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Home > Archive > Linux/Unix > January 2002 > Distro Wars
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| sibley 2001-12-13, 6:19 am |
| Slackware, with Debian following closely. | |
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| Everyone is going to have their own personal favorite . But I'm glad to see so many flavors of Linux as an alternative to Windows . | |
| sibley 2001-12-13, 2:09 pm |
| Agreed. | |
| ccieToBe 2001-12-13, 3:21 pm |
| Definately FreeBSD but I might change my mind to Darkfire Linux in the next few months if it progresses as planned. | |
| wildscribe 2001-12-15, 1:01 am |
| I'm surprised at the number of Slackware users on this site. That's one flavor that I have never tried, but I have always wanted to so now I'm definitely going to burn a disk as soon as I finish writing this post.
Otherwise, here my short take on those that I have tried.
RedHat 6.2,7.0,7.1 - The Microsoft of Linux distros because it has such a large installed base, and the one that most people probably try out first because RH distro CDs come with so many Linux books. It's a good distro to learn if you are looking for a job because many companies use it. Dell and Compaq offer it with their servers. Personally, I find RH to be a bit bland compared to the others.
Mandrake 7.1, 8.0 - The easiest to install and use, making Mandrake the best distro for beginners. It is based on KDE, which looks similar to Windows XP and Mac 0/S. The GUI is very slick and easy to use. In fact, you don't even have to look at the command line. On the downside, this distro is very resource hungry. So much so that Mandrake 8.0 brought my PII 266 64RAM to its knees and I wound up taking it off and installing Debian.
Debian 2.2 - If you're looking for adventure, try installing Debian. The install program is primative compared to RedHat, Mandrake, and SuSE, but once you get it working, it flys! Even with older hardware. I like the "DEB" packages and the auto-update feature (Note that RedHat, Mandrake and SuSe offer similar services with RPM and Up2Date.) But probably the best thing about Debian is the developer and user community. Because it isn't controlled by a big company like the other distros, it seems like more people are willing to work on it. I am a big Debian fan.
SuSE 7.3 - We just installed this at work as an experiment. My employer is looking for ways to save money and I pointed that one way is to drop the Microsoft Exchange server and its costly user licenses and go with Linux and Sendmail. We estimated the savings would be more than $20,000/year. But people were worried about the calendar and other services that Exchange provides so I convinced them to purchase the SuSE Linux E-Mail Server III with the Skyrix calendar (very cool. If you're looking for a calendar to use with Linux, check out Skyrix at www.skyrix.com). So far the tests have been going well (a couple folks like it better than Exchange!), and there is a chance that we might roll it out company-wide in Summer 2002. As far as the SuSE distro, I am using it at work and haven't had the chance to really play around with it. It does remind me of RedHat, and the installer is very nice.
Time to check out Slack.
- Wild | |
| Warfare 2001-12-15, 4:12 am |
| In my book, Slackware has always been the king of the Linux distros. No fancy GUI loader programs, no user-friendly login screens, none of that nonsense. Slackware is one of those hard-core distros that lets you configure everything the way you want it. And that's why I love it.
I've purchased Debian, RedHat and Slackware CD's 2 years ago (if not earlier). Debian kasted 1 day before I formatted the box, but Redhat lasted few hours. I tried Slack and it was *love on the first sight*. I'll never switch unless I am trying to check out other distros that I might work with someday (I hate to admit Redhat dominated the Linux market).
Let's start with the install software. It may or may not include install floppies, depending on who's doing the packaging. I use Cheapbytes.com package (or downloaded isos), which does not include floppies. But that's ok; it's easy to make your own. There are instructions on how to do it, for both Windows and Linux users. Once you've done that, the installation is pretty straightforward. Everything is done in a text-menu based program.
The only really hard part of setting up Slackware is configuring the X Window system. You need to know ahead of time which VGA card you are using, and certain details about it (e.g. VRAM, RAMDAC, Chipset, etc.). You also set the kind of mouse you are using (brand, 2/3 button, etc.) and the clocking on your monitor. Slackware was not intended for the faint of heart, I'll admit, so if you are unsure about any of this stuff, get some help and proceed with caution.
Slackware comes with both KDE and Gnome/Enlightenment/Eazel's Nautilus and many other Window managers; having worked with both, I personally prefer Gnome. Slackware comes most of the standard stuff, such as Gimp and emacs, but usually not anything fancy like StarOffice or WordPerfect for Linux.
Pros: Sleek and powerful
Cons: Not for the timid
Recommended: Yes | |
| neuralfx 2001-12-16, 3:20 am |
| slack is probably my favorite also, but im not staunch for or against any distro's really .. but the install for slack is basically the same as with say redhat, its just presented differently, common misconception is that say rh or suse is full of bloatware, well you can add/remove packages just like in a slackware install .. but ill be the first to say, in a production environment, at least on a medium to large scale, i would stick with redhat .. though i do prefer SysV scripts as opposed to bsd init scripts, .. both are good .. just used to sysv i guess .. jus my thoughts ..
-neural | |
| carlitos 2001-12-17, 9:34 pm |
| for me is mandrake
i tried red hat, slackware and corel2
with all those i ha trouble setitng up my DSL internet
but mandrake detected it automatically | |
| bass2k1 2001-12-30, 2:19 pm |
| For workstations I would say Slackware, and for servers deffinately BSD. | |
| Warfare 2001-12-31, 10:53 pm |
| Seems like we got alotta slackers on this board.
Way to go folks!  | |
| ccieToBe 2002-01-02, 7:32 pm |
| A few daemons too  | |
| catfisch 2002-01-04, 2:13 am |
| I like em all .. but i keep going back to Mandrake.. I use it for a NAT/IPTABLES/FW,Snort IDS,MySQL, Ethereal Sniffer..NAT, Samba,Webmin,FTP,DHCP,SSH ect etc etc server.. ***OH and a (Dedicated Team Fortress Server with 32 players) and it's been rock solid on a p1-200.. i just kill X and it comes alive..
It get's my vote.. -Catfisch | |
| mrdrewca 2002-01-07, 8:59 pm |
| Good post wildscribe,, that kindda stuff really helps a linux newby.. |
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