Red Hat Linux 8 Released

Reply #50 – 2002-10-05 07:25:35

add [another] vote for debian [or debian derived, i.e libranet, progeny...] for the best OS...

apt is the sh*t!

...and until i get a cable connection later this month [...ohhhh yeeeah!] gentoo isn't an option.

debian's pros:
multi-tier system --> stable, testing, unstable [good for server, business AND home]
apt [no rpm dependency hell!!!]
security updates [DSA updates insecure packages... does your OS do that?]
multiple architectures supported [i think only netbsd beats debian, right?]
completely free software, and open development
did i say apt yet?
500 programmers making sure debian is always the sh*t!
apt again
they didn't just rip-off red-hat

for those that think that debian is out of date... check out sid/unstable:
http://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distr...ribution=debian

later
mike

[edit: added link]

Red Hat Linux 8 Released

Reply #51 – 2002-10-05 08:30:54

Quote

Unfortunately some people use an operating system to feel that they are some part of elite people while the rest of the world is ignorant and can't see the greatness of their OS.

Exactly. B)

Red Hat Linux 8 Released

Reply #52 – 2002-10-05 08:40:20

I used different Linux distros for many years for my little computer that i use as a gateway, the one that lasted more was Debian. One day i wanted to try Freebsd just for the heck of it, and it stayed ever since

Honest, you should try it to see how things should be done. I find it the missing Linux distro. Debian is coming close, and i still like it very much.

Gentoo seemed to catch on the Ports system. Yes, i mostly use the Ports System, and have made many make worlds (recompiling everything seems the favorite way to upgrade Freebsd). But Gentoo is lacking in so many parts that is not even funny to mention. The thing that annoys me the most, is that their binaries are compiled for i686... Gentoo would work if they had their whole thing in binary form compiled for i386, so you could install that from CDrom on any PC and then start upgrading/compiling from that on. No net access? No Gentoo. So Gentoo is useless for many.

But its not only the source stuff. The organization in Freebsd is great. I have seen only Distros like Debian trying to enforce where things should go in the file system, in a decent way. Oh, and the documentation, you got to love that handbook, if only more Linux distros had that inspiration. I think Red Hat has something like it.

Well Freebsd only lacks the latest desktop bells and whistles, like some multimedia and video stuff (too many soundboards missing), for some reason is a lot easier to make XMMS skip on Freebsd than on Linux Debian (very same machine), and i think its related to the kernel latency, and i have heard that Freebsd 5 comes with major optimizations in that aspect. There is also a lot of good organization. Things are done in a very organized matter. About two stable releases per year. Packages are very up to date and stable (unlike Debian, which takes many years to release, pretty sad indeed). Kernel/OS development is discussed by a number of people, in Linux (which only affects the kernel) things tend to end in the words of 1 to 3 people.

Someone said something about a good distro for a 70% server 10% desktop usage That would fit Freebsd very well. I prefer to use Freebsd for servers, and Linux for desktops. BTW: Have you ever tried to control bandwidth? You got to love DUMMYNET, just search that word on google and you will see

Speaking of google, you people should try http://www.google.com/linux and http://www.linnux.com/bsd

I have also tried many other Linux distros, i am having hopes for a good newbie friendly distro, and i think Mandrake or Libranet could be the ones. Libranet unfortunately restricts the upgrades with fees, so i don't know, i think spending the money on Mandrake would pay off better, altho the apt .deb system is very much better than rpm. SuSE was good, but ever since the 7.x series, something happened that i just didn't like it anymore. I also used Caldera in the early days, hehe.
Oh and there is Slackware. Slackware is cool, and small. Nowdays debian is a 7 CD distro, Slackware is still 1 for binaries. It misses some stuff, but you can always download the sources and ./configure ; make ; make install it.

That just reminds me, most linux distros do take looong to boot, you got the see Freebsd in action, hehehe.

Linux have good things, you must admire the ALSA stuff, pretty decent sound support. Thats missing in Freebsd, unfortunately.

Fortunately, most apps you are used to work with Linux will run just fine in Freebsd, (natively compiled too) mostly only stuff that messes with hardware will likely fail. Ohhh, the kernel! I love kernel modules with Freebsd, you almost never ever worry about them! They just work silently Compiling the kernel in Freebsd is also a lot easier, its just a matter of editing a text file, in the traditional *nix way, no need for answering a thousand questions

But i will give you a word of advice. In Freebsd, when you install a library, it works, or not, period. Don't you ever, ever, ever run ldconfig... Doing so without switches will delink all your dinamic binaries!.. pretty nasty, reboot won't cure it, only running ldconfig with the proper command line will fix it, but the thing is, that you in Freebsd never, ever run it manually. Hmm also, Midnight Commander is called with midc, not mc. It also gets a lot to understand the whole particion/slice stuff, and the HD names are not easy in the beginning. Everything is very well documented, you know where? Of course! /usr/share/doc/handbook/index.html (you installed Lynx don't you? )

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