not had one problem yet with portage even though I use ebuilds that aren''t marked as stable.

defmacro.org

Interim

122

Author

September 04, 2003 09:09 AM

Perhaps it wasn''t the stage 3, but the LiveCD 1.4 Disk 2 that had most of them. Just copied them over to /usr/portage/packages/All. However, since I had to emerge sync to fix some other issues, most are already outdated. Still, cut back on XFree and Gnome a bit.

I think the stage 3 had the optimized P4 base system, seemed to untar most of the core bins.

I don''t think Gentoo will stick around on my desktop. Rather invest my time hacking around with various software configs and such than the base system. Still, I think Gentoo will evolve and probably offer a good mix of their current niche as well as being a little more conservative. Cutting edge instead of bleeding edge *grin*.

Still, with their community I think they''re probably one of the more fun distributions lately. Energetic and helpful, sort of refreshing from the Debian and BSD crowds, and lately the RedHat crowd (which has gotten a bit more smug over time).

Int.

bastard2k5

238

September 04, 2003 04:58 PM

Also keep in mind that the pre-compiled stuff from Gentoo is new to 1.4, and will only improve in time. I think that it is the best distro overall, mainly because of how emerge and the rc-scripts work, it make administration much easier. The optimizations don''t really do too much for my computer, it is more "USE" flags that you add in the make.conf.

Interim

122

Author

September 04, 2003 07:42 PM

I decided to just return to my FreeBSD. Experience plus ports/packages I know. I liked Gentoo, the community from what I read, and the emerge system, but it needs some time to make some decisions I think. I do admit, had fun with Gentoo until I really needed a running system for some emergency work, then I got tired of waiting. *grin*

I do like how most of the distros are developing. I think Linux is very close to getting a solid desktop for normal users. Just need to start making some solid design work (read, boring). I found several UI shortcuts that were dups of other commands on the same menu on Red Hat for example. Not sexy work, but necessary for a consistent UI experience. But, definitely desktops are fun to tinker with now, less work, more customization and personality IMHO.

Hopefully we''ll keep getting opinions on this thread, good to keep up on opinions and new distro features, but hard to try them all.

Int.

clum

217

September 05, 2003 07:40 AM

quote:Original post by Cyberdrek
You have to keep in mind though that SuSE is not free software. Or rather not all of it is. Yast for instance is not.

Since when? I have SuSE and I got it from their ftp and it certainly comes with YaST (which I still haven''t figured out what it stands for).

Zorx (a Puzzle Bobble clone)Discontinuity (an animation system for POV-Ray)

Anonymous

September 05, 2003 09:07 AM

quote:Original post by clum
quote:Original post by Cyberdrek
You have to keep in mind though that SuSE is not free software. Or rather not all of it is. Yast for instance is not.

Since when? I have SuSE and I got it from their ftp and it certainly comes with YaST (which I still haven''t figured out what it stands for).

Free software means "free as in free speech", not "free as in free beer". It''s what people sometimes call "open source", though they are in fact different.

IIRC, YaST forbids modifications and/or redistribution. It might be open source, but it''s not free software.

Hope this helps.

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