Perpetual Linux Distro Thread

[xhadow]

Just want to add another distro in the list
Its not really a distro, but for those who want to make their own distro can go here
Linux From Scratch

[Nordic]

My first computer was an Amiga and when I finally switched to a PC in 1995 I freaked out after a few months of using Micro$oft Windows, it was bad. So I took my PC to a friend of mine who had net access in his dorm, and installed Debian over the net (using the rescue+root floppies). Back then all you could rely upon were mailing lists and wonderful HOWTO-docs and I acquired a pretty good understanding of how a Linux system works. I was hooked.

I've never installed any Linux distro but Debian for personal use, and I recommend it to all I know. It's faster, more efficient and easier to upgrade than any other distro I know. That was true five years ago, and I think it's true today as well. Some distros are catching up but mostly they are just getting more accessible (GUI install etc..) to people new to Linux.

If I had to recommend any other distro than Debian, it would be SuSE, even though it uses the rpm system.
If I had to tell people to stay away from a distro, it would be RedHat/Mandrake. They are impossible to upgrade, don't ever install these on mission critical servers..

[Noah]

I'd like to say that people who say mandrake hides stuff havent tried it for a while... Sure, it used to suck, (heaps) and Aurora and this new startup thing are annoying but removable,

however, ones they're gone, it's not all that different to redhat, with far better RPM programs, and much better config utils...

This rumour that mandrake hides stuff and is not good isn't true... I was fed it from lot's of people, that's why I used Redhat for ages... And still did on my servers until yesterday because I found the distro's were the same + more packages and games (Hey, I like the ability to easily set up encrypted dvd and divx support, ok!)

I might try debian, this update thing sounds good instead of this constant reinstall upgrade cycle... sounds like a good thing for my servers that I don't wanna have to upgrade all the time

[Rukkh]

Mandrake has the advantage of being able to boot form a partition past the 1024 cyl boundry, which is great if you want to wack linux onto the end of your drive...

...after playing with mandrake for a little while i got really sick of it and rearranged my drive so i could go back to redhat.

The biggest problem with linux is you generaly can't pick it up by playing with it (unlike windows) but with a brief foray into the documentation most problems can be solved. Its just most of the people ive introduiced to linux have given up before reading the manual...

[Draffa]

Originally posted by Rukkh
Mandrake has the advantage of being able to boot form a partition past the 1024 cyl boundry, which is great if you want to wack linux onto the end of your drive...

All new version of LILO (LInux LOader) since about mid last year can do that...

[^lave]

My majority of experience with linux is with the slackware distro. I use slackware mainly for servers and would probably suggest one of the other easier distros for a workstation. Slackware seems to have most of its default config setup for a server and I find I do not need to configure it as much as some of the others in a server enviro. I have several gatways, mail exchanges and a complete ISP all running on slack.

Cheers
^lave

[Triffid Hunter]

I've used debian, slackware, turbolinux, coyote, freesco and lrp.. debian and coyote were the only ones that installed properly, though coyote did freeze if you didn't press a key for about 5 minutes. Debian was good, install very simple, updates and all that just as simple. Problem being first time I tried it, it wouldn't boot after about a month so I put windows back on. Tried it again recently, took it 3 days to not boot. The problem in both situations? fsck has encountered some error or other, press ctrl+d to reboot or enter root password for maintenance. A run of fsck then a reboot would fix it, so long as I didn't re-mount the file system rw before the reboot. Next time, same problem. I managed to get X to work (which I couldn't before), though it refused to go higher than 800x600 (windows did 1280x1024 no problems on the same box) and after a while was abysmally slow.. it took about 15 seconds to bring up each character, and a sentence took about 10 minutes. It only took it about 2-3 hours of running to get to this state. A forced reboot was then necessary because switching consoles would take about 5 mins, and then the reboot command would fail... Windows 95B was both fast and fairly stable on exactly the same machine. (It was a p-120 with 32mb ram and a 1gb drive) and my server/gateway is a p-133/32mb ram running 98se which has crashed once since september when i configured it, when a network card was knocked while in use.

I've found windows 98se/95b to be faster, more stable, easier to install, easier to use, easier to troubleshoot and much more tolerant of hardware changes than any of the linux distros I've tried, with debian coming closest to being useful. Sorry guys, but until linux can out-do windows in common tasks, I'm staying with the dark side.

[Nordic]

Originally posted by Triffid Hunter
... The problem in both situations? fsck has encountered some error or other, press ctrl+d to reboot or enter root password for maintenance....

Sounds like you are having hardware related problems, it might be that the kernel with which you installed Debian is not stable with your hardware or you simply have a problem that doesn't rear it's ugly head with Windows. I've come across this problem with disks that are slowly dying (increasing number of bad blocks), bad cables, bad PSUs, bad memory, etc..

I'm not defending Debian in but what I want to say is that any distro can be blamed for not beeing stable on your hardware and with Linux it's very easy to point fingers at what part of the software or hardware is failing to co-operate. If you are 100% certain that your hardware is not at fault you should look into upgrading the kernel to a recent version. The Linux kernel has never been problem free.. but then it's a lot better than any Windows kernel..

[Triffid Hunter]

*shrug* it was 100% stable in windows.... and I _was_ using the 'stable' debian distro, even tho its like 2 yrs old..

[Geo]

Originally posted by Triffid Hunter
*shrug* it was 100% stable in windows.... and I _was_ using the 'stable' debian distro, even tho its like 2 yrs old..

If you are using newer hardware you would probably be better of using the testng branch of debian as it has better support for newer stuff.

[Slamma]

I'm a linux newbie and have been playing with Caldera and found it to be straight forward enough.
Anyone got anything to good or bad to say about Caldera so I can make a better choice, maybe?

[othy]

Re: Triffid Hunter
I've found that Windows is more tolerant of bad memory than linux.

Re: Rest of thread
Linux distro's I use at home
Server: Debian - easy upgrade, stable, maintainable, why do people complain about the installer?
Desktop: Redhat - fast development cycle, wanted to try something different on my workstation, usb support out of the box

I started out on debian as a linux newbie and didn't find it too difficult. You just have to be prepared to read a lot of information rather than hunt and click the configuration you want. No matter which you choose you will encounter problems, most of them the same for any distribution.

--

othy

[sewid]

Originally posted by shift
OpenBSD www.openbsd.org
Latest Release: 3.0
Based strongly on NetBSD, with strong emphasis on security. Full support of IPSec, and four years without a remote security exploit. Excellent for firewalls.


I'll fill in some more info when I get time [/B]

I would stay away from touting OpenBSD as "four years without a remote security hole" as this is pretty much bullshit.

Theo knows there have been exploits floating around for pretty much everything OpenBSD runs by default. Just because none of them have been publicly announced he turns a blind eye.

I told him about a hole in a particular default service about 2 years ago when i was at a party with him in las vegas and he did the dirty and quietly fixed it without telling anyone.

If openbsd was so secure, why does/did openbsd.org run SunOS 4? (I dont know if it still does)

Dont believe the hype, OpenBSD is the os voted "most probable to have a deliberate remote kernel backdoor hidden in the network code". Closely followed by Solaris... which does... (well not in the kernel but yeah)

[Spin]

Distributions are an aid to having a functional GNU/Linux machine. There isn't anything a "Slackware" computer can do that a "Redhat" machine can't (with a little tweaking^ perhaps).

I haven't tried every distro available, but what from what I've seen of them I think that they all suck regarding upgrading/maintaining. I haven't used Sorcerer, but if they upgrade programs by suppling diff's to the source, I would be sorely tempted. Everything else requires endless downloads of packages, be they debs or rpms, etc, which is fine if you have an uncapped cable connection...

At present I use Mandrake 8.1 on my main desktop machine, dualbooting with Win98 (When I want to play some windows only game, at present the Flashpoint expansion). I also have a Debian machine doing a variety of duties. Being equally happy with these two distros is a real pain in the ass, as I would rather be doing the upgrade/maintain slog for a single distro only across all my machines.

Mandrake is certainly a good choice for Linux newbies, but it shouldn't be dismissed as just for newbies, not every old *nix user is gui-phobic.

Personally, I don't think it is a good idea to recommend using the testing tree of Debian for new users, unstable is fairly up to date and generally safer.

Hopefully, whichever distribution someone chooses, they will stick with it long enough to realise that GNU/Linux is now a very viable alternative OS for their desktop machine(s). (Whilst it has been useful for many things for longer, it is only in the last year or so that the various supporting softwares have reached maturity for the general user. Anyone who states that it isn't ready for the desktop, is behind the times.)

^Tweaking can include (in no particular order): reading the docs, searching the net, swearing, hacking the code, recompiling, endless rpm downloading and asking someone who knows a little bit more about Linux then yourself.

[Geo]

Originally posted by Spin
Personally, I don't think it is a good idea to recommend using the testing tree of Debian for new users, unstable is fairly up to date and generally safer.

Im not sure what you mean by that. The testing tree is more stable than unstable. The heirachy is:

Stable -> Potato
Testing -> Woody
Unstable -> Sid

Testing is not as up to date as unstable but it is more stable and safer, particularly in the package conflict and dependancy area.