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387 lines
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<TITLE>The Answer Guy 32:
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More on Distribution Preferences
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<!-- ORIGINAL SUBJECT:
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linux distribution
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<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#A000A0"
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ALINK="#FF0000">
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<H4>"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<H1 align="center"><A NAME="answer">
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<img src="../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif" alt="" border="0" align="middle">
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<a href="./index.html">The Answer Guy</a>
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<img src="../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif" alt="" border="0" align="middle">
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</A></H1>
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<BR>
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<H4 align="center">By James T. Dennis,
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<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com">linux-questions-only@ssc.com</a>
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<BR>Starshine Technical Services, <A HREF="http://www.starshine.org/">http://www.starshine.org/</A>
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</H4>
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<p><hr><p>
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<!--endcut ========================================================= -->
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<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
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width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
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>More on Distribution Preferences</H3>
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<p><strong>From mlees on 20 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
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<!-- begin body -->
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<p><strong>Answerguy,
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What do you think of this distribution?
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Mike
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</strong></p>
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<font color="navy">
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<p><strong>OpenLinux Base</strong></p>
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<p><strong>OpenLinux®: A complete Linux operating
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system with all the system tools you’ll need.
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Plus valuable add-ons, like Netscape®
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Communicator and backup utilities.
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</strong></p>
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<p><strong>US and Canadian orders can take advantage of a $20.00
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rebate from <A HREF="http://www.caldera.com/">Caldera</A>, bringing the price of
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OpenLinux Base to $31.95
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</strong></p>
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</font>
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<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
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alt="(!)" border="0"
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>I haven't used any of the Caldera distributions
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recently. This is a much more recent version the those
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that I've used. So, I don't have an informed opinion on
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them.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>Since you just asked about Yggdrasil yesterday I'm wondering
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if this is a pattern. I hope you aren't going to send me
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of these every day.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>My opinion about Caldera <EM>Standard</EM> is that it is the best
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choice for a site that has existing Netware servers or
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clients. It was also the first distribution that was
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supported by WordPerfect for Linux. There are a number of
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other commercial software companies that work with Caldera
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for releasing Linux versions of their product.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>If the Caldera Base includes a copy of StarOffice (as your
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press release says it does) than that is a very good reason
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to try it. (The installation of StarOffice that I have from
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an early 4.0 CD is very unstable --- it dies quickly and
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horribly under my <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/">S.u.S.E.</A> 5.1 system.
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I've heard that that there are new libraries and releases that fix that --- but I
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haven't been particularly motivated to go get them since I
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still mostly live in text consoles).
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>StarOffice is a very promising product --- and the competition
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between it Corel Office, and Applixware should be
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interesting. The most important feature of either is to
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provide me with stable, reliable access to MS Office .DOC and
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.XLS files. The first one to successfully do that with MS
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Office '97 wins my vote. (Since that is one of the few
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reasons for me to get out of a text console and into X --- the
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others being Netscape Navigator (when I need something that
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just doesn't look right in <tt>Lynx</tt>), '<tt>xfig</tt>' (to draw diagrams for
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the book that I'm working on), and '<tt>xdvi</tt>', and '<tt>gv</tt>' (to
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preview the LaTeX and dvips output for same).
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>At the same time I recognize the potential of these office
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suites (and some others). As these get better we see Linux as
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a more serious contender on the desktops of home and corporate
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users. According to some surveys we're already winning
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against NT in a number of server categories (including web,
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mail, DNS, and SMB/Samba). We've gained a lot of ground in
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the technical and scientific workstation market (although the
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push to get EDA and CAD/CAM suites ported is just barely
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started). But all the "mom's" and "pop's" out there that have
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their college kids buying systems for them need something a
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bit less intimidating than '<tt>emacs</tt>' and '<tt>vi</tt>' --- and TeX and
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friends.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote><A HREF="http://www.kde.org/">KDE</A> and <A HREF="http://www.gnome.org/">GNOME</A> will provide the main interface and many of the
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toys and widgets. StarOffice, Applixware, Corel Office, SIAG,
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LyX, Wingz, Xess, and others are all vying to provide the
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main user applications.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>(I personally think we'll also need multi-media GUI "Welcome to
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Linux/XFree86/KDE" and "Welcome to Linux/XFree86/GNOME"
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interactive tutorials --- with sound, music, via, and a
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dancing, talking Tux. I want a system I can install on a
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box and send to my Mom!).
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>Getting back to your implicit question:
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>Which Linux distribution should you try?
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>... the answer is:
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>I have no idea!
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>Unlike the marketeering weenies that you encounter in
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every magazine, and newspaper, on every TV and radio
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show and on billboard and busses every time you drive
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anywhere ... unlike them, I don't want to push a bunch
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of <EM>features</EM> on you and I have nothing to sell you
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(except my time --- which is pretty expensive).
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>Helping someone select a Linux distribution (or anything
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else) is a matter of requirements analysis. What do
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you need? What do you want? How much are you willing to
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spend? (Time and money). It is quite possible that I
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would recommend <A HREF="http://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</A>, <A HREF="http://www.netbsd.org/">NetBSD</A>, <A HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/">OpenBSD</A>, BSDI/OS, or
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even Win '95, NT, or MS-DOS --- <EM>if</EM> I understood your
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requirements sufficiently.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>Before you send me a list or essay on your requirements
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consider that the Answer Guy is time I volunteer to show
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my appreciation for all the work that people like Richard
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Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Arnold Robbins, and
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so many others have put into the GNU project, Linux and
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other freeware. I try to answer questions that I think
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are of broad interest to many Linux users and potential
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Linux users. (And possibly of interest to *BSD'ers
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and eventually GNU HURD'ers).
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>The easy answer to selecting a distribution is: pick one!
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Since many of them are freely distributable you might want
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to start with one of those. <A HREF="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</A> and <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A> are definitely
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freely accessible. I think <A HREF="http://www.slackware.org/">Slackware</A> is still available online
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--- and I suspect that it's perfectly O.K. to borrow a friend's
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copy of the CD. Walnut Creek might have exclusive rights on
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CD distribution of Slackware --- I don't know. I think S.u.S.E.
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is free for "personal" use (although it is a bit unclear my
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S.u.S.E. 5.2 manual says:
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote><blockquote>Copyright
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This work is copyrighted [sic] by S.u.S.E. GmbH and
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is placed under conditions of the GNU General Public
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License.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>You may copy it in whole or in part as long as the
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copies retain this copyright statement.
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</blockquote></blockquote>
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<blockquote>... (overleaf of the title page). It's not clear whether
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"this work" is intended to refer to the book or to the
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distribution that included it. The box and CD case (4CD's)
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don't list any other copyright or licensing notices that I
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can find. The only index entry under the term "license"
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points that the Appendix of their manual that contains the
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full text of the FSF GPL. That would suggest that you can
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borrow my set of S.u.S.E. CD's and install it, and would
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even suggest that someone could start creating derivative
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works (other CD sets) to sell in competition with S.u.S.E.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>However, I've always been under the impression that S.u.S.E.
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is a commercial distribution. I purchased both of my copies
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for it -- 5.1 and 5.2 --- and I've purchased many copies of
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various Red Hat versions (the boxed set and the lower-priced
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archives sets). So, you might want to ask a S.u.S.E. rep
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before you go into production against them. However, I doubt
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that they'd even want you to waste their time asking if it's
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O.K. to install from a friend's set on an evaluation basis.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>You're clearly willing to buy some distribution once you
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find one you like. Personally I usually select Red Hat
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for my customers (after I've considered their needs) simply
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because Red Hat has a pretty good balance of the various
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factors they care about.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>Debian has more packages (slightly) -- but the last copy of
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<ttt>dpkg</tt> that I used was very convoluted (I'm hoping to get a 2.0
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CD as soon as it goes out of beta). Slackware was nice when
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I needed it --- but most of my customers aren't interested
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in fussing with tarballs --- they want something with a
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decent package manager (one that can be operated easily
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from command lines as well as throught a GUI).
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>Under RH it's pretty simple to write a script to poll an
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internal FTP site for package updates and automatically apply
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any of them that appear. (I think there's a package called
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'<tt>rpmwatch</tt>' floating around some '<tt>contrib</tt>' directories somewhere
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that does precisely that). I haven't looked at RH 5.1 yet.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>S.u.S.E. and Caldera both use the RPM format.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>S.u.S.E. includes more packages that the last couple RH CD's
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I used (4.2 and 5.0). It seems to have a pretty good
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installation interface though I have mixed feelings about
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their interpretation of the SysV init scripts. They have a
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large shell script named /etc/rc.config (mine is about 770
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lines long --- of which about 500 are comments). This file
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contains a long list of shell variables and values. You
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can edit this file by hand or you can use YaST (Yet another
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Setup Tool) which is their curses based system's administration
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interface. The idea is that the other scripts all "source"
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this one file and use the variables that apply to their
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operation.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>On the one hand this is very nice. Concievably I could
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create a particular installation profile (which they support
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via their installation interface), install the system,
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configure it via YaST and put it into production.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>Let's assume I use the '<tt>chattr +i +d</tt>' (immutable and no-dump)
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flags on all the files that came with the distribution and
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unset them as a pair whenever I change any of them; this would
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allow me to use the '<tt>dump</tt>' program and <EM>never</EM> backup files
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that were from the initial installation off of the CD). This
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is for a "data+config" backup strategy.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>If I've stored the rescue floppy they created, and the
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rc.config file --- I should be able to restore the whole
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system to its configuration with just my installation
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CD's, my rescue diskette, and the rc.config file. (Naturally,
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I'll have to restore all my data as well).
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>Another nice thing is that I might be able to create
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a little script to generate new rc.config files from a
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master form and a couple of other data files. If I have
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<EM>lots</EM> of new machine trickling in I might have a few
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files that contain lists of IP addresses, hostnames,
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NIS domain names, shared printers, and other local (LAN)
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data. I might conceivably be able to generate a new custom
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rc.config file for each new box and automate even more
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of the deployment.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>Under other distributions I have to mess with over a dozen
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separate files. Unfortunately it's not that easy even under
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S.u.S.E. If you use NFS you really want to use NIS or synchronize
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the '<tt>passwd</tt>' and '<tt>group</tt>' files across your systems (since
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maintaining ugidd maps is not scaleable and NFS relies on
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the uid/gid values to determine access and permissions.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>None of the distributions I've seen prompt me for a
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passwd/group file set prior to installation. So, if I use
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Red Hat on one system and S.u.S.E. on another (I do)
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--- there will be some base files that differ between them
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(most of the uid's created by most of the distributions
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<EM>do</EM> match -- there were only a couple that I had to
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run through a "<tt>masschown</tt>" script). (Distribution Dudes!:
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This is my enhancement plea for the month! Please let me
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hand you a passwd/group file set --- from floppy or over
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ftp/nfs/http --- and use that to map the ownership as you
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install).
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>These days, for large sites, I recommend creating one
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"template" installation one a typical box, cutting that whole
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installation to tape or CDR after configuration but <EM>before</EM>
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any <EM>use</EM> (data). Now you can do all new system installations
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as "restores" from your backups. You can also take that
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opportunity to make sure that your recovery plans, rescue
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diskettes and backup media are all in working order. One
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reason I recommend that is that it takes me about
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four hours to fix various permissions and configurations
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(<tt>hosts.allow</tt>, <tt>hosts.deny</tt>, etc) after I've completed a new
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installation.
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>One final note about choosing a distribution: don't just
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ask me. I'm only one person. I've only used about a half
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dozen Linux distributions (some of which no longer exist!).
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Don't just go to the newsgroups and mailings lists and ask
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"Which is best?"
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</blockquote>
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<blockquote>Ask questions that relate to your situation: Will you be
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integrating this into a Novell network? Do you have friends
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or family that will be working on your Linux box? Do any of
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them have experience with a Linux distribution? Do any of them
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use some other form of Unix (free or otherwise)? Do you have
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any particular applications preferences? Is system security
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a concern? What are the risk profiles that are acceptable to
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you? What is your native language (German speakers will probably
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be much happier with the German S.u.S.E. or the DLD (?)
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distributions, Japanese users seem to prefer FreeBSD, the French
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have their own distribution, etc.)?
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</blockquote>
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<!-- end body -->
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<!--startcut ======================================================= -->
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<H5 align="center"><a href="http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html"
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>Copyright ©</a> 1998, James T. Dennis <BR>
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Published in <I>Linux Gazette</I> Issue 32 September 1998</H5>
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<td><A HREF="tag_DVI.html">DVI</A>
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<td><A HREF="tag_serial.html">serial</A>
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<td><A HREF="tag_rs422.html">rs422</A>
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<td><A HREF="tag_modem.html">modem</A>
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<td><A HREF="tag_notfound.html">notfound</A>
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<td><A HREF="tag_tuning.html">tuning</A>
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<td><A HREF="tag_libc5.html">libc5</A>
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<td><A HREF="tag_ping.html">ping</A>
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<td><A HREF="tag_accounts.html">accounts</A>
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<td><A HREF="tag_lilo.html">lilo</A>
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<td><A HREF="tag_95slow.html">95slow</A>
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<td><A HREF="tag_nonlinux.html">nonlinux</A>
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<td><A HREF="tag_progenv.html">progenv</A>
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<td><A HREF="tag_cluster.html">cluster</A>
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<td><A HREF="tag_ftpd.html">ftpd</A>
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