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Dueling Distros - It's All Good, Apparently
An Anonymous Coward points to a review listed on osfaq.com, summarizing: "Red Hat's latest release is here with the much improved 2.4 kernel. Its new features make it a compelling upgrade for both server and workstation installation. In addition, there has been more of an emphasis on security in this release than in previous Red Hat releases." Similarly, another nameless reader writes: "
The Duke of URL has given Libranet a favourable review.
It looks like Libranet may be heading toward becoming one of the big players in the Linux distributions game." I'm still looking for a good review of Mandrake 8.0, which seems to have generated few reviews so far. (Or distro reviews willing to be a little harsher in general.)
I had some fonts problems also, and finally tracked it down to installing AbiWord and the sucky fonts that go with it. I looked at /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fs/config , which is the font server config file, and uncommented the line that tells it to look in the AbiSuite fonts dir.
(You need to "/etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs restart" before the change will take effect.)
Linux has no future except among total dorks and people that would rather screw around with their computers instead of interact with the rest of society.
In Red Hat 7.0 and 7.1, you can manage xinetd (they don't use the old inetd anymore) with chkconfig. Dunno about ntsysv.
AFAIK, RH's gcc isn't broken anymore. It's still Red Hat's "gcc-2.96", but it's been patched to deal with the bugs in the first release of gcc-2.96 (in RH 7.0). The compiler should be fine.
Hi. Our site's supported distibution is Redhat. I'm a Debian user of days yore, and am a little lost: is there an equivalent of "apt-get dist-upgrade" on Redhat? In other words, how do I go about upgrading from 7.0 to 7.1?
thanks!
nick
Mebbe, mebbe not.
Those security issues (and bit rot) can actually be significant. Plus, the flying window logo is no gaurantee that your installation or daily use experience will be any simpler with WinDOS.
If you can admin your own box, Unix will not tend to hide useful information from you.
If you can't admin your own box, Unix will make it easier on the expert that does.
Linux can actually be EASIER to configure than windows. I'd still like to know how to get Win2K to put a monitor in DPMS suspend mode at will.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Read The Fine Manual!
l /i nstall-guide/s1-guimode-firewall.html
l /i nstall-guide/s1-steps-type.html
l /i nstall-guide/s1-guimode-sel-group.html#S2-GUIMODE- SEL-INDIV-PACK
http://redhat.com/support/manuals/RHL-7.1-Manua
http://redhat.com/support/manuals/RHL-7.1-Manua
http://redhat.com/support/manuals/RHL-7.1-Manua
If that's your concern with Debian, and you want to give it another shot, in the past couple months (IIRC) Debian has added a third revision of sorts. Between stable (changed only for security fixes) and unstable (latest greatest - *BOOM*), there is now a "testing" distribution that accepts only new packages from unstable that have proven themselves to work fairly reliably. Just change your apt-sources from 'stable' to 'testing', and it should work on most mirrors.
Probably for "Direct from the source" downloads, pay first isn't such a bad idea - maybe $15 for an ISO is a bit much, but if the price stabilized to around $4-5 or so (so that it wouldn't be cheaper to get an actual CD delivered from CheapBytes), I can't see it being that bad. It'll at least help the bandwidth charges for the source of the distro.
(possibly with some kind of download verification, so those of us with unstable connections (*cough*AT&T Broadband,MA*cough*) wouldn't have to pay 4-5 times to get the download to finish (having the u/p expire after a couple of days might not be unreasonable) )
Once mirrors go up everywhere, the downloads from those could be cheaper, or free. THis would give people an incentive to use a free, local mirror, rather than clogging the main site. The decrease in people downloading from the main site would mean the mirrors could get the ISOs faster - so that's another advantage.
Since the distro companies won't be making a huge sum of cash off of the downloads of their distros (most are free downloads now) - they don't lose anything by doing this (and gain some extra cash to offset their now-slightly-lower bandwidth charges).
If users have broadband (or REALLY want to download multiple 700MB files over their modem) and want/need the updated distro *at* release - they can pay a small sum to do it, otherwise they wait 12-24 hours for their local mirror to sync up, and grab it free. (or pay a comparable sum to get a cd mailed from CheapBytes).
Willing to wait a couple months for a better package? Wait for the stores to carry the boxed copies (with printed manuals and such) with support/etc... (as is the case now)
I'd call it a win-win situation for all parties involved.
I'm thoroughly convinced that the "ease of use" of Windows is a myth. It's simply that people are FAMILIAR with Windows, that things seem "easier" in Windows.
I've seen a complete computer newbie sit down at a PC running WinME and be completely confused. There's little pictures of things they can't quite recognize (yet) and just about everything moves, or pops up a window, or a menu, or something else. After an hours worth of coaching, they get the basics of how to doubleclick, how to click in a dialog box to type, possibly even how to start up IE/OE and browse the web, send email, etc...but it DOES take some time.
And they still can't figure out the filesystem. They don't understand the concept of a directory (even if you go with the "folder" analogy) - they don't know how to download a file anywhere but the default location - they don't know how to save an attachment from an email before they run it - half the time they don't know that the things they download ARE files. If it's not on their desktop, it doesn't exist.
Take this same person, now that they've "learned" Windows, and sit them down in front of a *nix box - OF COURSE they're going to be confused! *nix doesn't work the same way Windows does (and auguably, it *shouldn't*), so all that "knowledge" they have about the way Windows works can't be applied. (Well, not entirely true - moving the mouse around generally does still move the pointer, etc...)
Now - take a complete computer newbie, and sit them down in front of a *nix box. Again, confusion - the *same* confusion the total newbie had when they sat down in front of the Windows box. After an hour of coaching, they can be at the same level.
Configurability is another matter - and there's a signifigant hump to get over - that being that hardware manufacturers (who would be the ones who know their hardware the best) seldom provide l*nix drivers for their hardware. They tend to only provide Windows drivers. Why? Because Windows is what *most* people have - and *not* supporting Windows is going to hurt their bottom line. Compared to Windows, the *nix installed base of home/workstation systems is pretty low - so generally not supporting *nix doesn't hurt their bottom line.
In addition, they tend to be SO protective of their "intellectual property", that even if a third party developer approaches them and says "I know you don't support *nix, but I'd like to write a driver so people who want to buy your hardware and use it with *nix can do so" gets denied, or forced to sign so many NDA agreements that the final product would be incredibly tough to distribute anyway.
This sets up a catch-22 of sorts. End-users (home/office) want support for the latest and greatest hardware NOW - not 6 months from now when a few brilliant and dedicated people have finally been able to reverse-engineer, legally, the means with which to support that hardware at the most basic level. They don't want to have to do research before they go to the store, in order to buy hardware that is compatible, and well supported - they want to buy the newest, flashiest thing they can find on sale.
Without support from the manufacturer, you're not going to GET that kind of support with *nix. SO people stick with Windows, and turn the whole situation around, blaming *nix for a lack of hardware support, whin in fact the blame rests on the manufacturers for not providing drivers, and placing roadblocks in the way of third party drivers.
Add to this the recent legal developments with regard to reverse engineering (IE: DeCSS) and you have a VERY hostile environment for good hardware/consumer tech support on a *nix platform.
Add to this the *nix community's distaste for binary-only releases of proprietary hardware drivers, and you have a REALLY bad situation.
For configurability under *nix to match that of Windows, we need manufacturers to support, or at the very least allow third party drivers to be written, with proper documentation of their hardware's features. In order for this to happen, the *nix community has to give a little, and allow for the possibility of proprietary, binary-only driver releases (at least until an open-source alternative can be developed). Both of these are big steps, and both sides quibble about taking small ones, let alone big ones like these. It's going to be a while before the situation gets better here.
OK - enough rambling - back to work =)
I posted an Ask Slashdot article on April 4th wondering how to choose a distro. Still not posted. Whee.
Since then I've chosen Mandrake 8, since it seems to support the things that I, as a BeOS fan/developer/user, need and expect from an operating system.
- chrish
I found 7.2 to be somewhat buggy (particularly the 'stable' KDE2 it came with), and going to 8.0b2 was actually really nice.
Next intel linux workstation I build will definitely be MDK8..
Your Working Boy,
- Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)
I have a DEC PWS433a with 2MB Cache, 128mb RAM and a Matrox Mystique card (My PowerStorm 4d60t is only supported by Tru64 and NT, not XFree86 ;-p ).
Tru64 runs fine on it, so it's not the hardware that is buggy!
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Linux/distributions/mandrak e/iso
...or...
a ke/iso
http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Linux/distributions/mandr
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
Actually, that's a grammatical noun number error. mios is a possesive plural pronoun but Dios is singular noun. And you are missing an inverted exclamation mark at the begining of the sentence.
I downloaded it from linuxiso.org. Got both isos in 1 night. I will say Mandrake 8.0 is very very very awesome. I have always loved Mandrake as I call it "RedHat-Fixed". Mandrake has sort of gone off on it's own and offered a lot of nifty features. I believe they have the most included software still. The new version 8.0 offers a 2.4.3 kernel, nice installer, graphical boot, X auto login for 1 user when in run level 5, a link on the desktop for two sites, MandrakeCapus and MandrakeExpert which are two community sites for newbies and experts to exchange info in a free manner. Mandrake has outdone itself and I am very excited everytime I boot the new version. :)
IRNI
I agree that all the distributions have their pro/cons and everyone has a preference.. I just believe that when using multiple machines it is easier to install the same distribution (I know that your iBook wouldn't work w/RH but..)
.02
I have several Intel machines and random other archs.. I like having the majority of machines running my choice of distribution.. makes my life easier when I want to upgrade or whatever..
Just my worthless
Because I erased it from my hard disk and there's no compelling reason to put it back.
Flamebait as I may seem...
Err, no. More like astroturfing
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
This is the wrong design. It should index if you're idle *and* you have moved/created/deleted files, and it should examine only the directories involved. This should take a fraction of a second.
Also the hard disk doesn't really goes crazy on my system like you say, much more the same effect as when I execute "find /".
I agree with the original poster that this kind of disk activity is annoying, especially on a laptop. The same applies to period dbupdate runs under cron. It's about time to remove these warts.
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
To hell with that. If you're not using Red-Hat you must be some airy-fairy, tree-hugging, anti-globalization-raving Debian user. In which case I don't want you polluting my distro.
Tnx.
just curious, but wouldn't 32 megs be enough? I've got a RedHat 6.x system on a different computer, and 32 megs is more than enough for most things on it.
http://www.redhat.com/products/software/linux/rhl
And I see:
From the little "RH" there after the version number, can I conclude that RedHat is still shipping an oddball, non-standard gcc compiler?With RedHat 7.1 the level of security you have depends solely on what installation method you choose - workstation, laptop, server, or custom. Workstation and laptop are much more secure than any previous RedHat release - there is no inted.conf or too many extraneous services (you should always check those, though), unless you specify certain packages installed (ftp, finger, etc). That combined with the (apparently - just got the box delivered) easy install/setup of iptables (strict as default - especially with desktop/laptop install) makes this look much more appealing than all previous RedHats. That being said - there's probably something that they seriously fscked up on.
Man, I wish I had mod points. This deserves a bump or two.
I can't count how many times I've thought that...as someone once said, the only real intuitive interface is the nipple. Everything - whether CLI, GUI, voice-controlled, 3D space-based...is learned. And the only reason people find 'doze earlier is that it's what they learned.
-- Veni, vidi, dormivi
X-Teq X-Setup lets you change the colors of BSODs.
:)
-- Veni, vidi, dormivi
Cheapbytes has the two download ISOs burned onto CD for about $4. I think it's a lot easier to get a couple of CDs for a few of bucks rather than download two 700MB files only to find the checksums don't match...
I got my install ISO image there yesterday, and am getting the ext cd image today as we speak. Decent data rate.
Of course, now that I've mentioned it, I expect it to be /.ed in no time. . .
I can understand disabling ftpd, telnetd and fingerd - they're known security hazards, and I'm not sure, but I think that RedHat's configurable security will let you enable them or disable them at will at this point. ssh and its family of tools accomplish the same thing, but are far more secure AFAIK. I haven't played with 7.1 yet, so I can't say anything about building the kernel. I'll just have to try it myself.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
OUCH! How can you download ISO images at 26.4? That'd take all month. Go buy a set of CDs from CheapBytes for ~ $10. Never underestimate the bandwidth of a FedEx shipment of CDs.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
(I know you could compile yourself -- but the first time you do "make install" -- you have just blown away the whole advantage of any packaging database...)
In most cases, you can keep your custom built code separate from your packaged code by installing to /usr/local or /opt instead of /usr. OTOH, I see problems when configuration files in /etc or other important places need to be changed, but in most cases, packagers should still work.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
Linux (and every other OS that I know of) requires some sort of external support in order to put together a distribution from scratch - heck, Linus built the first Linux kernels on a Minix system, before gcc was ported.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
I've been using RH 7.1 on my workstation for several days now. I haven't delved deeply into it, but it seems decent so far. Paired with Ximian Gnome 1.4, it's a very nice desktop. I'll have to explore it a little further before I decide whether or not to put it on my server, but for now, the prospects are looking good. A definite improvement over 7.0.
---Joe Merlino gnupg public key ID: 1E91EBAF
For those of you not familiar with the installation of linux on a Sony 505 series notebook, be advised that you have to tell the install program where the CDROM is, as it's not in the usual place. Per several locations on the web, the command is usually given by: linux ide2=0x180,0x386 and that gets you rolling. Most of the issues I have pertain to this peculiarity and any help would be appreciated.
:)
:) Too bad, though, I was really really looking forward to trying Progeny (I've been very impressed with Debian on my friend's system) and wanted to make sure I could upgrade to 2.4 kernel easily.. Mandrake held promise with it's inclusion of ReiserFS and 2.4 kernel by default.. Redhat's strength is that every major application I want to install seems built with it in mind (Oracle and the like..), so less tinkering more working, I suppose.
.02.
Mandrake 8.0: Would not install. From what I can tell, it has something to do with PCMCIA initialization, which I cannot find a way to bypass during install. Using the Text Expert mode, I see that the kernel panics and the whole system locks up. From the limited research I've done, this is basically because the kernel tries to configure the PCMCIA, whereas the Sony BIOS has already done so, causing some major, so far unsolvable, hiccups.
Progeny 1.0: A somewhat different problem than above, progeny does a windows-esque "reboot" to continue installation. However, upon reboot, the installer does not "remember" where the CDROM is, resulting in an infinite "Please insert CDROM disk 2" type message. I could not find a way to switch to another console and could not pass the proper location of the CDROM to the install program. I was looking forward to an easy to install debian system.. I might try Stormix or just plain jane Debian.
Redhat 7.0: There were some errors in the install, seemingly related to PCMCIA devices, but the install program chugged right through them and I now have a functioning Linux distribution running on my beautiful Sony Vaio 505FX. I'm planning a clean reinstall to get rid of some fluff, but in the meantime Windowmaker seems a nice enough "GUI" for the small screensize, when I'm not just "toying" in console mode. I may just keep running in console mode and screw the GUI altogether. So far, most everything is working fine. I've yet to try network configuration, but I should tackle that soon enough..
So, 2 lose by default (installation *too* easy, maybe?), the other wins simply by virtue that it installs a basic system, which is what I want..
Anyway, my off-topic
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Libranet seems to be following the same path as Mandrake, which began as a better RedHat than RedHat and then found its own niche. Libranet is doing the better Debian than Debian thing. Let's all hope that Libranet continues to follow in Mandrakes footsteps and produces all sorts of useful software for the community.
The great thing about Linux is that a anyone can start a new project/distribution that competes and builds on the old, and everyone eventually benefits. For instance, I'm looking for time to do a better Mandrake than Mandrake distro. Mandrake has been pushing the 'ease of installation' envelope. I'd like to push it even further with a distro called 'Tutor Linux', that will be guaranteed to take a week to install. Each step of the installation would be accompanied by indepth analysis and discussion of why things are being done the way they are being done. Upon completion, the end user would have a complete understand of how and why the system works the way it does. Instead of hiding the difficulties of installation behind a graphical interface that mask the details, the aim of my distro will be to expose and explain the details so the user understands them, and is therefore no longer intimidated by them.
Expect to see my distro in stores, RSN!! 8*)
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Hey I thought i'd give a quick review of both since I ended up installing them both on my laptop over the last week or so. The machine is a dell 5000e w/ 16 mb ati 128 vid card. The machine started off as a dual boot rh7.0 win2k machine, where 7.0 was more or less a stock up2dated run. The upgrade detected my video card fine but for some reason totally screwed up my pcmcia ports. I ended up going down to the 2.2 kernel which allowed my wireless card to work (but not the cardbus xircom for some reason) and backing things up. Taking the opportunity to wipe win2k :), i reinstalled 8.0 from scratch, everything installed perfectly including the pcmcia card (So obviously there were some configuration issues w/ old pcmcia-cs files lying around vs the kernel subsystem). However the aironet card on insertion gave all sorts of dire warnings and on ejection gave a kernel panic. (I chaulked this one off as hunting around on google i noticed that ben's drivers were to be incorporated like a month ago so maybe it missed the rh boat..?) The vaguely annoying glitch was trying to import windows fonts would cause konqueror to go into some really nasty crashes at sites like nytimes. (It would take my system down.. didn't we learn our lesson about web browsers being hooked into important things (like your entire window manager!) from err someone else? (I know its vaguely different but the practical upshot is the same..))
Right, so a week later mandrake 8.0 came out and since i had a pretty clean system I thought i'd take the opportunity to give it a whirl.. I installed reiserfs (apparantly those corruption bugs have been removed somewhere btwn 2.4.1->2.4.2 (x fingers)) , it did *not* detect my videocard/screen (luckily i had my old XF86Config-4 files lying around since the old rh7.0 actually didn't do this either so I was expecting an issue here). I have to say the mandrake packaging w/ apps the organized menu system is orders of magnitude better than anything I have ever seen (i.e. the gnome/kde/redhat menus are seperate w/ rh) . W/ regards to pcmcia I had no problems w/ either of my cards (I assume this is due to a later kernel). Some niggling issues are the windows font importer obviously doesn't work (but you can do it manually). They sometimes seem to forget to do things like link libXm.so.4 to libXm.. but the apps.. wow I didn't know half this shit existed actually.. Mandrake really is an OS that you can legitimately install for your parents and have maybe a 60% chance of them actually using it.. Issues that are probably not Mandrake issues.. just playing w/ gnome 1.4 setup I managed to get the control thingy to segfault??!? The antialiasing fonts of kde2.1.1 are *great* for web browsing however setting them will totally screw up your fixed fonts (i.e. your terminal) :: i basically now use gnome terminals and kde screen to get around this... but other than that Mandrake is one amazing piece of software..
-avi
I use MDK and have done so since 6x but 8 has caused me some angnst. It loses interrupts. I keep getting errors HDC lost interrupt, and it dies after spewing more about lost interupts. This happens periodically after a new install, sometimes rigt away then at other times after a few hours.
This has not happened before.
Steel
There are none as blind as those who will not see.. (unknown)
Just grabbed Red Hat 7.1 + Ximian 1.4.
Wow. I have to say, I have never seen a cooler desktop. Plus, it runs bind9, has all of the crypto stuff that was added back in Red Hat 7.0 and a ton of other stuff that makes this the way to go for anyone who wants to get their feet wet with Linux or the long-time hacker.
Not to belittle everything else. Mandrake, Debian, etc are all good distributions and I applaud their efforts and those who use them, but Red Hat has been focusing right where I want a distribution to focus: latest and greatest tempered by usability and stability. I've always found that, eg, Debian does not make this trade-off where I want. Unstable is just a little too unstable and stable is just a little bit too old. I want a middle-ground, and Red Hat seems to walk that tightrope well, making the occasional gaff, but fixing them fairly fast with their updates.
"Also we think it unfair that only those users with fast connections can download free CD images. "
/me also thinks that there's no chance in hell of the CD's being available in shops in this backward part of the world
Right... so apparently they seem to think that these fast connections are free or something ? Downloading "free" CD images is just an extra you get for paying a lot of money for a fast connection.
"Regarding charging for a download and whether this is in conformity with the GNU General Public License, it is. We have consulted with Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation and have been assured that what we are doing is legitimate.
Richard put it this way:
"Free software is about freedom, not price. Free software means that users have certain freedoms, such as the freedom to redistribute and change the software. To charge for a copy is legitimate; this is just as true for downloading as for a CD-ROM." ""
Yadda yadda... IMHO it's also perfectly legal to pay 15$, download the distro and redistribute it for free.
And BTW, i suppose Libranet is based in the USA ? Americans keep forgetting that it's harder to pay for things like this when you're in Europe or something...
Anyway, whatever.
uXs
This is my sig. Hooray !
I hope no one will call this a review of a distribution (the RH one I mean).
"I recommend that all new server installations use this distribution, and SMP servers upgrade to it to maximize the servers' capabilities. "
You can't be expecting any sysadmin or any user for that matter to base a decision to buy this on such a superficial advertisement?
- In Memoriam: Jeroen de Bruin (1972-2004), bye bro
Install the Windows TTF fonts if you have them. With them Konqueror looks fine. Also, take a look at the Font Deuglification mini HOWTO at http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/FDU/index.html.
- Krischi
LM8 is great. The install was flawless and I even did an (gasp) upgrade. The browser actually works on this release and Gnome looks really impressive. It is absolutely shot in the ass with applications which is why I like Mandrake so much.
It takes forever to boot up though. This is not a distro for your spare 32 meg machine. This baby needs some room. Time for a CPU upgrade.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
I do have a couple of beefs about it though. For some reason I can't su to root when logged into my user account. I assume this is some security setting, but I haven't found out how to disable it yet. Anyone know? Also, something is really fucked up with the fonts in Konqueror. They are just terrible, the letters are crooked and of varying sizes, pretty much makes every page look like it was written in 1337 5p34k. Anyone else notice this or know how to fix it?
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
If you are afraid to make a mistake, hire a consultant to do it for you.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
xinetd is an inetd replacement. It's a little more to learn, but instead of a single file, each service is now its own config file. This makes it act much like SysV init, in fact, the config files are in /etc/xinet.d/
/etc/xinet.d/ can now be set disable=yes or disable=no (how you turn on or off an xinetd service) manually or through {ntsysv | ckconfig | rl editor}. Additionally, it is much more secure than inetd (though I don't know how it compares to tcp wrappers) and more configurable (ex: "run telnet, but only on the internal interface").
:)
each service which is listed in
R'ing TFM is always a Good Idea
{apropos | man -k} is your friend
-Mith
--
ncurses: ntsysv
GUI: Run Level Editor
Those are the Right Ways to do it. Here's why:
Change S10network to K10network and you've just broken sendmail, which should shut down BEFORE network, but now shuts down after it. In the case where you're disabling something, it won't matter much, but that doesn't make it the right way to do it.
should we all bow down to l33tness?
I'm and MCSE
I didn't say you should bow down to leetness, but you should at least learn the difference between "an" and "and".
Luckily, the poster to whom I replied appreciated my advice. Ironic that you call me a troll though (even though I've feed one with this reply).
--
*cough*
Not that I don't agree with you, just that manually playing around in
--
ÕÕ
ÕÕ
Just re-built my thinkpad - so I put Mandrake 8.0 on it. What else is DSL for if not linuxisos.org? ;-)
After 2 days of grief with no mouse support working (you do not want to run their graphical installer without a mouse)... I talked the thinkpad into enabling the serial port so I can at least use a serial mouse. Doubtless I'll get the trackpoint on the go with a little work.
I must say I'm impressed with it. It looks good, and it auto-detected my PCMCIA network card that is very new and so not supposed to work under anything Microsoft didn't write (DFE-680TXD; it's using a tulip chipset if you're interested)
Mind you, it's I guess a case that each new major revison of a distro has all the latest toys and that's a big part of the "wow" factor.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Not so:
Gnome 1.4 released April 3rd
Mandrake 8.0 released April 19th
I mean, doesn't have IPChain.
Right continent, better country.
I'd like to see a distro that keeps as little trace as possible of legacy stuffs.
/dev installed by default, that replaces LILO with GRUB completely, and installs XFree 2.4.x exclusively.
e.g. One that uses Kernel 2.4 all the way, that doesn't have IPTables and the old
I like new versions of softwares. I hate old versions lying around.
Any recommendation?
I like Gentoo. If it uses apt-get or epkg I'd have chosen it in a heartbeat. Too bad.
I agree. I don't know any sysadmins that are married to one single Linux distro, or even one flavor of Un*x for that matter. We run HP-UX for our databases, RedHat for some DNS, and I've recently converted some RS/9000 AIX boxes to SuSE 7.1. I usually choose a distro just by how easy I want the install to go. If I need something simple like a DNS server, I'll choose RedHat because you can just throw it in, edit a few files and go. But if I need something like a webserver or DB server, when I want to dig in and customize everything, I'll take Debian or Slackware, just because nothing is done for you with these. The only way you know it's done right is when you do it yourself.
--- Rectum?! Damn near killed em'! - Confucius
The Cyclades patch applied without problems (it being an additive patch rather than one with modifications). However the Sangoma patch failed to apply and the kernel refused to compile.
We removed the patched kernel, installed a fresh kernel source from the RPMs, and patched *only* for the Cyclades card. The kernel source already had drivers for the Sangoma card so we tried to compile those instead.
Imagine our surprise when this freshly installed kernel source also refused to compile. It had errors all over the place. I assumed the Red Hat kernel had some patches so we got our SRPM to recover the "pristine source" kernel that was there. Still i was worried that this kernel didn't even compile.
After extracting all the files from the source RPM, I was baffled when I realized the Red Hat kernel had over 200 patches applied to it! no wonder the Sangoma patch barfed, as this beast could hardly be considered a 2.4.2 kernel anymore.
Finally we did extract the sources from the source RPM (despite all the mess that this operation was, it's nice to see that the RPM concept of "pristine source plus patches" really saved the day). Both the Sangoma and Cyclades patches applied without a hitch and 25 minutes later we had our system back up and running the way it was supposed to be.
One last rant, it seems that for some reason the Sangoma drivers which have been included in the kernel for quite some time never work fine. We always have to patch from the Sangoma releases. I wonder why haven't the updated drivers made it into the kernel. hrmm.
So you probably have some broken BIOS that tells the kernel it has only 32 MB RAM.
What's the bug report number for this? Oh, there is none.
Users who complain, but don't report bugs to us continue to not impress me.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
What's the error message you get when building the kernel? Did you make mrproper first (read the manual)? What's the bug report number of this problem? We can't fix problems we aren't aware of. (And compiling the kernel definitely works for me).
...
The services being turned off is intentional for security reasons (read the manual).
Run ntsysv, or "chkconfig ftpd on", "chkconfig telnet on",
Also, make sure the firewall settings aren't preventing accesses to the services you want to run (read the manual).
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Don't like your distro? Write a new one. Is it a piece of crap? It will go away. Is it worthwhile? Well, it still might go away. But over time, a process similar to natural selection allows the best software to rise to the top.
The downside of all this prolific spread is that standards become rare. This is why the Linux Standard Base is such an important idea.
www.avacal.com -- the home page of pete shaw
I think the URL for the review is mangled... The real one is here:
http://www.thedukeofurl.org/reviews/misc/libranet1 90/printable.shtml
--8<--
--8<--
I tried the beta version of Mandrake 8 and I loved them, they got all my hardware working perfectly. Then I downloaded the release version of Mandrake 8.0 and I'm having some interesting hardware problems. USB refuses to work after getting through about 5 steps of the install which takes out my mouse. I'v had erors partitioning a hardrive on a slightly older system too. The beta3 seemed to work almost flawlesly, but for some reason the release seems to have added a lot more bugs.= \=\=\=\
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\
A linux distro is more like a toolbox than like finished a product: they are for people that need or like to tweak with things, that are unsatisfied with standard commercial offer.Your needs can be satisfied by any of the mahjor distros, but not without a little work from you.
If you like so much windows, just keep using it. Both Perl and GCC have been ported to it, so you have the tool you need.
Ciao
----
FB
Hmmm, I wonder how a nipple-based interface to your computer would work. Any suggestions or ideas?
As others have said, its still a GPL product, so why is no one (even the sites that specialize in selling (cheapbytes for example)) offering the current libranet iso for download?
There should be nontrivial questions after each step performed, so that the next step only will be started if the user has sufficient knowledge about the subject. And to make things harder, there should be a large enough pool of questions, so that after a wrong answer, you would get a different question :-)
And when the install is finally finished, it should be possiply to print out a fine diploma, whith the users name, the systems specifications, and the time it took to complete the install
Well, Mandrake still has them beat in this department, by offering security levels ranging from "Paranoid" to "Welcome to Crackers". ;-)
One thing I wish all distros would do better is explain what each setting will really do. What packages, etc. does workstation have that server doesn't? What changes at each security level? What will I get to see in "expert install" that I won't with the others?
It's frustrating when the features that get installed appear to be picked randomly (and hand-tweaking the install involves looking through thousands of packages...)
There's a fine line between making installation easy and dumbing it down, and some of the install options I've seen are dumbed down to the point where the user cannot make any sort of rational choice based on the information given.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
Most definitely not.
I'm pretty much in the same situation (UK, dialup, no time to be arsing around for 3 days just to get X up and running). I used Redhat for a while and just got sick of the time it took to get a usable desktop system - that should happen upon installation, my time should be spent configuring things more specific to my own setup and writing software rather than endlessly trying to make someone elses software work. Then I tried Mandrake 7.1 (free with magazine) and it worked well: X configured itself, and I had everything up in no time. I occasionally upgrade vital apps but on the whole just wait for the next Mandrake release and upgrade the whole OS. I actually get some work done now instead of spending 90% of my time mucking around with Linux itself.
????
Funny, for me it usually works out the other way around.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
desktop-come-development-come-nice
Hey, what's this, some kind of porno?? I think you mean "desktop-cum-development..."
Are there any explanations of how to "really" do Linux from scratch, rather than relying on precompiled bits from an existing Linux system to bootstrap the new one? Don't get me wrong, I think LFS is a great resource, but I'm quite disappointed by the fact that its method not only requires precompiled bits from an existing Linux system, but relies on Linux being the build system.
So I'm complaining that their anaconda can't upgrade an existing RH 6.0 installation because it can't figure out how to undo it's own file system, and they tell me:
Some early K6-2 300mhz have problems with the system chips. You will need to get replacement chips from AMD."
That's like saying I want new tires so I have to get a new engine management computer. STOOPID JERKS!
Oracle and unix guy.
Any comments about it? They're trying to sell me a hardened 7.0 for $100, but since I can't use regular 7.0, I'm skeptical. Kinda interesting they are trying to sell me a production version, but their website says it is beta. And nothing about 7.1.
Oracle and unix guy.
i looked around and around the libranet site but couldn't find a 'download' link anywhere. any help would be appreciated...
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
I've not had any trouble with my terminal getting screwed up... I use kterminal and it gives me fixed-courer just fine
I did
I needed to edit the mc file to allow connections from outside
dnl This changes sendmail to only listen on the loopback device 127.0.0.1
dnl and not on any other network devices. Comment this out if you want
dnl to accept email over the network.
dnl DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=smtp,Addr=127.0.0.1, Name=MTA')
bah, any distro can be secure or insecure... just matters how much you put to it
and now, most have a firewall setup on install, EVEN redhat 7.1
Well, as the story goes, I vowed a month ago to completely switch %100 to Linux once Mandrake 8.0 was released. I had been using Mandrake 7.x for a while, and it was pretty damn spiffy... but the versions of KDE 2 were kind of unstable among other things. With the release of Mandrake 8.0, I was really excited about an easy transition to a stable user-friendly Linux desktop. I downloaded the ISO and ran through the install. Everything was brain-dead-easy until I finished installing the application packages and went for the initial reboot. The installer kept giving me a no hdlists error, and so I tried expert install and many other options. Things got frustrating, so I decided to try something else.
Libranet was that something else. Any open-minded techie will be able to see the superiority of a Debian based distro, with regards to system updates etc, using apt-get. However, I also have two eyes which can see the superiority of KDE 2.1 to anything Gnome has the offer. I never got involved in any emotional or religious license arguements are crap like that. I just simply wanted the best Linux setup possible, and I didn't want to have to spend allot of time/effort/money to get it.
Libranet 1.9.0 has all the features I want, with a cutting edge journeling filesystem, the latest great kernel, KDE 2.1, etc... It is easy Debian based!
So the install. You want to know about the install? Well, lets just say that it ain't as easy as Mandrake, when Mandrake dosen't shit itself on you. When Mandrake's installer works, a 3 year old could install it. But Mandrake wasn't working for me at all, so maybe Libranet's more involved install actually helped.
The biggest problem with Libranet's installer was its reliance on floppies. Excuse my foul language, but it ain't fscking 1997 anymore guys. Most workstations don't use floppies anymore, using CD-RW instead. CD-RW is more dependable and its cheaper than floppies. Libranet's install requires you to make floppies if you are installing Libranet on SCSI harddrives. So, yes, the biggest and most difficult part of the entire install for me was trying to dig up an old floppy drive that I had stashed away at the bottom of a closet full of boxes of knick-nacks. After hooking it up and making the boot floppies, I try to boot my soon-to-be Linux box on them. Yup, the disks were bad, so I was back to trying to rawrite more boot disks until I found some old floppies that didn't have bad sectors all over them.
Floppies floppies floppies! After the floppy fiasco, the rest of the install was a piece of cake. And I mean easy easy easy! The installer didn't have a theme manager like Mandrake's, but the installer was doing one thing that Mandrake's installer wasn't doing for me yesterday: it was working!
Libranet's installer is super easy to use. You need to know a few obvious things to properly move through the installer for Libranet:
Again, just incase you guys don't get the point of how easy the install is... floppies can be a bitch and partitioning the drives requires actual though, but even the partitioning is as straight forward as cutting a birthday cake or a pizza, which most people have done at least once in their life.
What is Libranet actually like? Well, I could better answer this question a month from now, after using it everyday, but from what I have seen so far, Libranet seems rock solid stable and loaded with cool (and useful) apps. Of course, I was one of the cursed Northpoint customers that got his line cut, so I suck down the net through a 28.8 dialup now, but apt-get is just way too cool! With it, I probably won't download a new distro for another 2 years! If you have a dedicated net connection, like a cable modem or a DSL line... apt-get would be the Holy Grail of Linux for you. Installing and updating software is easier on a Debian Linux than on any Mac OS or Windows OS!
IT JUST WORKS!
Why more people don't use a Debian based distro is weird to me. I suggest Libranet 1.9.0 if you want to experiment with a Debian based distro, or if you simply want a better rock solid Linux setup. In my opinion, Debian should be THE core standard for all distros.
By the way, I am posting this from Konqueror, which after several hours of frantic use, hasn't crashed once. Konqueror is THE Internet Explorer killer.
Charging for downloading a linux distro is wrong. Problem with bandwidth? Use a mirror like the rest of them do - spout all you want about them having rights to charge for their hard work, they take debian, change a few packages, add some pretty GUI's and now it's Their distro? I don't think so.
Go Progeny.
I just upgraded to Mandrake 8.0 from 7.2, and it's wonderful! I really am
impressed, especially with Gnome 1.4. I've always been a KDE guy, but from
the looks of Gnome now I could go either way. It's really polished. Other
than that, Mandrake has improved in every way. A few things I couldn't get
working right before were put right by the upgrade, which is a good sign.
I haven't really gotten into working with 8.0 yet, but so far everything
looks great. One thing that's confusing, I have DrakConf as well as a
couple of other configuration utilities, which seems redundant. But these
utilities get better every time, so I'm not complaining. My only complaint
with the new version is that Gnome is too slow.
---
Mandrake 7.1 was only better than 7 in that it provided a few great tools.
7.2 was a big jump with KDE2 and now 8, which I've been using with great
success during the betas since a few months ago has the 2.4 kernel, better
graphics card support, KDE2.1 which now has the option of antialiased fonts,
and major improvements to many tools. 7.1 was uneventful but we ran it
anyway, this one is about 500% better. I had to do a lot of workarounds in
7.1 to make it work right. The differences are much to great to list here!
The ftp sites are all clogged with traffic as the word got out and even my
friends who never considered running Linux are asking me to burn them copies
of 8.0. Also Red Hat and others all released new distros and are usually on
the same ftp sites. It'll be a few days!
---
Those are just a few of the majority of great reviews Mandrake's new relase has gotten. I personally had a problem with Live Update in that it broke X, and the only complaints you will hear are of slight issues when trying to upgrade (I'm on the Mandrake Experts mailing list). Other than that, it's truly amazing how quickly the 'Drake folks get new updates in their software and the quality of their distro.
Great stuff!
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
because the DistroWars is going to start!! Never before seen here on /. An exclusive event, dont delay! Get your popcorn and soda and
let's get ready to rumble!!!!!
Why doesn't one person just pay $15, download it, then redistribute the ISO images on their own server? Surely that is legal, right? I mean if libranet wants to charge for every copy made that makes them the same as the record companies.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Improvement over 7.2??? I upgraded one of my desktops last night, and now xawtv won't work (worked out of the box on 7.2, now I have to fix by hand), it broke enlightenment (and all the menus), and for some reason, the Mandrake X config program *won't* give me the option of anything greater than 1024x768 - and if you config in in 'expert' mode, it still reverts back to 1024x768...
Don't get me wrong, I'm a Mandrake fan (Corp. Server runs great on my Sparc), but when you break my two fav. apps (enlightenment and xawtv) after an upgrade, you really piss me off... and who wants to look at a 17" monitor at 1024x768??
Oh well, back to an xterm for me (eterm is missing from the distro now, what's up with that?) to fix everything it broke...
Driven by 100% sarcasm - fueled by the need to be heard.
I have done that, and I will again, but the point is they claim to support 17 window managers so you are 'free to choose'... why can't they support enlightenment? And where is eterm? I miss my transparent windows already... sniffle...
I'm not claiming E is the best, but for some people like me who don't like the 'desktop' metaphore, it's a good, solid, and very attractive option.
Driven by 100% sarcasm - fueled by the need to be heard.
(that'd be anothe r good one to see some more reviews of.)
:) Without him, they'd have to just call it Deb!
that's "better debian than debian" and with the approval / leadership / etc. of Ian Murdoch -- so what more could you want?
It would be an interesting kink in the graph if debian-based distros start to actually dominate. Even the fact that there *are* multiple debian-based distros is an intersting kink in the graph.
simon
"Hey Carlito, r'membah me? Benny Blanco from the Bronx!"
these reviews paired is interesting in part because one is (uhh ....) RH-based ;) and the other is Debian-based.
... (are there more?)
...)
A few years ago, and barring Slackware, it seemed liked all commercial distros were based on Red hat, and probably most still are.
Are we at an inflection point? Now at least 4 slick commericial distros have emerged that are based on Debian: Corel (ick, though that's based on the first version); Stormix (deceased 2001, alas); Progeny (looks good to me, but haven't run); LibraNet
Maybe the convenience of apt-get will win over the current dominance of RPMs; if Mandrake and RH weren't now RPM compatible again (allegedly) I would see that happening even faster. (And mandrake's cooker thing even *has* apt-get
Interesting times;)
simon
"Hey Carlito, r'membah me? Benny Blanco from the Bronx!"
I've had issues with the Yenta socket on laptops. I ran an upgrade on a Compaq 1592 test box and now it won't load past Yenta. It locks solid. No flames or trolls, please, I'm still working on it.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Mandrake 8 is installing a broke-dick version of Apache. They apparently have decided to include patches that were rejected by the Apache group. They also broke httpd.conf into multiple config files and use non-standard apache modules. If you don't care about a web server, Mandrake might work fine for you, but don't expect to do any web development and have it work right on a non-gang-raped, real version of Apache.
I installed it last night. So far only 1 problem. GNOME using Nautilus is broke...That "Super" file manager crashes to the carpet very often....I am wondering why a mainstream distribution would include something in such a critical area that is so unstable. (I.E. -- I click on a desktop icon to browse one of my folders and it crashes...) I mean -- the distributions go a long way to insure they don't include broken development kernels behind the scenes....why ruin it by including (badly) broken desktop environments.
On the flip side -- KDE 2.1 seems to be about as solid as they come...I have tried really hard to like kde....But I just seem to be a slave to stuff that looks "cool" (I.E. -- GTK themes and Sawfish themes that look good and are original -- Crux is a good example....Plus the Gnome panel is cool) KDE just seems boxy and boring for me as a home user....I would not hesitate to recommend it for the boring corporate desktops though -- as it seems to be the most stable, feature rich, desktop environment that we have going for us.
It would be really neat if the Gnome people would do some damage control and convert Konq. to Gtk -- and end this whole Mozilla/Eazel cancer (at least until a cure can be found) -- and give us a stable desktop environment.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
There is some discussion on MandrakeForum, and somewhere else I read a response that said the person simply recompiled the kernel and it worked. Sadly, the dependencies on the Kernel-source RPM are also wanting... they need a ncurses-devel RPM that is unavailable on the CDs and the FTP sites.
Sadly, there is a definite bug in the Mandrake 8.0 release that is just getting recognized: The kernel was compiled with the ps/2 mouse support disabled in many configurations, including ThinkPads. Apparently, they thought that 'no ps/2 keyboard' (i.e. USB keyboard) was thought to mean 'no ps/2 mouse' as well. My ThinkPad could not access the trackpoint device (the keyboard mouse-pointer) in any way... on a kernel level. If you replace kernel-2.4.3-20mdk with kernel-linus2.4-2.4.3-2mdk, you get the ps/2 port back, but you must dig out compatible pcmcia modules for the earlier kernel. (I'm presently switching kernels between a mouseless session and a networkless session.)
It is Wednesday today, and I've been watching the cooker/cooker-fire for a new kernel, but to no avail. IMHO, Redhat got the 7.1 release out a timely way, panicking Mandrake into a premature release.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a featuritis junkie who loves Mandrake otherwise. I just wish this user-friendly distribution ideal for notebook systems were actually ready for this release.
"I can't wait for some of the Linux distros to start to fail." like storm linux/stormix did? e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Try Mozilla 0.8, provided with LM8. Excellent!
Woo-hoo! Someone else out there with a clue! I am sick and tired of the bitching and moaning. So what if RH7.0 was insecure out of the box. If it was, then don't use it for a DNS Server. Geesh. Everyone has a preference, and very well should. But don't think for a second that your distro of choice is better at everything than anyone else's distro of choice. Because when it comes down to it... you are going to install sources of new packages anyway so it's going to be different than the original distro anyway! Blah!
It would be alot easier to review mandrake if one could download it...I have been trying since it was released, and of all the mirror sites I have tried the best I have gotten to, was 53% before the download timed out.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Everyone has their favorite distribution, as well as those they totally hate (which are the favorites of someone else).
The best way to figure out whether to upgrade or not and to what is to try them out in a new partition. Focus on the ones which promise the simpler and faster installations, if only because they're faster to try and check out.
Installing MINIMAL options in Mandrake, Suse, RedHat (for example) should allow you to check them out in a couple of days. Whatever catches your eye would be worth an actual trial. Whatever has problems in such a short time is not worth it.
Of course, you could want to go for more customizable, powerful, less user-friendly distributions that require some plumbing work, but I'm assuming that's not the case.
Obligatory useless recommendations that should not be paid attention at all follow:
I like SuSe and Mandrake. Mandrake won me over from RH with equivalent technical quality and superior desktop features. I just haven't seen any advantage to RedHat since I upgraded from RH6.0. SuSe won me over from Mandrake with superior technical quality and equivalent desktop features.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Anyway, according to some of the gnome 1.4 users there are soem bugs especially with Eazel. RedHat did the right thing. I myself will wait for gnome 1.4.1 . Kde 2 is a classic example of last minute bugs found. Kde 2.1.1 was the release which finally got everythign right.
http://saveie6.com/
You want something as easy to use as Windows.
You want something thats easy to setup and configure as Windows.
You want a decent desktop OS.
You want to do C and Perl.
Why not use.. Windows?
Flamebait as I may seem, theres nothing *wrong* with Windows as a desktop OS. It doesn't feature the same level of security as *nix, nor does it have the zero cost outlay advantage, but it does work, its simple to use, and there are squillions of apps and games and stuff for it. Its a case of using the right tool for the job. Windows might just be the right tool.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
If your clients can't make a decision on using which gnu/linux distro ... they are in the wrong position of the hierarchy of that company. ... they could hire some consultant. ...
If they are not wanting to risk judging wrong
After all which distro they choose isn't important at all! rpm or deb based is the only dilema. Since it is easy to upgrade/install whatever software package on their chosen gnu/linux
I currently run Redhat 7 and after loosing some stuff on it that I liked (such as enlightenment) and general flaws and badly built stuff (missing files etc.etc) I figured I'd move to something else.
I use it mainly as a desktop OS, would like everything I possibly need already configured and if possible running, reasonably secure and dare I say it?, as close to being as friendly as Windows as possible. Ie. I don't have to piss about with config options, it does it for me and i can get on with doing fun stuff.
I use my machine for web development and socket programming (so C and perl really). I don't have a perminant connection, just a dial up which I hardly use (since the phone is miles away from the PC and we in the UK still have to pay for isp calls) so cron jobbing apt-get-whatnot isn't really useful.
I've asked about and can I get a sensible answer about what is the best desktop-come-development-come-nice-windows-style-t hing-but-running-linux distro for me? Nope, everyone comes up with totally different distros for a variety of reasons! At the end of the day its confusing me and whilst I'm by no means a linux expert, I'm not a total dunce.
I'm totally lost. Do I upgrade or not? I'm no closer to picking a distro than I was when i first started. Its times like this when I really start to wonder if maybe it would be better to have a few really good distros rather than lots that seem to do some bits well and some not.
I just know I'm going to get shot down in flames and marked as "Troll" but i'm not. I'm totally and completely lost in the maze of distributions and seem to be unable to get a sensible consistent answer from anyone.
Am I alone?
--
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Ok, I'll start the troll:
The only distro that's best suited to your needs is Linux From Scratch, just because you have to choose the packages yourself.
Err, maybe LFS does not really qualify as a distro...
Ni!
I'm currently running Mandrake 7.0 and anxiously waiting to be able to install 8.0, but I've heard stories of 8 having problems running enlightenment (my WM of choice). So can somebody tell me, does Mandrake 8.0 run enlightenment (the Mandrake page seems to claim that its included)?
I had a little bit of trouble with my Mandrake 8 installed that would have repelled a first-time user - certianly not "windows easy" quite yet. First off, it didn't install the accelerated nvidia drivers (or say that they existed), so I had to go download them and follow Nvidia's instructions. I think they do include a commercial CD with their boxed release with closed drivers, commercial office apps (star, applix), and more non-free stuff. It also didn't have my monitor listed, so I had to go search for the monitor definitions on Google and manually edit the xf86 config file. Now it's up, but it would be a little confusing to a first time user to click tuxracer and have nothing happen :) - at the least they should have an error message pop up when a program doesn't start. The shear amount of configuration tools would also be fairly daunting. It took me awhile to find the right program to install new packages...
When I started KDE for the first time on my machine with Mandrake 8.0, something weird happened - it made sound. The is the first distro I've tried which actually configured my isapnp soundcard successfully during the install (no creating and editing that weird isapnp.conf file).
I've been considering upgrading from my RH7.0 install to something a little less broken. How they could justify shipping a linux distro with a C/C++ compiler as broken as 2.96RH boggles the imagination. I tried Debian, but it's still unnecessarily steep learning curve with the ncurses install/update program left a poor taste in my mouth. I've been looking at the new Mandrake 8.0 for the i586.rpm and seemingly newer apps. Is GCC broke there too? Any thoughts would be appreciated, although the home-brew compiled, encapped GCC-2.95.2 has fixed most of the compiler issues.
You're not *really* working in the lab unless there's smoke in the air.
Actually, I use both SuSE and Debian :-)
I guess it's time for a distro war again.. Oh well.. Just use the distro that's best suited for YOUR needs... not just because someone is yelling its so good..
yes there is a distro war again. But I must say that Mandrake 8 is the best distro I've ever used. The install is easy and intuitive. It supports all my hardware automatically. It comes with all the newest packages that I want so I don't have to scour the net for them. And the drakTools top the whole thing off with their control panel and the easy graphical package updater. I've used the newest debians and rehats and mandrake takes the cake. Good job to the guys who made it.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
I use several distros. My Webserver runs Progeny Debian. My workstation runs Mandrake, and my iBook runs SuSE 7.1 and they all work fine. They are all different to a certain degree and I dont really have a preferance. I have not had any problems with incompatabilites or anything. I like Debians apt-get but a lot of stuff out there is RPM based which works just as good. I say try em all, I mean they are FREE! Find one or three you like and use those. My DNS servers run OpenBSD but that doesnt count here.
Arathres
I love my iBook. I use it to run Linux!
stainless steel
There's also urpmi, which attempts to add apt-get style functionality to RPM based distros.
Excellent... Never saw that before... looking at ntsysv now, will check out ckconfig in a bit... Just made my life a little bit easier! :)
There wouldn't be an easier way of editing inetd.conf, would there?
That's what I get when I !RTFM
This is my Sig.
I am truly amazed! Congratulations Nick Mitchell on not trolling /. !
:)
On the topic of distro's, I've used RH, Slack, Mandrake, Debian, SuSe, etc. I personally like them all... preferred at this point is probably RH since it is what I first installed, and learned mostly for my first year running/admin'ing linux.
If RH has (finally) beefed up security, I for one will be forever greatful... gets really annoying having to edit inetd.conf, and go through rc3.d and disable practically EVERYTHING every time I install. I learned from the beginning, and I think this is (read in: should be) industry standard, that you should disable everything by default, and turn services on as necessary, after being sure to patch and update all dependant services.
The article didn't go in depth as to their security enhancement feature, aside from it being configurable during the install... Hopefully what I call secure is what they do too...
This is my Sig.
There are some things about RH7.1 that I really like - it found and correctly configured bits of hardware that have traditionally required a fair amount of effort for me to make work. On the downside, my Creative Labs SB 16 was completely broken out of the box - and remains broken pending action at bugzilla. Likewise, the resulting Gnome 1.2/1.4 halfbreed that was created as a result of running a 7.1 upgrade on my (RH7.0/Ximian1.4beta system) was highly unstable, and forced me to do a complete reinstall w/ things as 7.1 would have them.
To glowingly recommend a 7.1 upgrade in these early days of RH's 2.4.x rollout seems ill-advised, and perhaps a bit irresponsible.
I was running Fisher (7.0.90) and in order to get Sun jdk1.3 to work, I had to use the 386 version of glibc 2.2.1-3 (instead of the 686 ver which installed by default for my Athlon)
I just installed 7.1 and now the jdk won't work with either the 386 or 686 version of glibc 2.2.2-10 that came with it.
Anyone else having this? (IBM sdk is also broken now too)
Lets see. Man 7.1 = 2.2.14 or was it 2.2.16 (after upgrade)?, Man 7.2. was 2.2.18? SuSE 7.0 was 2.2.16 or was it later 2.2.18? Well I know that SuSE 7.1 is 2.2.18 and 2.4.0, until one upgrades via the SuSE ftp. Then it's 2.4.2-4, and 2.4.2-5. Oh and then the as yet unofficial SuSE version 2.4.3 kernel (there's that word - version again)! And RedHat version were what REVISION?
Symantics - gotta love um.
The only way to run linux.
Shoot me
Now that Stormix is gone I am glad to see that there is something else like LibraNet to fill the void of "easy install distro" for Debian. I primarily use Red Hat, however, I am happy to always see competition as it is obviously good. Long live Linux and whatever distro you prefer!
I just upgraded my test system here at my office (aka my personal machine) from redhat 7.0 to redhat 7.1. Everything went well except I had one problem, after the upgrade I could no longer recieve incoming mail. If I tried to telnet to port 25 i would get rejected. I fixed this issue by doing a force rpm downgrade to the previous version of sendmail... Is anyone else having this issue or is my machine possesed?
I am a Debian user and like the distro a lot. The only problem is the delay of latest features. libra solves that and just look at it. It is scalable (starts from 16Meg RAM etc) It has the latest important packages, tied to Debian etc. The price of 15$ for a download is tree times less than my montly cable connection. For those in poorer contries and for students - by all means, go to university with a fast connection, make a local mirror and let people burn copies. Creating an Internet mirror is associated with costs and is not for individuals. Some universities might be able to aford that too though. For anyone that can afford to pay I would urge you to do so. Price is low and by helping libra you are actualy helping Debian. They can now use the Libra packages for their new distro. This will hopefully speed up things. And the approach is right - the most importan packages get done fast and the rest can be released later. With all respect, yours humble.
Mandrake appears to be the easiest distro for a desktop user however I do not think that this distribution has enough functionality for us just yet. Its getting closer though.
ConorB
I am really dissapointed with Redhat 7.x period. I have been using redhat on my desktop since version 5.0 (before that slackware).
When I went to upgrade my 7.0 box at home, the installer locked up. It does it everytime. Any one else have this problem? I am running a dual proc box with 1 GIG ram. It installed on my dell piece of crap at work no problem.
Last week I spent the time to install mandrake 8.0 via ftp (took about 3 hours). I have to say, I am way impressed, and extremely glad I went out on a limb to try a new distro. Mandrake 8.0 is the BEST desktop OS I have ever used. Font support is better, didn't have to upgrade a million software packages right after install, and it has support for reiser fs. I can't really explain why I like it better. I guess I just like the stuff Mandrake does by default. Usually it would take me days of configuring to get my Redhat box where I wanted it.
So, anyway, Mandrake is where it is at on the desktop. I still run a custom redhat 6.1/6.2 on all my servers, because that was a damn good release in my opinion. I must say that I am absolutely looking forward to what redhat 8.x will be like. Who knows, maybe I'll be back.
s.e.c.r.e.t.m.e.d.i.a.g.r.o.u.p - secretmedia.org
What did you set your security setting to? I think it it is too restricted, it won't allow users to run su. You should also check to make sure your user has execute perms on /bin/su. Does it spit out any error?
daniel
s.e.c.r.e.t.m.e.d.i.a.g.r.o.u.p - secretmedia.org
"Yes, competition is a good thing, but the mainstream public doesn't view this as competition, they view it as fragmentation."
"That's the part of the equation that tends to get
glossed over by the open source techy types, they tend to focus on the technical merits and they can't understand the need to align towards common goals and reduce any collaborative filtering which quite frankly ends up confusing John. Q. Consumer."
I guess that is probably because that isn't what they care about. I personally don't care if linux ever makes it to "John's" desktop. Since money isn't what drives open source, open source people don't care about "selling it" to the general public.
I guess the bottom line is, linux is linux. All the separate distros are just linux with a bunch of software installed on top of them. It is very possible to take two totally different distros, and make them look, feel, and act exactly the same. I think the different distros are good. Not for competition, but because they cover so many areas. There are a lot of distros with specific purposes in mind. You just have to choose the best for your needs.
"Several of my clients have told me point blank that they refuse to even look at Linux because they feel the environment is too unstable for a long term commitment."
I think that it is probably unwise for them to jump to this conclusion. What knowledge do they really have of linux? The CTO for a company I used to work for felt the same way, but after I was done with him he was quite the linux advocate.
daniel
s.e.c.r.e.t.m.e.d.i.a.g.r.o.u.p - secretmedia.org
I can't wait for some of the Linux distros to start to fail. Yes, competition is a good thing, but the mainstream public doesn't view this as competition, they view it as fragmentation. Several of my clients have told me point blank that they refuse to even look at Linux because they feel the environment is too unstable for a long term commitment. Mind you, they didn't say the product was unstable, but rather the environment. That's the part of the equation that tends to get glossed over by the open source techy types, they tend to focus on the technical merits and they can't understand the need to align towards common goals and reduce any collaborative filtering which quite frankly ends up confusing John. Q. Consumer.
I will continue to recommend Linux as a low TOC and high ROI solution but it's an uphill battle. It's a shame that the "powers that be" won't listen when anyone mentions this line of thinking but I can tell you first hand that out in the real world it's the truth.
Wagner LLC Consulting Co. - Getting it right the first time
Believe it or not, I've paid for Redhat, Mandrake, and OpenBSD at various times (and Deb as well, although that was cheapbytes). Is this where we're heading? Pay first?
Oh Mandrake 8.0 as usual kicks butt!!!!
I feel the need to add my $0.02 while we're on the topic of distributions of Linux. I am a bit frustrated lately by the way people have been referring to Linux. A great deal of people seem to think that 'Red Hat Linux 7.1' is an operating system. (Not to pick on Red Hat, it applies to them all, but I hear Red Hat most often) They seem to refer to Linux as version 7.1. I would like to contend that the most recent stable version of Linux happens to be v2.4.3. My colleagues and I agree that this misconception is very important. One reason I can cite is that you are giving credit to an organization that does not necessarily deserve credit for the Linux operating system. They certainly deserve credit for the packaging of Linux, and some apps and utilities that run under Linux, but not the kernel. I'd actually prefer that most of you who read this take it more as an informational rant, rather than any attack. There has been a surge of new Linux users who are very much newbies, which is great, but we need to make sure they understand the whole concept. A lot of these newbies are not the type of person who reads all the HOWTOs. I know this first hand as I have helped out tons of people install and secure a Linux box. That is most unfortunate but it doesn't mean they are excused from being ignorant.