Well, I started out with Slackware way back when, and migrated to Red Hat with RH3.0.3 (anybody remember that one?).
Some things to think about:
1) Every config file in Red Hat Linux can be edited by hand if you so desire. It's not like in SuSE Linux, where the config files are auto-generated and you don't touch (you use YAST).
2) Nothing stops you from compiling stuff as.tgz files, just make sure to do "rpm -e" to remove the.rpm version first. Install stuff you compile yourself under/usr/local, just as in Slackware.
3) Today's computers are so fast that it don't matter what your binaries are compiled for:-).
But if you like Slackware, you'd probably like Debian over Red Hat. With Debian, if you want to update a.deb file to be the latest greatest version you download the tarball of the latest greatest version from and then download the spec file and patch file from the Debian FTP site. Then you edit the spec file to reflect the new version number, make sure the patch still works/still needed (and you will probably end up recompiling a few times until you get the patch situation figured out), then just do the build.
I have created updated versions of several Red Hat.rpm files, and it is a pain in the piles. Because the.spec file and patches are lumped together with the (obsolete) source into the.srpm file, you can't just download the.spec and patch file... you have to download the old obsolete source too. Compiling a tarball to stuff into/usr/local is a lot easier:-(. On the other hand, once you've done the.rpm file, you can upload it to contribnet and make a lot of other people very happy. That makes many people smile. But once you've compiled your tarball, well, you make yourself happy, but nobody else.
Netscape 4.51 does not run so happily until you put libc5.4 into its LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Otherwise if you try to run it against the libc5.3 library that comes stock with Red Hat you will get semi-random JavaScript crashes. This is similar to the problems you had running the old version of StarOffice under Red Hat.
Actually, I plunked libc5.4 into its home directory, and put a script named 'netscape' in/usr/bin that set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to put the Netscape home directory first in the library search path then call the binary. I also had to do this with the rvplayer to make it work correctly (i.e., set it up with a LD_LIBRARY_PATH). The RPM on the real.com site did not do it for me, and the.tar.gz was linked against libc5.4.
With that hack, 4.51 has been fairly stable (though it still occasionally leaks memory from the text input widget -- but far less than it used to). But obviously this is not something that Red Hat can do on a released version. Besides, according to several news sources 4.51 still has JavaScript security bugs that were fixed in 4.08. (But 4.08 still leaks memory bad in the text widget, sigh).
I think it depends on what you call "Linux". If you mean the entire contents of a distribution, it's obvious that GNU software is a minority. But if you mean the "core Unix" (think Unix V7, guy), the GNU software is almost everything except the kernel. The question of where the OS ends and the applications begin is a tricky one. Just ask Microsoft and the Department of Justice, which are currently squabbling over exactly that question:-).
Most Debian packages include a configuration script that'll ask you a few questions (in command line dumb terminal fashion) and then configure the package. I believe there's an option of dpkg that will run that script even after the package has been installed for awhile.
Debian also includes the "dotfile generator". This is a tool to create your.emacs,.fvwmrc, etc. files. But you must know quite a bit about Emacs or fvwm2 or etc. before it is of use to you.
In short, the typical new user doesn't need to do a whole lot of hacking of config files, with the exception of/etc/fstab to mount any extraneous filesystems. What Debian lacks is a central vision of system administration. No 'linuxconf' or 'coas' or 'yast' appears to be in Debian's future.
But for those willing to put in the time and effort, that's not much of a drawback. And you do get one advantage over the commercial distributions -- Debian is the most rock-solid distribution, period, no argument involved. The question of whether it's worthwhile to use it, in the end, depends on whether a) you have the time to learn it in-depth, and b) non-technical factors such as formal support, availability of commercial software in Debian-friendly format, etc. The non-technical factors in particular are one reason why Red Hat is much more popular than Debian amongst commercial interests -- they're still not accustomed to the idea of a project that they can't buy out, can't invest in, has no offices, and whose only real existence seems to be as a web site and ftp site.
Final note: I'm not saying that Debian is "better" than Red Hat/Suse/Caldera (or vice versa), just that Debian does have its own particular set of strengths and weaknesses.
Debian is Linux by hackers, for hackers. The people who create Debian are Debian users, people who step forward to maintain a package for the system. They're not sitting in corporate offices somewhere being paid to "do Linux".
As such, Debian has the strengths of most hacker software: It is rock solid, ultra-reliable, up-to-date... and not released until it is as close to bug-free as possible (as vs. certain other OS vendors who release when the marketing department tells them to). As such, it is also quite useful to non-hackers who want an ultra-reliable platform. But if you're saying that this makes Debian a platform for Linux novices, all I have to say is that if you want to "do" Debian, you better be willing to put in the work to become a Linux "expert", because Debian doesn't do a whole lot of pandering to novices. Sure, the dotfile generator is there, but that's not exactly an endorsement for ease-of-use either:-(.
Does this make Debian users better than other people? Of course not. Does this make Debian better than other distros? Well, I'm not going there:-).
My point was this: People have been brainwashed by the major distribution vendors to believe that the only way to install Linux is off of a CD-ROM. Obviously they have a business incentive to do so, since they charge for CD-ROM's, not for FTP access. But with Debian, you don't have to buy a CD-ROM unless you want one. (Or two, rather, with 'slink'). Yes, I have burnt CD-ROM's with 'slink' on them, but I explicitly did not bring those home with me so that I could test this hypothesis (that it is possible to install Debian quite easily over a normal dialup ISP line, thank you).
As for the stereotype of Debian users: Please note that I do not consider myself a "hacker". Rather, I am a database programmer and system administrator who happens to design hardware from time to time. Still, I AM quite knowledgable about Linux and its startup and installation processes. Without that knowledge, I'd still be fumbling around trying to get basic things set up and configured, rather than posting this message on Netscape 4.51 via Debian 2.1. Also note that I don't think that expert Debian users are any "better" than expert Red Hat users, or vice versa. I better not, I use Red Hat a lot more than I use Debian:-).
As for your comments about marking my employer's web site off your bookmarks list, a) read the disclaimer at the bottom of my web page, i.e. my opinions are my own, not my employer's, and b) are you sure you don't work for one of my employer's competitors? But I guess it's easy to make slanderous remarks when you're an Anonymous Coward....
Why the BLEEP do you think you need a CD to install Debian 2.1?!
I am typing this from Mozilla under Debian 2.1. I do not have a CD of it. All I did was follow the directions at the Debian web site for installing it via the web. That's right, I downloaded the indicated contents of the 'slink' install directory into the \debian directory on my WinBlows 98 partition, booted down to DOS, typed "install", and voila! Then once I had my system up and going, I set up my PPP connection, fired up dselect, and got going. All via modem (albeit at V.90 speeds, averaging about 48kbaud).
Sure, it took 4 hours to download everything, and dselect is still going in the background as I type this. So what. Are you a hacker, or are you some kinda twirp who shouldn't be straying from Windows 98 or Red Hat in the first place? (Cause if you're not a hacker, you don't need to be messing with Debian anyhow... Debian is Slackware for hackers who think Volkerding is stuck back in the Stone Ages with his retro distribution).
On-board sound is okay. Worst that can happen is that you need to buy the commercial OSS driver, which is what, $25? That's cheaper than buying a sound card.
On-board video is another story altogether. A cheap video card can be had for around $25, while Accelerated X to drive an unsupported video card will set you back for $99.
Go for the on-board sound, in other words, but stick with a cheap (but supported) video card for your video needs.
Linux already has perfectly good FP emulation libraries so that's not a problem.
Some problems I see with StrongArm: 1) PCMCIA support. PCMCIA support is built into most laptop chipsets, but there are no laptop chipsets aimed at the StrongArm. 2) Chipset support, period. In today's world of high-density FPGA's that's not as big a deal as it used to be, especially with a chip like the StrongArm that has a very easy-to-handle bus spec, but it still represents a design hurdle (though obviously one that Corel succeeded at jumping through). 3) Software. This is the biggy. There isn't a blessed thing for the StrongArm except whatever Corel had put out. Going with the PPC you can just load LinuxPPC on it and have it work, going with the StrongArm you're stuck with making your own distribution, basically.
Lest we forget, there are also some other chips out there. There are some low-power-consumption MIPS chips, for example (the MIPS chips are often used in laser printers and such). The PPC has better power consumption than the Mobile Pentium II, and similar performance, but definitely does not sip like the StrongArm. Unfortunately the only laptop chipset for the PPC appears to be Apple's, which isn't available to mere mortals (I'd take their laptops if they'd sell'em to us without MacOS, but that does not seem to be in the cards).
The wildcard is AMD. I've played with a couple of AMD-based laptops and they're better than the Intel on the power consumption front, but their floating point performance really sucks:-(. But if they can get the K6-3 and K7 shipping in quantity for a decent price, with a low-power laptop version, this might be acceptable.
But for low power consumption, NOTHING beats the StrongArm!
If Intel keeps cranking up power consumption the way they have in the past, you'd need to be the Man of Steel to crank out enough power for a laptop based on the Mobile Pentium III. I suspect that such laptops will either a) have a battery life of 5 minutes, or b) require an extra wheeled cart for the battery, or c) require serious workouts in the gym in order to carry around:-).
But seriously -- is anybody else as disturbed as me about so-called "laptops" that need ten-pound batteries to give more than 45 minutes of battery life, and that will scorch your lap (from the heat) if you are ever silly enough to set it there?
I was seriously hoping Corel would come out with a Netwinder-based Linux laptop. 15 watts of power consumption. Could power that sucker off of a couple of AA batteries! Alas, does not appear to be in the cards...
The license on YAST is an issue, and is an important issue hindering the acceptance of SuSE Linux within the United States. Within the United States the primary sales force for Linux are "hackers", i.e., highly technical users who are highly sympathetic to the Free Software movement and highly suspicious of proprietary software. Because Microsoft has so heavily tainted their perception of proprietary software, even relatively innocuous licenses like the one on YAST come in for scrutiny and suspician.
In Europe, there seem to be two imperatives operating: 1) Technical superiority is the #1 priority, and 2) Avoiding non-European software is the #2 priority. The Free Software movement does not appear to have made many inroads into Europe, unlike in the United States, and thus adherence to the principals of the Free Software movement does not appear to be an issue for European adopters of Linux, who appear to be adopting it for other reasons (technical and patriotic -- i.e., it's technically superior, and it's not made by some multi-billion-dollar American company).
Agree about the small 'contrib' section. I should have noted that there wasn't much need for a 'contrib' section with 5 stuffed CD's worth of stuff. On the other hand, a 'contrib' section is a great place to dump stuff that's too new to go into the distribution but that is in heavy demand, such as GNOME 1.0 and KDE 1.1.
Regarding the hardcore information online in German, unfortunately I have never studied any Germanic languages (I can piece out French, Spanish, and Italian, to a certain extent, but German is a different beast altogether). For English speakers, you must admit that the online information is rather sparse except for their "Knowledge Base" (which IS useful, of course). And the inexplicable difference between the U.S. English site and the European English site (the U.S. site doesn't even have a URL for errata and update announcements) further renders their web site presence rather negligible for non-German speakers.
I have not made any comment about SuSE technical support, except to state that their people do closely monitor the support mailing list and participate heavily. Support is one of SuSE's strong points, but the subject of the message was Internet presence, not support.
I continue to hold that SuSE's Internet presence under-represents the technical quality of their distribution.
Another thing that many look at, when purchasing a distribution, is the scope and usefulness of a company's Internet presence.
Internet presence is comprised of a number of things: FTP site, mailing lists or publically-exported news groups, mirrors, and web site.
Turbolinux: http://www.turbolinux.com gets you to PHT's web site for TurboLinux. This is a rather bare-bones web site that has few links to the Linux community or even to the Linux Documentation Project. PHT was advertising for an "Evangelist" whose responsibility it will be to improve the web site, so hopefully that'll help. Their FTP site is a mess. TurboLinux is there, as is a number of contributed Japanes RPM's, but otherwise there is nothing to attract the discerning hacker to PhT's FTP site. PHT currently has no mailing lists (at least, none that are mentioned on their web site). They have a single newsgroup, which apparently is only accessible via DejaNews. -------------------------------------------- Caldera Systems Inc.: http://www.calderasystems.com
Web site: Caldera has long had one of the better Linux distribution web sites. Their new web site does not have the wide variety of links to the Linux community that the old one had, but still is chock-full of information. The only complaint I've heard is that Caldera is slow to update their web site when security fixes and such come out. Ftp site: Caldera's FTP site is not as comprehensive as that of some vendors, but has all of the essentials in a well-organized manner, including a small but available "contrib" section. Caldera also mirrors a number of other sites, such as the Sunsite archives. Their Caldera OpenLinux Lite (OpenLinux minus proprietary software) is available for free download. Mailing lists: Caldera has an extensive set of mailing lists, upon which their employees regularly participate.
------------------------------------- Red Hat Software http://www.redhat.com
Web site: Red Hat, like Caldera, has always had an information-filled web site. Their web site tends to be a bit less organized than Caldera's, with confusing menu bars (some actions are on left, some actions are on top), but with a bit more information. They also have a large selection of 3rd party links like Caldera used to have. Red Hat has recently decided that their web site is a "portal". As far as I can tell, this just means that their web site is slower than it used to be because it pulls in some headlines from slashdot and freshmeat. FTP site: Red Hat has reorganized their FTP site within the past six months into a group of FTP sites. It is very difficult to get into Red Hat's FTP sites any time after 12pm Eastern Time, but Red Hat does have a large group of mirrors. Red Hat has the largest selection of contributed software in binary format of all the commercial vendors, but many of the RPM's are of dubious quality (unless I know the person who packaged the RPM, I usually rebuild them from the ".srpm"). Mailing lists: Red Hat has an extensive set of mailing lists. Volume on these lists is so huge that Red Hat employees rarely monitor or participate in them. I can't blame them, it's almost a full-time job just to read them, much less participate in them. Still, the volume means that almost any question is swiftly answered by five or six different people.
---------- Debian GNU/Linux
Web Site: http://www.debian.org Debian's web site ranks with Red Hat and Caldera's. They have an excellent bug tracking system, a reasonable amount of documentation, and other things of that nature. The documentation section is not as extensive as that of Redhat or Caldera, unfortunately, though the Debian Documentation Project is attempting to remedy that. Their links section also does not attempt to be as comprehensive as Red Hat's, but does give a good selection of sites like the LDP HOWTO's etc. Mailing lists: Debian has a HUGE number of mailing lists. Often any given mailing list is monitored by the developer responsible for that particular area of Debian development. Ftp site: It is a bit disorganized, but all of the right bits are there. Debian has one of the largest collections of contributed software on the net (a few less than Red Hat, but theirs are high quality and generally work, unlike random stuff downloaded from contrib.redhat.com). Their FTP site is currently on the verge of being overloaded -- as of 1pm Eastern it had 179 out of 180 users.
--------- Mandrake Linux Web site: http://www.linux-mandrake.com Their web site is nothing to write home about. The best that can be said is that it has all the right bits, and appropriately punts to Red Hat's web site where their own leaves off. Mailing lists: Mandrake has two mailing lists, one for "newbies" and one for "experts". FTP site: Unknown. The general public does not have access to the Mandrake FTP site. There are, however, a large number of mirrors and an excellent page telling whether a given mirror is in "sync" with the master FTP site. They also direct you to the appropriate Red Hat FTP sites for contributed software.
------ SuSE Linux Web: http://www.suse.com There have been many complaints about the SuSE USA web site, i.e., that it does not contain as much content as the German or British versions, that it is usually out of date, etc. Clicking on the "Europe" web site will generally get you more/ better information. The only thing on the USA web site that's anything other than pure "web brochure" is their Knowledge Base page. The USA site doesn't even have a link to updates/security alerts, unlike the European web site. Generally, SuSE's web site is brochure-ware, whether U.S. or European. It is not the comprehensive set of resources that typify the Caldera, Red Hat, or Debian web sites. Mailing lists: SuSE has an active English-language mailing list, as well as an English-language announce list. SuSE employees regularly monitor and participate in these lists. FTP site: Their U.S. FTP site has very poor connectivity. At 1:40pm EST I am getting 50% packet loss. This is not unusual. Their FTP site has the SuSE Linux distribution, but they just recently added a "contrib" section. There are very few files in the "contrib" section ( 1 (one) file as of 3-10-99 1:44pm EST).
Conclusions: Caldera, Redhat, and Debian pretty much come up a tie at the top on the Internet presence scale. Mandrake comes in below them because so much of Mandrake is just links to Red Hat's site. SuSE and PHT have disappointing web and FTP sites, and PHT lacks even a mailing list for support.
Choice is good. And just as you choose your distribution based on technical merit, others choose theirs based on other criteria, such as support, ease of obtaining, or adherence to Open Source principles.
While we are busily dissecting distributions based on technical merit (and I agree, SuSE 6.0 measures up quite well on technical merits), there are other issues that must be taken into account. The one I'm going to mention right now is this: How well does the distribution meet the goals of the Open Source movement?
Red Hat passes -- they release everything as Open Source, and the only proprietary software is segregated elsewhere.
Debian passes, by definition almost.
Mandrake is a revision of Red Hat Linux that includes the QT library as a standard system library. The GNU General Public License allows linking GPL'ed software against standard system libraries. Thus KDE itself is not a problem, but the "old" QT license does present a license, since it is not Open Source. Thus Mandrake does flunk the Open Source "purity test", even though they do not violate the GNU General Public License. The "new" QT license, which does not apply to current versions of QT but, rather, to the next version of QT, will solve that problem.
Pacific Hi-Tech has some other problems. I have a copy of their latest boxed set and it includes programs that violate intellectual property rights if shipped as Open Source products in the United States -- 'ssh' and 'pgp'. I have recieved no response from their sales director about whether they have properly licensed these programs from the appropriate property right owners.
Caldera is not particularly interested in passing any "purity test". They have quite a bit of proprietary software mixed in with the Open Source software on their CD. Still, they do release much of the software that they write themselves as Open Source (if you connect to the Internet via PPP, much of the PPP code in the kernel is courtesy of Caldera, and the entire COAS project is apparently GPL).
SuSE tries to hold themselves out as being Open Source friendly, and has made many important contributions to the XFree86 project. However, they do not appear to be willing to release the YaST tool, a fundamental part of their install process, as GPL'ed software. Instead, they release it on a license that prohibits commercial redistribution (other than by SuSE).
Those are the distributions that I have installed recently or otherwise have first-hand knowledge about. Anybody have info on other distributions and and how they support the Open Source concept?
The comment about "surplus junk out of the back room" was a joke. You can tell because it has a little smiley after it (like this::-). All that aside, donated machines are often retired show machines, and show machines are often built from whatever parts happen to be lying around because they're not intended to go to real customers. Thus my suggestion about checking what kind of NIC is in the machine, in case it is not the quality EtherExpress Pro 100 that VA usually includes in their machines.
1) Go to the 2.2.2 kernel. It really does speed up the SMP a lot and otherwise make a big difference on a dual processor machine. In addition, the dcache means that it will serve static pages VERY fast (no more walking the whole directory tree just to open a web page).
2) Make sure you're using a good NIC. The typical VAR machine comes with an Intel EtherExpress Pro 100, which qualifies as a good NIC, but make sure they didn't pawn off some surplus junk out of the back room on you:-).
3) Tune your buffers. You have a humongous amount of memory, use some of that as buffers. In the 2.2 kernel with 512mb of memory, you might want to try using as much as 80% as buffer cache... try "echo '2 10 80' >/proc/sys/vm/buffermem". You can change the last number to vary your percentage. The default, using a max of 60% as buffer cache, is somewhat inappropriate for a web server with 512mb of memory, even with a lot of dynamic pages.
I think that the above suggestions will probably improve your performance by anywhere from 20% to 75%, depending upon your particular job load. It should in any event make serving your static front page blazingly fast.
Well, that's another reason we didn't bother with the K6-2:-). (And the ASUS P2B motherboards we sell are an overclocker's dream, according to Tom's Hardware Guide).
Note, however, that doing this voids your warranty:-(.
I worked the numbers. Selling a system based on a K6-2/300 came out to be $50 cheaper than selling a system based on a Celeron 300A.
In other words, we get the hassle of stocking yet another motherboard, stocking yet another processor, incurring the various carrying costs of additional inventory... for a measly $50 savings.
We just don't sell enough low-end machines to justify that. Most people wanting low-end machines build their own -- like me (of my original computer, bought in 1995, only the floppy drive is still left).
Oh, in the latest benchmarks on Tom's Hardware Guide the ASUS P2B blew away the Intel 440BX motherboard:-).
Like our new boxes? You can't sneer about how generic they are now, hmm? Glad to see you found an Internet connection at the show. Maybe you will remember your password someday (grin).
Me, I personally am not going to be doing a "linux.com" clone. I am too busy getting OIMS to the point where it is usable, i.e., where it can handle all normal business processes needed by the average small manufacturing business (I finished the recieving portion today, hurray! so now I can do inventory management all the way from sales quote to build order to shipping on the outgoing end, and all the way from purchase request to receiving on the incoming end, but a lot more needs to be done). I just hope that the people doing it do a good job, that's all.
-- Eric
VAR never hosted ftp.debian.org
on
Linux.com is Up
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I believe it was Ga. Tech that hosted ftp.debian.org, until the Powers That Be there decided to kick it out because it did not fit within their "acceptable use" policy.
Mindspring is now providing connectivity for ftp.debian.org, while Linux Hardware Solutions provided the rack-mount Linux box w/27gb of hard drive space.
I don't begrudge VA Research a little self-promotion. They're in a position to host linux.com, we aren't (though in another two to three months we will be). I just hope it doesn't turn into a 100% VA Research self-promotion site at the expense of other hardware vendors committed to Linux, such as (gasp!) Linux Hardware Solutions and Penguin Computing.
As for the choice of folks like Oracle and SGI to be on the board, that's just plain bizarre... the Linux community is just an (interesting) sideshow for these folks, the majority of their action is elsewhere, they're in the Linux community for a few quick bucks and if the money doesn't materialize they'll just go elsewhere. No offense, that's just the truth. They're businesses, after all, not charity, and Linux isn't their main product. On the other hand, I suppose VAR is hoping for investments from them:-}. Or maybe they just hope that having these guys on a "linux.com" board of directors will get them hooked on Linux so that they WON'T pull out when the going gets tough?
As for the K6, I suspect their reasons for not doing the K6 are similar to ours -- it just wasn't cost-effective. My estimate is that we can sell a K6-based machine for around $75 less than an equivalent Celeron-based machine -- and for that $75 cost savings we'd have to stock yet another motherboard, yet another set of processors...
We just don't sell enough low-end machines to justify that. Compaq does, obviously, but a VA Research or Linux Hardware Solutions doesn't have the volume needed to match Compaq's prices on consumer hardware. (Servers, on the other hand, are a different story -- we can whup Compaq's rear there).
Microsoft REALLY needs to tighten up the standards for their MCAC (Microsoft Certified Anonymous Coward) program! MCAC's who are totally ignorant of anything dealing with Linux can only give Microsoft a bad name, after all.
-- Eric (a user of the "K" Desktop Environment, BTW, which makes Win98 look like a hacked up pile of trash).
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I started out with Slackware way back when, and migrated to Red Hat with RH3.0.3 (anybody remember that one?).
.tgz files, just make sure to do "rpm -e" to remove the .rpm version first. Install stuff you compile yourself under /usr/local, just as in Slackware.
:-).
.deb file to be the latest greatest version you download the tarball of the latest greatest version from and then download the spec file and patch file from the Debian FTP site. Then you edit the spec file to reflect the new version number, make sure the patch still works/still needed (and you will probably end up recompiling a few times until you get the patch situation figured out), then just do the build.
.rpm files, and it is a pain in the piles. Because the .spec file and patches are lumped together with the (obsolete) source into the .srpm file, you can't just download the .spec and patch file... you have to download the old obsolete source too. Compiling a tarball to stuff into /usr/local is a lot easier :-(. On the other hand, once you've done the .rpm file, you can upload it to contribnet and make a lot of other people very happy. That makes many people smile. But once you've compiled your tarball, well, you make yourself happy, but nobody else.
Some things to think about:
1) Every config file in Red Hat Linux can be edited by hand if you so desire. It's not like in SuSE Linux, where the config files are auto-generated and you don't touch (you use YAST).
2) Nothing stops you from compiling stuff as
3) Today's computers are so fast that it don't matter what your binaries are compiled for
But if you like Slackware, you'd probably like Debian over Red Hat. With Debian, if you want to update a
I have created updated versions of several Red Hat
-- Eric
Netscape 4.51 does not run so happily until you put libc5.4 into its LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Otherwise if you try to run it against the libc5.3 library that comes stock with Red Hat you will get semi-random JavaScript crashes. This is similar to the problems you had running the old version of StarOffice under Red Hat.
/usr/bin that set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to put the Netscape home directory first in the library search path then call the binary. I also had to do this with the rvplayer to make it work correctly (i.e., set it up with a LD_LIBRARY_PATH). The RPM on the real.com site did not do it for me, and the .tar.gz was linked against libc5.4.
Actually, I plunked libc5.4 into its home directory, and put a script named 'netscape' in
With that hack, 4.51 has been fairly stable (though it still occasionally leaks memory from the text input widget -- but far less than it used to). But obviously this is not something that Red Hat can do on a released version. Besides, according to several news sources 4.51 still has JavaScript security bugs that were fixed in 4.08. (But 4.08 still leaks memory bad in the text widget, sigh).
-- Eric
I think it depends on what you call "Linux". If you mean the entire contents of a distribution, it's obvious that GNU software is a minority. But if you mean the "core Unix" (think Unix V7, guy), the GNU software is almost everything except the kernel. :-).
The question of where the OS ends and the applications begin is a tricky one. Just ask Microsoft and the Department of Justice, which are currently squabbling over exactly that question
-- Eric
Ah well. Someday I'll learn moderation. Or at least how to think for a few seconds before hitting the "post" button :-(.
The odd thing is that I'm not even a Debian user, except for the past twelve hours that I've been playing with it. I usually use Red Hat.
-- Eric
Most Debian packages include a configuration script that'll ask you a few questions (in command line dumb terminal fashion) and then configure the package. I believe there's an option of dpkg that will run that script even after the package has been installed for awhile.
.emacs, .fvwmrc, etc. files. But you must know quite a bit about Emacs or fvwm2 or etc. before it is of use to you.
/etc/fstab to mount any extraneous filesystems. What Debian lacks is a central vision of system administration. No 'linuxconf' or 'coas' or 'yast' appears to be in Debian's future.
Debian also includes the "dotfile generator". This is a tool to create your
In short, the typical new user doesn't need to do a whole lot of hacking of config files, with the exception of
But for those willing to put in the time and effort, that's not much of a drawback. And you do get one advantage over the commercial distributions -- Debian is the most rock-solid distribution, period, no argument involved. The question of whether it's worthwhile to use it, in the end, depends on whether a) you have the time to learn it in-depth, and b) non-technical factors such as formal support, availability of commercial software in Debian-friendly format, etc. The non-technical factors in particular are one reason why Red Hat is much more popular than Debian amongst commercial interests -- they're still not accustomed to the idea of a project that they can't buy out, can't invest in, has no offices, and whose only real existence seems to be as a web site and ftp site.
Final note: I'm not saying that Debian is "better" than Red Hat/Suse/Caldera (or vice versa), just that Debian does have its own particular set of strengths and weaknesses.
-- Eric
When did "hacker" become a dirty word?
:-(.
:-).
Debian is Linux by hackers, for hackers. The people who create Debian are Debian users, people who step forward to maintain a package for the system. They're not sitting in corporate offices somewhere being paid to "do Linux".
As such, Debian has the strengths of most hacker software: It is rock solid, ultra-reliable, up-to-date... and not released until it is as close to bug-free as possible (as vs. certain other OS vendors who release when the marketing department tells them to). As such, it is also quite useful to non-hackers who want an ultra-reliable platform. But if you're saying that this makes Debian a platform for Linux novices, all I have to say is that if you want to "do" Debian, you better be willing to put in the work to become a Linux "expert", because Debian doesn't do a whole lot of pandering to novices. Sure, the dotfile generator is there, but that's not exactly an endorsement for ease-of-use either
Does this make Debian users better than other people? Of course not. Does this make Debian better than other distros? Well, I'm not going there
-- Eric
Excuse me, Mr. Coward?
:-).
My point was this: People have been brainwashed by the major distribution vendors to believe that the only way to install Linux is off of a CD-ROM. Obviously they have a business incentive to do so, since they charge for CD-ROM's, not for FTP access. But with Debian, you don't have to buy a CD-ROM unless you want one. (Or two, rather, with 'slink'). Yes, I have burnt CD-ROM's with 'slink' on them, but I explicitly did not bring those home with me so that I could test this hypothesis (that it is possible to install Debian quite easily over a normal dialup ISP line, thank you).
As for the stereotype of Debian users: Please note that I do not consider myself a "hacker". Rather, I am a database programmer and system administrator who happens to design hardware from time to time. Still, I AM quite knowledgable about Linux and its startup and installation processes. Without that knowledge, I'd still be fumbling around trying to get basic things set up and configured, rather than posting this message on Netscape 4.51 via Debian 2.1.
Also note that I don't think that expert Debian users are any "better" than expert Red Hat users, or vice versa. I better not, I use Red Hat a lot more than I use Debian
As for your comments about marking my employer's web site off your bookmarks list, a) read the disclaimer at the bottom of my web page, i.e. my opinions are my own, not my employer's, and b) are you sure you don't work for one of my employer's competitors? But I guess it's easy to make slanderous remarks when you're an Anonymous Coward....
-- Eric
Why the BLEEP do you think you need a CD to install Debian 2.1?!
I am typing this from Mozilla under Debian 2.1. I do not have a CD of it. All I did was follow the directions at the Debian web site for installing it via the web. That's right, I downloaded the indicated contents of the 'slink' install directory into the \debian directory on my WinBlows 98 partition, booted down to DOS, typed "install", and voila! Then once I had my system up and going, I set up my PPP connection, fired up dselect, and got going. All via modem (albeit at V.90 speeds, averaging about 48kbaud).
Sure, it took 4 hours to download everything, and dselect is still going in the background as I type this. So what. Are you a hacker, or are you some kinda twirp who shouldn't be straying from Windows 98 or Red Hat in the first place? (Cause if you're not a hacker, you don't need to be messing with Debian anyhow... Debian is Slackware for hackers who think Volkerding is stuck back in the Stone Ages with his retro distribution).
-- Eric
On-board sound is okay. Worst that can happen is that you need to buy the commercial OSS driver, which is what, $25? That's cheaper than buying a sound card.
On-board video is another story altogether. A cheap video card can be had for around $25, while Accelerated X to drive an unsupported video card will set you back for $99.
Go for the on-board sound, in other words, but stick with a cheap (but supported) video card for your video needs.
-- E
Linux already has perfectly good FP emulation libraries so that's not a problem.
:-(. But if they can get the K6-3 and K7 shipping in quantity for a decent price, with a low-power laptop version, this might be acceptable.
Some problems I see with StrongArm:
1) PCMCIA support. PCMCIA support is built into most laptop chipsets, but there are no laptop chipsets aimed at the StrongArm.
2) Chipset support, period. In today's world of high-density FPGA's that's not as big a deal as it used to be, especially with a chip like the StrongArm that has a very easy-to-handle bus spec, but it still represents a design hurdle (though obviously one that Corel succeeded at jumping through).
3) Software. This is the biggy. There isn't a blessed thing for the StrongArm except whatever Corel had put out. Going with the PPC you can just load LinuxPPC on it and have it work, going with the StrongArm you're stuck with making your own distribution, basically.
Lest we forget, there are also some other chips out there. There are some low-power-consumption MIPS chips, for example (the MIPS chips are often used in laser printers and such). The PPC has better power consumption than the Mobile Pentium II, and similar performance, but definitely does not sip like the StrongArm. Unfortunately the only laptop chipset for the PPC appears to be Apple's, which isn't available to mere mortals (I'd take their laptops if they'd sell'em to us without MacOS, but that does not seem to be in the cards).
The wildcard is AMD. I've played with a couple of AMD-based laptops and they're better than the Intel on the power consumption front, but their floating point performance really sucks
But for low power consumption, NOTHING beats the StrongArm!
-- Eric
If Intel keeps cranking up power consumption the way they have in the past, you'd need to be the Man of Steel to crank out enough power for a laptop based on the Mobile Pentium III. I suspect that such laptops will either a) have a battery life of 5 minutes, or b) require an extra wheeled cart for the battery, or c) require serious workouts in the gym in order to carry around :-).
But seriously -- is anybody else as disturbed as me about so-called "laptops" that need ten-pound batteries to give more than 45 minutes of battery life, and that will scorch your lap (from the heat) if you are ever silly enough to set it there?
I was seriously hoping Corel would come out with a Netwinder-based Linux laptop. 15 watts of power consumption. Could power that sucker off of a couple of AA batteries! Alas, does not appear to be in the cards...
-- Eric
The license on YAST is an issue, and is an important issue hindering the acceptance of SuSE Linux within the United States. Within the United States the primary sales force for Linux are "hackers", i.e., highly technical users who are highly sympathetic to the Free Software movement and highly suspicious of proprietary software. Because Microsoft has so heavily tainted their perception of proprietary software, even relatively innocuous licenses like the one on YAST come in for scrutiny and suspician.
In Europe, there seem to be two imperatives operating: 1) Technical superiority is the #1 priority, and 2) Avoiding non-European software is the #2 priority. The Free Software movement does not appear to have made many inroads into Europe, unlike in the United States, and thus adherence to the principals of the Free Software movement does not appear to be an issue for European adopters of Linux, who appear to be adopting it for other reasons (technical and patriotic -- i.e., it's technically superior, and it's not made by some multi-billion-dollar American company).
-- Eric
Regarding the hardcore information online in German, unfortunately I have never studied any Germanic languages (I can piece out French, Spanish, and Italian, to a certain extent, but German is a different beast altogether). For English speakers, you must admit that the online information is rather sparse except for their "Knowledge Base" (which IS useful, of course). And the inexplicable difference between the U.S. English site and the European English site (the U.S. site doesn't even have a URL for errata and update announcements) further renders their web site presence rather negligible for non-German speakers.
I have not made any comment about SuSE technical support, except to state that their people do closely monitor the support mailing list and participate heavily. Support is one of SuSE's strong points, but the subject of the message was Internet presence, not support.
I continue to hold that SuSE's Internet presence under-represents the technical quality of their distribution.
-- Eric
Another thing that many look at, when purchasing a distribution, is the scope and usefulness of a company's Internet presence.
Internet presence is comprised of a number of things: FTP site, mailing lists or publically-exported news groups, mirrors, and web site.
Turbolinux:
http://www.turbolinux.com gets you to PHT's web site for TurboLinux. This is a rather bare-bones web site that has few links to the Linux community or even to the Linux Documentation Project. PHT was advertising for an "Evangelist" whose responsibility it will be to improve the web site, so hopefully that'll help.
Their FTP site is a mess. TurboLinux is there, as is a number of contributed Japanes RPM's, but otherwise there is nothing to attract the discerning hacker to PhT's FTP site.
PHT currently has no mailing lists (at least, none that are mentioned on their web site). They have a single newsgroup, which apparently is only accessible via DejaNews.
--------------------------------------------
Caldera Systems Inc.:
http://www.calderasystems.com
Web site: Caldera has long had one of the better Linux distribution web sites. Their new web site does not have the wide variety of links to the Linux community that the old one had, but still is chock-full of information. The only complaint I've heard is that Caldera is slow to update their web site when security fixes and such come out.
Ftp site: Caldera's FTP site is not as comprehensive as that of some vendors, but has all of the essentials in a well-organized manner, including a small but available "contrib" section. Caldera also mirrors a number of other sites, such as the Sunsite archives. Their Caldera OpenLinux Lite (OpenLinux minus proprietary software) is available for free download.
Mailing lists: Caldera has an extensive set of mailing lists, upon which their employees regularly participate.
-------------------------------------
Red Hat Software
http://www.redhat.com
Web site: Red Hat, like Caldera, has always had an information-filled web site. Their web site tends to be a bit less organized than Caldera's, with confusing menu bars (some actions are on left, some actions are on top), but with a bit more information. They also have a large selection of 3rd party links like Caldera used to have.
Red Hat has recently decided that their web site is a "portal". As far as I can tell, this just means that their web site is slower than it used to be because it pulls in some headlines from slashdot and freshmeat.
FTP site: Red Hat has reorganized their FTP site within the past six months into a group of FTP sites. It is very difficult to get into Red Hat's FTP sites any time after 12pm Eastern Time, but Red Hat does have a large group of mirrors. Red Hat has the largest selection of contributed software in binary format of all the commercial vendors, but many of the RPM's are of dubious quality (unless I know the person who packaged the RPM, I usually rebuild them from the ".srpm").
Mailing lists: Red Hat has an extensive set of mailing lists. Volume on these lists is so huge that Red Hat employees rarely monitor or participate in them. I can't blame them, it's almost a full-time job just to read them, much less participate in them. Still, the volume means that almost any question is swiftly answered by five or six different people.
----------
Debian GNU/Linux
Web Site: http://www.debian.org
Debian's web site ranks with Red Hat and Caldera's. They have an excellent bug tracking system, a reasonable amount of documentation, and other things of that nature. The documentation section is not as extensive as that of Redhat or Caldera, unfortunately, though the Debian Documentation Project is attempting to remedy that. Their links section also does not attempt to be as comprehensive as Red Hat's, but does give a good selection of sites like the LDP HOWTO's etc.
Mailing lists: Debian has a HUGE number of mailing lists. Often any given mailing list is monitored by the developer responsible for that particular area of Debian development.
Ftp site: It is a bit disorganized, but all of the right bits are there. Debian has one of the largest collections of contributed software on the net (a few less than Red Hat, but theirs are high quality and generally work, unlike random stuff downloaded from contrib.redhat.com). Their FTP site is currently on the verge of being overloaded -- as of 1pm Eastern it had 179 out of 180 users.
---------
Mandrake Linux
Web site: http://www.linux-mandrake.com
Their web site is nothing to write home about. The best that can be said is that it has all the right bits, and appropriately punts to Red Hat's web site where their own leaves off.
Mailing lists: Mandrake has two mailing lists, one for "newbies" and one for "experts".
FTP site: Unknown. The general public does not have access to the Mandrake FTP site. There are, however, a large number of mirrors and an excellent page telling whether a given mirror is in "sync" with the master FTP site. They also direct you to the appropriate Red Hat FTP sites for contributed software.
------
SuSE Linux
Web: http://www.suse.com
There have been many complaints about the SuSE USA web site, i.e., that it does not contain as much content as the German or British versions, that it is usually out of date, etc. Clicking on the "Europe" web site will generally get you more/ better information. The only thing on the USA web site that's anything other than pure "web brochure" is their Knowledge Base page. The USA site doesn't even have a link to updates/security alerts, unlike the European web site.
Generally, SuSE's web site is brochure-ware, whether U.S. or European. It is not the comprehensive set of resources that typify the Caldera, Red Hat, or Debian web sites.
Mailing lists: SuSE has an active English-language mailing list, as well as an English-language announce list. SuSE employees regularly monitor and participate in these lists.
FTP site: Their U.S. FTP site has very poor connectivity. At 1:40pm EST I am getting 50% packet loss. This is not unusual. Their FTP site has the SuSE Linux distribution, but they just recently added a "contrib" section. There are very few files in the "contrib" section ( 1 (one) file as of 3-10-99 1:44pm EST).
Conclusions:
Caldera, Redhat, and Debian pretty much come up a tie at the top on the Internet presence scale. Mandrake comes in below them because so much of Mandrake is just links to Red Hat's site. SuSE and PHT have disappointing web and FTP sites, and PHT lacks even a mailing list for support.
-- Eric
Choice is good. And just as you choose your distribution based on technical merit, others choose theirs based on other criteria, such as support, ease of obtaining, or adherence to Open Source principles.
-- Eric
While we are busily dissecting distributions based on technical merit (and I agree, SuSE 6.0 measures up quite well on technical merits), there are other issues that must be taken into account. The one I'm going to mention right now is this: How well does the distribution meet the goals of the Open Source movement?
Red Hat passes -- they release everything as Open Source, and the only proprietary software is segregated elsewhere.
Debian passes, by definition almost.
Mandrake is a revision of Red Hat Linux that includes the QT library as a standard system library. The GNU General Public License allows linking GPL'ed software against standard system libraries. Thus KDE itself is not a problem, but the "old" QT license does present a license, since it is not Open Source. Thus Mandrake does flunk the Open Source "purity test", even though they do not violate the GNU General Public License. The "new" QT license, which does not apply to current versions of QT but, rather, to the next version of QT, will solve that problem.
Pacific Hi-Tech has some other problems. I have a copy of their latest boxed set and it includes programs that violate intellectual property rights if shipped as Open Source products in the United States -- 'ssh' and 'pgp'. I have recieved no response from their sales director about whether they have properly licensed these programs from the appropriate property right owners.
Caldera is not particularly interested in passing any "purity test". They have quite a bit of proprietary software mixed in with the Open Source software on their CD. Still, they do release much of the software that they write themselves as Open Source (if you connect to the Internet via PPP, much of the PPP code in the kernel is courtesy of Caldera, and the entire COAS project is apparently GPL).
SuSE tries to hold themselves out as being Open Source friendly, and has made many important contributions to the XFree86 project. However, they do not appear to be willing to release the YaST tool, a fundamental part of their install process, as GPL'ed software. Instead, they release it on a license that prohibits commercial redistribution (other than by SuSE).
Those are the distributions that I have installed recently or otherwise have first-hand knowledge about. Anybody have info on other distributions and and how they support the Open Source concept?
-- Eric
Since Chris D. threw a hissy fit:
:-). All that aside, donated machines are often retired show machines, and show machines are often built from whatever parts happen to be lying around because they're not intended to go to real customers. Thus my suggestion about checking what kind of NIC is in the machine, in case it is not the quality EtherExpress Pro 100 that VA usually includes in their machines.
The comment about "surplus junk out of the back room" was a joke. You can tell because it has a little smiley after it (like this:
-- Eric
1) Go to the 2.2.2 kernel. It really does speed up the SMP a lot and otherwise make a big difference on a dual processor machine. In addition, the dcache means that it will serve static pages VERY fast (no more walking the whole directory tree just to open a web page).
:-).
2) Make sure you're using a good NIC. The typical VAR machine comes with an Intel EtherExpress Pro 100, which qualifies as a good NIC, but make sure they didn't pawn off some surplus junk out of the back room on you
3) Tune your buffers. You have a humongous amount of memory, use some of that as buffers. In the 2.2 kernel with 512mb of memory, you might want to try using as much as 80% as buffer cache... try "echo '2 10 80' >/proc/sys/vm/buffermem". You can change the last number to vary your percentage. The default, using a max of 60% as buffer cache, is somewhat inappropriate for a web server with 512mb of memory, even with a lot of dynamic pages.
I think that the above suggestions will probably improve your performance by anywhere from 20% to 75%, depending upon your particular job load. It should in any event make serving your static front page blazingly fast.
-- Eric
Well, that's another reason we didn't bother with the K6-2 :-). (And the ASUS P2B motherboards we sell are an overclocker's dream, according to Tom's Hardware Guide).
:-(.
Note, however, that doing this voids your warranty
-- Eric
I worked the numbers. Selling a system based on a K6-2/300 came out to be $50 cheaper than selling a system based on a Celeron 300A.
:-).
In other words, we get the hassle of stocking yet another motherboard, stocking yet another processor, incurring the various carrying costs of additional inventory... for a measly $50 savings.
We just don't sell enough low-end machines to justify that. Most people wanting low-end machines build their own -- like me (of my original computer, bought in 1995, only the floppy drive is still left).
Oh, in the latest benchmarks on Tom's Hardware Guide the ASUS P2B blew away the Intel 440BX motherboard
-- Eric
Like our new boxes? You can't sneer about how generic they are now, hmm? Glad to see you found an Internet connection at the show. Maybe you will remember your password someday (grin).
Me, I personally am not going to be doing a "linux.com" clone. I am too busy getting OIMS to the point where it is usable, i.e., where it can handle all normal business processes needed by the average small manufacturing business (I finished the recieving portion today, hurray! so now I can do inventory management all the way from sales quote to build order to shipping on the outgoing end, and all the way from purchase request to receiving on the incoming end, but a lot more needs to be done). I just hope that the people doing it do a good job, that's all.
-- Eric
I believe it was Ga. Tech that hosted ftp.debian.org, until the Powers That Be there decided to kick it out because it did not fit within their "acceptable use" policy.
Mindspring is now providing connectivity for ftp.debian.org, while Linux Hardware Solutions provided the rack-mount Linux box w/27gb of hard drive space.
-- Eric
I don't begrudge VA Research a little self-promotion. They're in a position to host linux.com, we aren't (though in another two to three months we will be). I just hope it doesn't turn into a 100% VA Research self-promotion site at the expense of other hardware vendors committed to Linux, such as (gasp!) Linux Hardware Solutions and Penguin Computing.
:-}. Or maybe they just hope that having these guys on a "linux.com" board of directors will get them hooked on Linux so that they WON'T pull out when the going gets tough?
As for the choice of folks like Oracle and SGI to be on the board, that's just plain bizarre... the Linux community is just an (interesting) sideshow for these folks, the majority of their action is elsewhere, they're in the Linux community for a few quick bucks and if the money doesn't materialize they'll just go elsewhere. No offense, that's just the truth. They're businesses, after all, not charity, and Linux isn't their main product. On the other hand, I suppose VAR is hoping for investments from them
-- Eric
We'll sell you one :-).
As for the K6, I suspect their reasons for not doing the K6 are similar to ours -- it just wasn't cost-effective. My estimate is that we can sell a K6-based machine for around $75 less than an equivalent Celeron-based machine -- and for that $75 cost savings we'd have to stock yet another motherboard, yet another set of processors...
We just don't sell enough low-end machines to justify that. Compaq does, obviously, but a VA Research or Linux Hardware Solutions doesn't have the volume needed to match Compaq's prices on consumer hardware. (Servers, on the other hand, are a different story -- we can whup Compaq's rear there).
-- Eric
Microsoft REALLY needs to tighten up the standards for their MCAC (Microsoft Certified Anonymous Coward) program! MCAC's who are totally ignorant of anything dealing with Linux can only give Microsoft a bad name, after all.
-- Eric (a user of the "K" Desktop Environment, BTW, which makes Win98 look like a hacked up pile of trash).