Linux and it's different models.

[bipper]

ShunNakamura: Red Hat has left a bad taste in my mouth since day one. Littlerally - the cardboard plasticy packageing is horrable on the stomach. Anyways; notice how I did not mention Lindows at all Red hat just seems to have that in between method of doing everything, and in my opinion, they lean to far toward vendor driven. In otherwords, release now, patch later deal. That is not what I, and many others look for out of linux. A secure release, and prefereably a configurable install. It is very noobie friendly, but tends to have too many issue to make a feasable enviroment anymore.

At work, I am currently fixing an array of fedora and Red hat related slip ups, as in sudden noboots and dropped partitions.

Simply put; I feel Redhat and fedora are simply bloated out of control and add too much with too little implimentation and testeing - leading to a rather unstable enviroment (a'la the Fedora board ). Using a program to start a service is very windows, and requires extra sepcialised, but simple, learning. Slack tends to have you start a program service via a command - which can be cumbersome, but it leads to the greatest learning of what a program can actually do. Also, if you find yourself runing huge lines of code to start a program <b>to your specifications</b> you can easily write a script hands on and sexy. Need I say more.

Unne: I never meant to badmouth Gentoo, as Gentoo has come aways, and thier official description seems to laminate the fact that they aim to be automated to configure to your system for specific needs. Gentoo has had that irreputable repuation in the past of being insanley unstable, though I am sure they have moved beyond that.

Gentoo has a ton to offer, and while the installs of both enviroments are (now) mainly automated off an ISO, it is the raw setup in which gentoo tailors itself to be the best *(wildcard) for your system. Using these preset methods are just peachy keen, but as I said, I am looking at it from a learning prespective. Don't be affraid to rip up the kernal (suprisingly easy) and get your hands dirty.

I honestly still do not see the gentoo vs slack debate as ever being applicatable. They both have their place, and you will never really see them compared directly (as per thier core purpose), as slack is basically a step up from nothing (while still comming with something) while gentoo is often compiled on an hour old compiler and runs software on the bleeding edge. I feel that Gentoo is a bit to edgy for me, as I prefer more of the tested and dulled out linux distro - ie slackware. Two very different things in my opinion. Point in case: Gentoo is very configurable as in (enter value) [repeat]. I feel that getting the distory up, and then editing it, is an invaluable experience as well. This is more speaking towards dealing with other boxes put together by other techs. Honestly, Slackware's install is going to be more automated -i think, but will often have the most problems with new new new new new software. IE: Slack will not play nice with most SATA controllers, as the implimentation for such is in the linux 2.6 kernal. Slack includes said kernal in a test directort, as they have not ensure the stability they want with thier distro yet, at least using 2.6 kernal. This is a PERFECT example of why I love slack, and what they exactly aim for.


As for slackware, I had a server freshly installed and a few minor security patches installed, which has been rebooted once since it's install. It took 5 hours to install (mainly due to the slow formating, and my extremley picky package management (I had 200 MB to work with ). The purpose of the server was to serve 5 muds on a DSL line, and it did so with out a qualm. I could kill a crashed mud, fix said bug, recompile and relaunch, and the game would go up with out a hitch. The same could be said with Apache, my PHP3 module (lol), and my email service. freakin sex.

I have done installs on many machines before, in personal, small buisness, and even coorperate enviroments. The base user was a guy with an old compaq, and hardly new how to run windows.

I set this man up with slack (8) (second customer I ever had), and showed him arround for about 45 minutes, and he was off. I have prolly given him about 45 minutes of support in the past 3 years, and he is still using the same install. That is my personal best record. Sides that, I have only reinstalled twice, on two other home users, and I think the last was about 6 months ago. (last october). I set them up with KDE usually, and they all have seemed to like it for what they use it for.

Small business wise, I have set several componi up, and hardly a hitch. Obviously slightly more than home users, but I don't feel like pulling records and looking.

Coorp: doing so right now @ my current job, set some up at target. They impliment and play very well. It takes a little know how when hitting huge prefabed network and having that shattiest doco ever (target), but it wored great, and to my knowlage - still is.

The best part about all this bantering, is I am sure any other distro can be tailored to do the same, and act as you want. I am just offering a breif - very breif- over view of my slack experiences.

oh and speaking of uptime: http://en.uptime-project.net/page.ph...f489371c556ac1

linux base wins
Bipper