[NTLUG:Discuss] Distro strengths

[Robert Pearson]

On 4/29/06, Todd Robinson <techvista at verizon.net> wrote:
> Do you know of any studies, web pages, etc that talk about the current
> distros in regards to their strengths? For example, for heavy high-speed
> graphical [...] is better suited.

Take a look at---

<<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_comparison>>

One of my favorite starting points is DistroWatch Top 100 at---

<<http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity>>

If you click on the distro name you can find some interesting
information, sometimes.

There are some people who contribute to the NTLUG list who do
heavy duty graphics on Linux. Hopefully they will have time to reply.

The distro needs to support OpenGL. A 64 bit distro would be better
than a 32 bit for high performance graphics. I'm out of my expertise
here. Maybe take a look at---

<<http://www.opengl.org/>>

> I am thinking of putting together a box that is a file server, MySQL
> server, maybe print server and intranet server (Apache / Tomcat / ...).
> Perhaps with RAID.

An excellent information source for mobos, bus information, graphics
cards and high performance systems is Bryan Smith's Blog---

<<http://thebs413.blogspot.com/>>

For a second opinion try Tom's Hardware Guide---

<<http://www.tomshardware.com/index.html>>

> How is SATA reliability doing? Cautions about SATA RAID (should I go
> with EIDE RAID?)? H/W vs S/W RAID?

The best yardstick is to find someone using SATA in the Enterprise
which is the most stressful environment. According to this article---

<<http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/stor/2006/0417stor2.html>>

SATA is now ready for prime time with one caveat. That caveat is
Duty Cycle. The vendor ratings are based on varying Duty Cycles from
20% to 80%. This makes a huge difference in the MTTF (Mean Time to
Failure). It also means you can match your needs and pocket book to
a SATA drive.