OT: Linux flavors...

[Chad McWilliams]

...

> The update system -is- nice.  I never liked up2date.  I still 
> don't automate my updates.  I prefer to pick and choose 
> exactly what I'm getting. And they nicely classify patches 
> based on a multi-level system (security fix, recommended, 
> bugfix, new version, etc.).  Usually I know exactly which 
> patches I'm waiting on from any vendor anyway.
> 

I do tend to pick and choose which updates to install, I just like
having the availability of an update system so that if there is a patch
that really NEEDS to be installed, and I don't have the time or
opportunity to do it manually, there's a quick way of doing it.

Actually, I usually install a core system (everything basically to make
it work at all), and then I'll compile my own apache, mysql, etc.  That
way I'm not linked to the version the vendor thinks is the best.  But
the base utils, and os stuff I usually stick with the distribution and
let it's update system do the work.

> As for adding software, yast has one of the coolest resolvers 
> for dependancies, bringing up a list of exactly which 
> packages you need to install for anything with unsatisfied 
> dependancies.  It's pretty slick.
> 
> Under the hood, pretty much everything (I can't think of any real
> exceptions) is also editable by hand.  You can configure 
> things by hand if you wish, and the config tools still work.  
> Ah, one exception is apache. I remember reading in the 
> comments that you -can- edit it by hand, but as soon as 
> yast's apache config module detects the checksum difference, 
> it will no longer edit with that tool.  But that's no big 
> deal.  I much prefer to deal with the config file, so I just 
> do that.  The core system is configurable either way though.
> 
> I like SuSE 9.0 better than any RH I used, from 4.1 all the 
> way through 7.3.  (They never sat still long enough to be 
> worth adopting after that, and then went away.)  And I've had 
> a chance to look at RHEL3 on someone's system.  I can't say 
> much about a system whose perl is broken.  It literally 
> segfaults on a very simple program that has worked on 
> Solaris, SCO, RH 7.x, SuSE, FreeBSD, and a few others, 
> reliably.  I got to talk to RH's tech support about it and 
> they claimed to know about the issue (they "think" they know 
> what it is, but their explanation shows they know nothing 
> about how perl -should- work), and though they said they were 
> escalating it, it's since been at least two weeks with no 
> word.  Meanwhile, I manually compiled 5.8.4 and all the 
> modules I needed and it works fine on the same system.  So if 
> RH screws up something as ubiquitous as perl, what's next, 
> the kernel?  I find it ironic that now that it's an entirely 
> commercial product, their bugs are more grievous and less 
> likely to be fixed than when they had a far more sizable user 
> base on the 'free' product.
> 

I had seen your comment about RHEL3 and the perl problem.  It's one of
the things that made me start looking elsewhere (I was looking into
White Hat at the time, so I figured it had the same problem).  I use
perl A LOT, and while I can compile my own and all that, I figure it's a
basic part of a distribution now, and if the distribution can't get it
right, something's wrong.  :)

> I'm still quite prejudiced against Mandrake from back in the 
> 6.x days.  I won't even look at it again.  No way.  Debian is 
> supposed to be okay, if you don't care too much about a next 
> to nonexistant lack of current updates for security, or if 
> you like to roll your own.  And I haven't bothered with any 
> of the upstarts or smaller players because I frankly don't 
> feel like wasting the effort on something more likely to go 
> away than not.  We used to have over 120 distributions to 
> choose from, and now it's down to about 40 or so.  Bill 
> Vermillion probably has the actual number somewhere.  It's 
> far more reasonable, and there were way too many for a long 
> time.  My point is, dists flop and fall out of favour and 
> vanish.  So I stick with the bigger players to avoid wasting effort.
> 

I understand that!  That's the problem I'm in now.  Most of these
servers we had just put in 2 months before Red Hat switched there plan.
It's not a huge issue (I can always install something else), but half
these servers are out of town, so it becomes more of a pain.  What ever
I choose this time, I want to be around for awhile.  That's why I had
looked into LFS, because I controlled it then.  But that's a lot of
work.

> If you've worked on one, you can work on just about any of 
> them anyway--IF you know the underlying system.  If one 
> absolutely depends on the vendor-specific tools, this 
> probably does not apply, but then one likely shouldn't be 
> administering a system anyway, IMHO.  
> 
> Two thumbs up to SuSE 9.0.  But as Jay pointed out, avoid 9.1 
> for now. It's a fresh dist, which status will iron itself out 
> in about 4.5 more months.  However, it's also based on the 
> 2.6 kernel, which I'm far less enthusiastic about based on 
> everything I've heard and seen.  I'm thinking it'll be a long 
> while before I trust that one.  They're only up to 2.6.7 
> right now, and releasing at a rate of about one patchlevel a 
> month.  I don't trust kernels until they hit at least .18.  
> That's almost a year away from being trustworthy.  For anyone 
> that thinks I'm exaggerating, 2.4.15 was entirely blowing 
> away whole filesystems, even if you did everything 
> right--assuming you got it to boot at all.  I know at least 
> five people
> -personally- who got hit wit that release, and it was far 
> more widespread than that.  And that was in a stable tree.  
> 2.2 took through .16-.18 to get right as well.  I think 1.0 
> took until .18ish too.  It's just historically pretty 
> predictable.  So it's going to be a while before I would ever 
> recommend a 2.6 kernel in production.  I've seen some recent 
> pasting of very disconcerting disk subsystem errors to IRC as 
> well.  That inspires no confidence.
> 
> Hence, I say wait on 9.1 for a while.  I'd say at least 4.5 
> months just so it's been worked out for at least six months 
> as a dist, nevermind the kernel.  But the kernel will give 
> -me- pause for longer than that, likely.
> 
> mark->
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-Chad McWilliams