Slashdot Mirror

Robin: There's a few bugs filed on this, my own is 1103753, which includes an attached screenshot. The actual bug can show up in a number of different ways, though this is common. Sometimes (usually in the relationships / user settings pages) all the content is pushed a screenwidth to the right, rendered as black text on black background. Annoying to say the least.

Response is that the bug is a browser fault. but I'd return that until Slashdot presents something remotely approching standards-compliant HTML, you've got a problem here.

The upside is that I'm using the "light" user prefs setting and a custom stylesheet to give the page the "Slashdot" look. Or any other page. Some fun....:

Slashdot:

• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/SlashdotLite/standa rd.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/SlashdotLite/lite-n o-css.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/SlashdotLite/lite-w ith-css.png

The stylesheet itself is available as:

http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/SlashdotLite/slashd ot-lite.css

Misc sites:

• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/craigdot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/googledot.pn g
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/karstendot.p ng
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/useitdot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/dandot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/microsoftdot .png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/registerdot. png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/w3cdot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/ibmdot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/nytimesdot.p ng
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/scodot.png

Robin: There's a few bugs filed on this, my own is 1103753, which includes an attached screenshot. The actual bug can show up in a number of different ways, though this is common. Sometimes (usually in the relationships / user settings pages) all the content is pushed a screenwidth to the right, rendered as black text on black background. Annoying to say the least.

Response is that the bug is a browser fault. but I'd return that until Slashdot presents something remotely approching standards-compliant HTML, you've got a problem here.

The upside is that I'm using the "light" user prefs setting and a custom stylesheet to give the page the "Slashdot" look. Or any other page. Some fun....:

Slashdot:

• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/SlashdotLite/standa rd.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/SlashdotLite/lite-n o-css.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/SlashdotLite/lite-w ith-css.png

The stylesheet itself is available as:

http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/SlashdotLite/slashd ot-lite.css

Misc sites:

• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/craigdot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/googledot.pn g
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/karstendot.p ng
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/useitdot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/dandot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/microsoftdot .png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/registerdot. png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/w3cdot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/ibmdot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/nytimesdot.p ng
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/scodot.png

Robin: There's a few bugs filed on this, my own is 1103753, which includes an attached screenshot. The actual bug can show up in a number of different ways, though this is common. Sometimes (usually in the relationships / user settings pages) all the content is pushed a screenwidth to the right, rendered as black text on black background. Annoying to say the least.

Response is that the bug is a browser fault. but I'd return that until Slashdot presents something remotely approching standards-compliant HTML, you've got a problem here.

The upside is that I'm using the "light" user prefs setting and a custom stylesheet to give the page the "Slashdot" look. Or any other page. Some fun....:

Slashdot:

• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/SlashdotLite/standa rd.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/SlashdotLite/lite-n o-css.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/SlashdotLite/lite-w ith-css.png

The stylesheet itself is available as:

http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/SlashdotLite/slashd ot-lite.css

Misc sites:

• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/craigdot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/googledot.pn g
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/karstendot.p ng
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/useitdot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/dandot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/microsoftdot .png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/registerdot. png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/w3cdot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/ibmdot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/nytimesdot.p ng
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/scodot.png

Robin: There's a few bugs filed on this, my own is 1103753, which includes an attached screenshot. The actual bug can show up in a number of different ways, though this is common. Sometimes (usually in the relationships / user settings pages) all the content is pushed a screenwidth to the right, rendered as black text on black background. Annoying to say the least.

Response is that the bug is a browser fault. but I'd return that until Slashdot presents something remotely approching standards-compliant HTML, you've got a problem here.

The upside is that I'm using the "light" user prefs setting and a custom stylesheet to give the page the "Slashdot" look. Or any other page. Some fun....:

Slashdot:

• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/SlashdotLite/standa rd.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/SlashdotLite/lite-n o-css.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/SlashdotLite/lite-w ith-css.png

The stylesheet itself is available as:

http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/SlashdotLite/slashd ot-lite.css

Misc sites:

• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/craigdot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/googledot.pn g
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/karstendot.p ng
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/useitdot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/dandot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/microsoftdot .png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/registerdot. png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/w3cdot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/ibmdot.png
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/nytimesdot.p ng
• http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Images/scodot.png

It's viruses.

Looks as though someone else been reading Mark 12:42-44 .....

Of course, Bill Gates does not deserve most of this money in the first place. The whole concept on which Microsoft was founded stinks, and the correct response to this (in)famous document should have been a dragging into the nearest toilet followed by a thorough beating. What can't be owned can't be stolen.

Gates and co. might actually have earned a little respect from me if they had bought out the patent rights on a few life-saving drugs {is this another crazy concept, or what? ..... they have the right idea in Cuba ..... the Cuban NHS is empowered to synthesise any life-saving drug, and patent encumbrances be damned, on the basis that saving a human life is more important than earning royalty fees for some fatcat corporation} and turned them over to the Public Domain. Or maybe bribed the Roman Catholic Church to install a woman Pope {who would naturally approve of birth control and the ordination of women into lower orders of the Priesthood, and hopefully seek a reunification with the Church of England reversing the Bull[s**t] of Pope Leo XIII in 1896}. That would have been a worthy gesture.

Really, this is no different than some ordinary working-class person buying a copy of the Big Issue.

Spam received by ASN. Not entirely current ATM, but recent.

For the past year, about 15% of all spam I see comes out of AS4766 - KORnet. The of the top 4-5 rest bounce around Chinese IISPs, Telstra, SBC, Tiscali, AT&T Worldnet, and account for 25% of all spam received. The problem is highly concentrated.

You can also check postings to NANAS (news.admin.net-abuse.sightings). Or just check at Spamhaus for ROKSO spammers and their ISPs.

Unfortunately, for some people (and the ISPs they run), there is no shame.

You say this as if it were a good thing. It probably isn't!

The parent story is woefully inadequate - it doesn't provide enough information about the case to make a determination one way or another. As for the "forgery", did the spoofed email address contain Fitch's full legal name? If not, then its just a frogery (In other words, its satire and Fitch is SOL in the courts).

Viruses

Even better: Free Linux software...

[Same old lame list of toothless malware]

Ah, nostalgia: I made fun of all of those, and some several dozen others, about a month ago. Except dar.b and HackTool.Linux.BF, which appear to be known only to Kaspersky: Post actual information about those, and I'll be glad to mock them, too.

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com

Question. What happened when the f00f flaw was discovered for the Pentium?

Yep, that's right, you had to buy another processor.

The X86 instruction set isn't somehow immune to flaws.

A virus is a self-replicating program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents.

A Trojan is a malicious program that is disguised as legitimate software.

A computer worm is self-replicating, but is self-contained and does not need to be part of another program to propagate itself.

So most of the so-called viruses that are out there are really Trojans - they claim to be one thing, but are actually something else. Once you delete the original(s), you're finished; they don't generally infect your other files to propagate, they just make several copies of themselves independent of your programs. Other than macro viruses, there are very few true viruses in the wild these days.

bacteria and virii would be eliminated naturally.

Bacteria and... man would be eliminated naturally? Or did you mean viruses?

And what about "good" bacteria -- wouldn't those have been eliminated as well? Besides, there are plenty of dark, moist, warm places for bacteria to flourish, even if anything in direct sunlight died instantly.

Shouldn't it be "virii"?

No, it shouldn't

Yeah - go DD. Titanic was the first small rattling of stones in 1996 that became the avalanche of Linux in movie CGI, and employer of Darryl Strauss, the man who brought 3d hardware acceleration to Linux users. He also wrote relevant rebuttals to NT fanboys. Titanic is quite a nasty thorn in SCO's side since the 100-odd Alpha boxes used for rendering were most certainly an enterprise-class use of Linux before IBM came long.

For example, to set up a Java/C#.net web server: First, install the minimal stuff from any of the many different debian installers.

Then, from the minimal debian-stable system

apt-get install mono-apache-server/unstable tomcat4-webapps

All the other packages you'd need (apache, java, mono (the recent one from unstable), etc) will be automatically handled thanks to its dependancy checker.

All operating systems suck

It would be a good point to note that only the more recent releases of the Linux kernel suport Serial ATA.

It would also be a good point to note that SATA itself is a recent standard. Drives have only started showing up in the last year or so.
For Linux-SATA info, a quick Google turned up the Serial ATA chipsets -- Linux support status page.

I have a box running Fedora Core 2 and a Silicon Image 3114 based S-ATA controller, works like a charm, no extra drivers necessary.
And I found http://www.linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html to be a very interesting read, helped me decide on the Dawicontrol DC-154 controller.

Not since 1996 or so. :)

Of course, you are free to unpack anything wherever you want on your own system, but the "proper way" is to have /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build be a symlink to your kernel headers.

That way, any kernel modules you compile will know exactly where to find the source for any installed kernel version, without user intervention. Unfortunately a lot of software still looks in /usr/src/linux (cough Nvidia), needlessly making it harder for Joe Bloggs to download and run the Nvidia graphics drivers installer.

Strictly speaking, /usr/src/linux should contain the kernel headers that your installed libc was compiled against. See http://www.linuxmafia.com/faq/Kernel/usr-src-linux -symlink.html for more information, straight from the horse's mouth.

There are many alternative ways to install Debian, if the default one doesn't suit your needs. Debian needs an installer that is flexible, powerful and portable in order to be usable by all the diverse users of Debian, not to mention the dozen or so different architectures Debian runs on.

Of course, the Debian developers could have delayed the next release a year or so in order to get a pretty graphical installer working on some platforms. I guess their priorities are different.

There are times when I hate being right. Sorry dude!

We have 8 of these boxes at my office. They are very nice for workstations.

However, we need to clear something up about this so-called "RAID array".

From the page:
"4 ports Serial ATA 150 via ICH6R south bridge with RAID 0,1 support"

This box uses the Intel ICH6R chip and is software RAID. The box ships with drivers for Windows, but does not offer any drivers or support using ICH6R under Linux.

There are patches to the 2.6 kernel which let you use ICH5R, but why use an unsupported test module when you can just use the Linux MD kernel module instead. MD is well documented, stable and supported by the Linux community.

Here is a great writeup on the state of "Software RAID" and Serial ATA on linux.

Linspire is Debian. Debian based distributions are even more similiar than rpm based ones. Once installed, you can hardly tell Debian distros apart. In fact many people call these Debian based distros alternative installers

nVidia: probably non-RAID (don't know for sure)

non-RAID. Their Web site pages where the binary-only proprietary drivers are available make clear that it's a type of manufacturer-specific software RAID that they call "nvRAID". I've just recently added that information and relevant links to my Serial ATA on Linux page.

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com

I found out a few months back some interesting things about the state of SATA RAID...most of the SATA chipset RAIDS are not hardware RAID controllers.

If you check Linux Mafia's web page on SATA controllers, you will find that very few of the SATA RAID controllers are actually hardware RAID. What their "Drivers" really are is proprietory software RAID pretending to be Hardware RAID. I think of all the SATA RAID controllers and chipsets being offered, there are only three that are really hardware RAID. And 3Ware's offering is the least expensive of the real hardware RAID.

ttyl
Farrell

Microsoft has their myths that Open Source is less secure, sends jobs to India, and supports every form of -ism from terrorism to communism to dada-ism

Linux has their myths that Linux is perfectly user friendly and just as easy as Windows and has been ever since the first edition of Slackware rolled out, and that Linux has absolutely no usability problems whatsoever and the only thing holding linux back from taking over the mainstream are evil proprietary companies who don't share their stuff.

It's hard decision on who to back when both sides are completely full of it.

Bah, all I want is the installer kernel to be able to grok my SATA RAID set, without having to resort to custom boot disks, or God forbid, using Debian or Gentoo. When will a mainstream, it-just-works distro support these disk controllers?

Linux block device support depends on which particular SATA chipset you have -- you didn't identify yours -- and on what version of installation kernel the Linux distribution uses.

Why? Because some some chipsets (3Ware 8xxx, Adaptec AAR 24x0, LSI Logic MegaRAID SATA 150-4/150-6) work just fine using drivers developed for their PATA predecessor chipsets, some chipsets require either a 2.6.x kernel or a very recent 2.4.x one, a few chipsets (such as HP SA5xxx) require some vintage of 2.6.x kernel, and some very new ones (e.g., Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SX6081, 88SX6041, and 88SX5080) don't yet have drivers.

And then there's the matter of your "RAID set": You might be referring to some SATA RAID card manufacturer's proprietary software RAID, e.g., Promise, Highpoint, VIA), which is going to (1) be basically terrible, and (2) require some god-awful proprietary, binary-only driver, which I doubt you're going to find without resorting to the "custom boot disks" you speak of. Much smarter (unless you're tied to such hideous fakeraid solutions by a need to dual-boot MS-Windows) would be blow away the array and use Linux's "md" software RAID support, which is faster, is more robust, and won't require you to buy the same host adapter a second time if the first one dies, or lose all your data.

If your "SATA RAID set" happens to be on a Silicon Image 311x host adapter, then you're (potentially) in luck, because Thomas Horsten figured out the "Medley" software RAID format and wrote a "medley" subdriver for the ataraid mid-level driver, which is available in kernel 2.4.26 and later.

I cover all of these matters on a Web page where I try to track Linux SATA support as it develops. See "Serial ATA" in my knowledgebase's hardware category.

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com

and Serial-ATA (or possibly IDE RAID) disk.

Keep in mind that many low-cost products which hype "IDE RAID" are actually Software RAID using propietary drivers (Look under "RAID issues (a separate wrinkle)"). These devices often come with drivers for Windows. Linux drivers are rarely provided by the manufacturer, and you'd be better off with using Linux MD (multidisk) module support with the Kernel.

These low cost software RAID systems really reduce the potential value, performance and convenience of a RAID setup.

Your in luck. I've been looking for something similiar and I bothered to search the web.

A grumpy editor's calendar search
Enterprise Solutions Overview
Open Source Overview
Linux Links

Freshmeat is always worth a look too. The biggest problem I found was too much choice.

So far I've tried Chronos but I found that not all it's CPAN dependancies were resolvable for me. I've also tried MyCalendar.
It's nice and simple, accessible via the web, but unfortunately it's webpages are too big to fit in my cellphone's memory. My ideal solution would serve up some tight WML when necessary and possibly be accessible via Outlook for my secretary.

So, I haven't found my ideal solution yet.

If anyone has any opinion on the other web calendaring solutions, please share...

See Rick Moen's comparisons of Debian installers.
The best for a typical desktop is to boot Knoppix and tell it to install on your HD. You get a normal Debian system with all your hardware detected, and you can put a nearby mirror in sources.list and install regular Debian packages.

www.lfriendly.com

Which is why Lindows/Linspire is more of a consumer OS, it does not have the extensive hardware support. Although I do think that it can use Debian ready SATA drivers on a floppy disk if you knew how to use them that way.

Linux SATA support apparently not all Linux kernels will have SATA support.

Possible Lindows/Linspire needs to be upgraded to the 2.4.X kernel or above before installing these drivers.

You are smarter than you think. Going to community college is a very smart move. I went to a big city private university... I'm still in debt up to my eyeballs. Community college is VERY smart.

Back on topic... It sounds like your friend was also smart, and pointed you to a Debian cd that uses the new "debian-installer". The old debian installer (aka boot-floppies) really did suck. It had no auto-detection of hardware, and required you to google for every single piece of your computer to figure out which driver would work. It was a pain in the ass, but it was worth it, because afterward you had debian on your machine.

The new installer is at Beta-4 right now, and already works very well. The difference is startling.

As every Debian aficionado loves to point out, Debian had a crappy installer for so long because they have to get it to run on 11 different architectures, not just i386.

And for anyone that wants a pretty graphical install of Debian to i386, there are plenty of unofficial options.

Truly your hand-waving is quite impressive. You aren't the first person to spread FUD about FOSS forking, and you won't be the last to keep doing so in spite of reality.

Back in 1999, Corel released the WordPerfect 8 Download Personal Edition for Linux version of their product which was (and still is) free (as in free beer). It doesn't include QuattroPro or Presentations, but honestly, you can use OpenOffice for those. For document editing, you can't beat the power that Reveal Codes gives you. I mean, it's WYSIWYG vs. editing the actual code. There's no comparision. And the fact that it can open Word documents without destroying them is nice too.

Anyway, here is where you can get your very one free copy of WordPerfect 8 DPE for Linux.

At work we're considering buying a new (low end) Dell server which uses S-ATA hard drives. It's supposed to house a SuSE Linux system in the future. However, I'm not sure how well Linux in general, and SuSE in particular works with Serial-ATA drives, especially when there's nothing but Serial-ATA available - ie. the installer would need to work with it, as well.

The best resource I found was this page, but it doesn't help me a lot, either. The server would be a Dell Poweredge 750 running the Intel 7210 chipset, which supports S-ATA.

The system which the new server should replace is currently running SuSE Pro 8.1, which I am fairly certain does not support S-ATA - but does SuSE 9.x?

I just bought the cd version of Corel Linux 1.0 in order to get the deb package of WordPerfect 8.1. It was only 2 dollars on eBay. It still works even in Debian unstable. You just have to fiddle with the dependencies a bit.

You can still download WordPerfect 8 for Linux and install it, though the legality of this isn't completely clear. Corel at one time made it available for free download. Several sites continue to offer it and Corel has done nothing to stop them. See the WordPerfect on Linux FAQ for more info.

WordPerfect 8/8.1 is a lot faster than OpenOffice, and more importantly, it reads WordPerfect files. A lot of law offices have all of their documents in WordPerfect.

There is a pretty good WordPerfect filter for OpenOffice (LibWPD), but it's hard to compete with the real thing.

I think this will cause many law firms to consider switching to Linux.

1. Format C:
2. Insert Linux CD and reboot
3. Install Linux
4. ???
5. Profit!

In case people are reading this and think it's cool and want to try Debian out. I suggest they read this page before they go looking for ISO's to burn.

The Official Debian installer is one the things people heavily judge the distro by.

Rick Moen has a great page of alternative Debian installers if you don't like this one.

I found this link by Ross Bernheim when I acquired my DVD-RW:
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Apps/AV/consumer-video-t o-dvd.html
Also, I was also looking into LVE as an editor. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks promising.
http://lvempeg.sourceforge.net

WordPerfect is available for Linux. See the WP FAQ on LinuxMafia.com or other on-line sources.

I strenuously suggest that you read This if you plan on installing debian.

A few years ago, I published a web site called www.Micropoly.com, about an open source Microsoft Monopoly game I created as a joke.

Of course I was worried about being sued by Microsoft and Hasbro at the same time! I even talked to some people from EFF and hired a good lawyer specializing in artists rights, to give me advice on how not to get sued.

Fortunately the name Micropoly skirts around both vigorously enforced trademarks, and the satirical speech is clearly protected by the First Amendment. However, I learned I was still taking a risk, because the draconian trademark disparagement laws are commonly abused by big corporations like Microsoft and Hasbro, to nullify constitutionally protected freedom of speech.

But they wouldn't take the bait. The only company I ever heard from was the manufacturer of the proprietary Micropoly Industrial Lubricant, the Solid Idea for Lubrication for food and beverage processing. Their customers were getting confused when they found my Microsoft Monopoly site.

-Don

Which does not help the person who runs a pure testing machine.

As the old punchline goes, "Well, don't do that, then." There's nothing to lose from ensuring one is capable of specifying "-t unstable", and a great deal of utility potentially available from doing so.

Having said that, I do the same now.

However, that still doesn't help when, for example, KDE 3.1 (I believe 3.0 never made it) takes an exceptionally long time to just make it to unstable (as XFree86 4.3.0 is now doing).

As well, despite what some may say, unstable is aptly named.

Well, no. Now, you're resorting to overbroad handwaves. And, frankly, you know better. (Very likely, you're arguing for the sake of arguing.) There is never any significant guarantee of quality from unstable-branch packages other than their building on the maintainer's system; but, then, there's no significant guarantee for testing-branch packages, either. All you gain on the latter branch is the rather thin protection of the automated testing-branch quarantining scripts.

To pick an example, any i386-arch user on the testing branch, some months ago, who declined to do the "-t unstable" trick for early access to openoffice.org 1.1 packages -- on no better grounds than being afraid of "unstable packages" -- would have been foolish, indeed.

There is not a single person who will give you sympathy if you hose your system by pulling in something from unstable.

Is it really too much to expect well known, much used, desktop packages to make it to testing in a timely manner?

Now, if you're proposing to lauch and run an additional functional branch (alongside stable, testing, unstable, and experimental) to meet your goals, by all means please do. Given the package pools system, it can be accomodated without increasing the load on mirror sites at all.

But if you're trying to make testing be something other than what its design goal is, then I suggest starting by reading the design documentation, first -- and then make a case for it on debian-devel.

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com

I'm normally fairly confident in my ability to get Debian running on various hardware, but on some new Dell PowerEdge 1750s, I couldn't get the RAID controller to be recognized, because I couldn't find a Debian installer with a new enough kernel image.

Steve Mickeler's netinst image for Debian 3.0 "woody" would have done the trick for you. That and other specialised installers for Debian are detailed on my Debian installers page.

Yes, Knoppix (or Gnoppix, MEPIS, etc.) is a quite decent solution, and a leading one for some hardware situations (e.g., some SATA chipsets). It has the minor disadvantage of not being 100% Debian-compatible, e.g., its use of a /etc/sysconfig tree for networking.

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com

I'm normally fairly confident in my ability to get Debian running on various hardware, but on some new Dell PowerEdge 1750s, I couldn't get the RAID controller to be recognized, because I couldn't find a Debian installer with a new enough kernel image.

Steve Mickeler's netinst image for Debian 3.0 "woody" would have done the trick for you. That and other specialised installers for Debian are detailed on my Debian installers page.

Yes, Knoppix (or Gnoppix, MEPIS, etc.) is a quite decent solution, and a leading one for some hardware situations (e.g., some SATA chipsets). It has the minor disadvantage of not being 100% Debian-compatible, e.g., its use of a /etc/sysconfig tree for networking.

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com

Here is a good essay that was originaly posted at LinuxCare (I think) :