[NTLUG:Discuss] Re: New Computer -- which distro

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Sun, 2004-11-14 at 14:05, Ralph wrote:
> Howdy,
>   If you want to go with something you are most familiar with, try
> Fedora Core 3.  It is close to RedHat 9, but lots of improvements.  I
> used FC(Fedora Core) 1 and 2.  They were OK for upgrading RedHat, but
> had too many problems for me to use as a primary workstation.

I think we have been down this road before, but I'm always interested in
a tally of issues for my Unofficial FAQ.  Could you provide them (even
if again)?  Exact changes from RHL9 to FC1 and FC2 would be most
excellent.

> It sounds like you are not heavily invested in RedHat, so I would
> probably recommend Mandrake 10.1, or Xandros OCE.  Xandrox is easy to
> update, looks more like Windows than most distros, and works well. 

Xandros is also based on current Debian developments.  So it can
leverage their great work.

Mandrake is a former Red Hat Linux distribution (originally RHL 5.2),
although they have regularly been tapping Fedora Core (and Red Hat Linux
before that) packages -- often directly from Rawhide (RHL) / Development
(FC) before Red Hat even reaches Beta (RHL) / Test (FC).

I'm sure Mandrake developers will deny this.  And it's not meant to
demonize them at all.  They do it largely so they will maintain fairly
good ABI compatibility with RHL/FC releases.  Mandrake seems to match
RHL/FC GCC/GLibC versions closer than anyone else (although I stopped
checking after MDK9).

Mandrake is a great solution if you are French.  Linux is global, but
the distros are local.  This model leverages the world's best
developers, but localizes support that is far more customized to the
consumer.  Win-win.  But others will swear by Mandrake, and they have
their reasons.

> Mandrake 10.1 makes a nice desktop, but has a few of its own little
> quirks.  After you are a little more advanced, I'd say you should look
> at SuSE.

Hmmm, curious why one would not look at SuSE from-the-start?  Especially
if they were already a Novell shop or Novell familiar?  I also like the
GPL direction Novell is taking SuSE, because SuSE's former "value add"
is nothing compared to Novell's (hence why they are GPL'ing much of it).

> But, right now I think Xandros and Mandrake are better places
> to start.  Xandros OCE is the free edition and you can find it now, 

Definitely agree on the Xandros offerings if you are used to Windows. 
The Debian base is a major, hidden bonus IMHO.

> Mandrake 10.1 Official will be release real soon as a download edition. 
> There is a community edition available now of Mandrake 10.1, but I would
> not recommend it for anything but a brief test.  There are too many
> things missing from the Mandrake community edition.

I haven't kept up with MDK since 9.  Did they stop being GPL-anal?  They
used to release everything they did as GPL, but I saw an interview
awhile ago where they stated they were reconsidering a change from
that.  Kinda funny considering the interviews I saw when MDK 5.3 first
came out, and the promises made.

Oh well.  I just compare Red Hat's history to others, and then have to
laugh at the IT media focus and popular demonization of Red Hat.  Some
people then state Debian or Gentoo, but understand neither are
commercial entities offering SLAs, etc...

> p.s., if you have time, I'd say just download and try several distros. 

Not to cross you, but I typically disagree with this, indeed, "majority"
viewpoint.  Far too often I see people just "installing" Linux instead
of actually "using" it as a result.  Hence why I maintain this viewpoint
and opinion:  http://www.vaporwarelabs.com/linux.html  

Remember, that's just _my_ opinion, and I certainly don't think it's a
majority one either.

> Ubuntu looks good, butI have just started using it and can't comment
> much.  UserLinux may be the way to go in a month or two.

Yes, Bruce Peren's Debian-based UserLinux would be interesting.

> p.p.s., Do yourself a favor and don't use ext2 or ext3 as your main
> filesystem.

Sigh.  Still waiting to see the reasoning for this quantified by you.  
It's one thing to talk about features, but it's another to expense
proven reliability and compatibility.  Especially when deployed at
Fortune 100 companies that don't agree with you at all.  ;->

I've yet to lose an Ext2/Ext3 filesystem.  Have lost numerous ReiserFS
(even when the off-line tools were supposedly "compatible") and a few
XFS (largely /var filesystems due to the well-known 1.0 bug).  Never
deployed JFS, largely because it was ported from OS/2 instead of AIX and
lacked full compatibility (for much of the same reasons as ReiserFS)
prior to kernel 2.6, although I've heard that has now changed.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                                    b.j.smith at ieee.org 
-------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Subtotal Cost of Ownership (SCO) for Windows being less than Linux
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) assumes experts for the former, costly
retraining for the latter, omitted "software assurance" costs in 
compatible desktop OS/apps for the former, no free/legacy reuse for
latter, and no basic security, patch or downtime comparison at all.