Very Computer

I use Red Hat on my system, and I'm very happy with it.  Red Hat has
put together a good, modern distribution.  They're committed to a
putting out an easy to use and maintain distribution.

I find that the $30-50 for their official product (which includes
install support -- please let's avoid the flamewar) or their
Powertools product is well worth it.  Yes, you can download it from
their website or order a CD from some third part for only a few
dollars, but by doing this you are supporting their work.

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Michael W. Ryan               | OTAKON Webmaster

http://www.netaxs.com/~mryan/ | http://www.otakon.com/

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I recently tried installing all but Slackware and Caldera and WGS on a
two year old laptop.  It was an eye-opener.  At other's urging, I
finally tried Redhat, and hated it.  Redhat's package management
compared to Debian's is pathetic.  Redhat's autoboot from CD never
worked, and reconfiguring the system once installed was a nightmare
(tweak gpm to do left handed buttons, and you break XConfigurator).
The latest Redhat is too big to install on my laptop.  There's no
"minimal install then swap devices and finish install from CD".

I'd like to try S.u.s.e, but I couldn't grok the setup program.  It
fires up graphical, sorts out some basic stuff, then finishes and
launches a text based configurator ... which I had absolutely no luck
getting ANYTHING out of.  I'm sure there's a simple keystroke I'm
missing, but the machine might as well have been locked up.

I'm now back using Debian.  It's the most sensible and robust of the
bunch (barring S.u.s.e, which I haven't really been able to test),
though it does tend to be oriented towards the large server crowd,
with their ideas and priorities re: security.

I haven't tried Caldera.  My client is about to; well see.

Quote:> Is it worth forking out $30-50 for CD and book?  I'm not averse to fiddling

I've bought lots of book/CD combos over the years.  I've never yet
installed anything from the included CD; there's always a newer CD
available for pennies.  I buy the book for the book.

--

                            TopQuark Software & Serv. Enquire within.

  Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

I'm quite familiar with unix (shell scripts, etc.) and some X-Windows.  Now
would now like to get my home computer up and running with linux.

Got an Intel MBD, Cyrix 686 with lots of disk space on IDE drives, a 1MB Jaz
drive and 32MB ram - currently configured for Win95 only, but Partition Magic
and Drive Image are there for convenient disk reallocation.

I'd be curious about opinions out there on the advantages and disadvantages of
the four major linux distributions Slackware, Red Hat, Debian, S.u.S.E.

Is it worth forking out $30-50 for CD and book?  I'm not averse to fiddling
around with various web-downloaded files, but am always appreciative of a
well-written book with an overview and the convenience of all-in-CD packaging.

|\|.

================================================================================

Hey you know something people?                      They won't go for no more
I'm not black, but there's a whole lotsa times      Great Midwestern hardware store
I wish I could say I'm not white.                   Philosophy that turns away
(1965, Frank Zappa in Trouble Every Day             From those who aren't afraid to say
 -> Freak Out)                                      What's on their mind -- The left behinds
                                                    Of The Great Society.
                                                    (1965, Frank Zappa in Hungry Freaks, Daddy
                                                     -> Freak Out)

Quote:Nick Dreyer writes:
> I'm quite familiar with unix (shell scripts, etc.) and some X-Windows.  Now
> would now like to get my home computer up and running with linux.
> ...
> I'm not averse to fiddling
> around with various web-downloaded files, but am always appreciative of a
> well-written book with an overview and the convenience of all-in-CD
> packaging.

Go to www.linuxpress.com and order a copy of _The Debian User's Manual_.
Get a CD of Debian 2.0 either from them or from www.lsl.com.

You will also probably want to get the O'Reilly books.

Go to www.debian.org to learn more about Debian and to subscribe to the
debian-user mailing list.
--
John Hasler                This posting is in the public domain.

Dancing Horse Hill         Make money from it if you can; I don't mind.
Elmwood, Wisconsin         Do not send email adverti*ts to this address.

Myself, I've installed quite a few distributions over the years, (I experiment
with a system, then erase and start over.  I've not yet committed to Linux
totally) and I would say it would be a close race between S.u.S.E. and Red
Hat.  Both distributions are easy to install and come with good documentation
(providing that one buys the "Official" version of each product).  I prefer
S.u.S.E. just a little more because of Y.a.S.T. which to me is a great package
interface/configuration utility.  Also with S.u.S.E., you get 5 CD's worth of
packages for less than the official Red Hat.  The manual for S.u.S.E. is also
a little more extensive, and seems to be aimed for those who are starting with
Linux, but have some operational knowledge of a PC under an operating system.

You're sure Caldera isn't a "major" distribution?  And you're limiting
yourself to Europe and the Americas, right?

I'm sure everyone will tell you "the one I use is great".  I tried
Slackware, tried to test Red Hat (their then-standard kernel wouldn't
recognize my CD-ROM) and found Debian usable if odd.  I'm sticking
with Debian now, but it's not because of any tremendous virtue -- I'm
used to it, mainly.

Red Hat, SUSE, and Caldera all offer various commercial extensions.
For instance, if you have certain video cards, Red Hat and SUSE might
be able to offer X servers for them that other distros can't.
--

"Your brain is actually a fabulously complex computer, which means that
on Jan. 1, 2000, it will stop working and your body will flop around
like a recently caught perch."   (Dave Barry, slightly paraphrased.)

Thanks for your valuable responses.  With 3 of them for Debian, I'll give that
a try first.  Sounds like they are the most committed to keeping things open,
a concept I'm all for, and thus would like to support.

                           |\|.

Quote:>I'm quite familiar with unix (shell scripts, etc.) and some X-Windows.  Now
>would now like to get my home computer up and running with linux.

In my experience, Slackware has always worked the best and been the best
learning experience. Redhat is quite good now, but I find it odd. S.u.S.E
was a pain for me, but Debian is also quite good. Caldera is VERY
commercial, if you like that sort of thing.

___________________________________________________________________________
Of course... 5 years from now everyone will be running free GNU on their
200 MIPS, 64M SPARCstation-5.
                --Andrew Tannenbaum, Jan. 30 1992 in comp.os.minix
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

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I exclusively use use Slackware now, although I have tried Red Hat in the
past.  I think too many people overlook Slackware because it isn't as
flashy or 'newbie-friendly' like Red Hat is.  For die-hard Unix fans, you
can't beat Slackware.  I find it takes the best and worst of real Unixes
and makes it even better.  Red Hat is an extremely odd system in my
opinion.  I don't like graphical admin or coniguration utlities so that
isn't a plus for me.  I also don't quite understand the RPM thing--with
all the problems I hear about various RPM's I don't know why you wouldn't
want to do things the old fashioned way--download the tarball, tweak the
Makefile and go...

Quote:> Is it worth forking out $30-50 for CD and book?  I'm not averse to fiddling
> around with various web-downloaded files, but am always appreciative of a
> well-written book with an overview and the convenience of all-in-CD packaging.

The CDs in book/CD combos are usually way out of date.  Check out
www.cdrom.com, their Slackware 'subscription' is a good deal--4 CDs for
$24 every few months.  Ify ou are a real newbie to Linux, you may want to
invest in a book as well for setup info, since the booklet included with
the CDs is a bit sparse.  Or you could download the various Linux
Documentation project pdfs and print them out.

Jay Ribak

I first tried Slackware; installing was easy but I couldn't succeed in
installing new stuff. I therefore moved to Redhat and used it for about 2 years
with success. However in the last 3 months I've been using Debian almost
exclusively and like it a lot. The installation is pretty easy apart from
dselect, which is notoriously rather difficult to use; however, once you're past
that hurdle it's excellent.  As everyone says, upgrading is very easy. Whenever
I've encountered any problems with .deb packages I've sent bug reports and had
immediate responses from the maintainers, which have fixed the problems.

Anthony

--
Anthony Campbell  -  running Linux Debian 2.0

"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on..."   - Edward Fitzgerald

Quote:> For die-hard Unix fans, you can't beat Slackware.

Bzzt, plenty of die-hard Unix fans prefer Debian or the BSDs.  As a
former Slackware user, I'd place it dead last in my list of choices.

Quote:> Red Hat is an extremely odd system in my opinion.

Red Hat is more oriented for the newbie.  But it works fine for the
expert once you learn how source RPMs work.  I'd rather use RH than
Slackware, but I'd rather use Debian or BSD than either.  :-)

Quote:> I also don't quite understand the RPM thing--with all the problems I
> hear about various RPM's I don't know why you wouldn't want to do
> things the old fashioned way--download the tarball, tweak the
> Makefile and go...

Which works great until you want to update something and the list of
files has changed, and you've forgotten the details....  

I've been using Linux for longer than Slackware has existed, and I am
quite capable of building my system from scratch, BUT, I'm afraid that
I'm tired of worrying about all the fiddly little details all the
time.  Something like the BSD ports system or Debian's dpkg/apt makes
my life easier, and it's a tool I can use myself for managing my own
code.  I'll use a useful tool if one is available, thank you.

In the old days, people used to program computers by entering bits
with front-panel switches.  With all the problems I hear about
compilers, I don't know why people don't just go back to that!  :-)

Quote:> > Is it worth forking out $30-50 for CD and book?
> The CDs in book/CD combos are usually way out of date.

Not if you buy an up-to-date Red Hat distribution, with their manual.
I agree that if you go into your local bookseller and buy "Linux Made
EZ (CD included)", you're probably wasting your money, but RH is in a
different category.  So is Caldera.  Yes, if you're a novice, it's
probably worth buying a RH or Caldera distribution with manual.  I
wouldn't buy it myself, but I'm not a novice.
--
Chris Waters             |


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