Target Distribution for the future?

[Brian K. White]

Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> Here's a question that has been glanced off but, I don't think,
> actually answered, in the last week:
>
> With the demise of Red Hat Linux, what is *fpTech's* next planned
> target platform.  Red Hat Enterprise Linux, probably, for one, but
> there have been (the obvious) objections raised to that by users here
> on this list, and I'm one of them.
>
> There's apparently motion in the FreeBSD ocean, and that's good, but
> I'm more a Linux guy.  So, my inclination is to go with Fedora, or
> Mandrake, or maybe KRUD, since I'm also a RedHat guy.
>
> Has anyone heard an answer floated, to this question of strategy?
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra

I think there are at least three equally arguable directions to go from the
old redhat:

1) suse - widely acclaimed as best engineered, most sane for working world
etc...
2) gentoo - the most freebsd-like linux?
3) white box linux - they took the last regular redhat and try to basically
just keep that going like it was.

I would hate to see fedora be the offical target because it's a bleeding
edge unsupported non-distrubution be definition.
I would hate to see redhat be the target because the licencing is more
costly, invasive, and libelous than sco! and without even sco's comfortable
predictability and lack of surprises which is the one thing that makes sco
worth paying for.

I've been playing with a few special purpose debian-based distros like
lindows and knoppix and gnoppix, though not yet debian itself. But they have
been so handy that it seems like Debian would be a good supportable
position.

Suse I have started looking at a little but not enough yet to have an
opinion but I certainly value the opinions of some of the people who've said
it is good, even if I wasn't convinced by the various magazine "round up"
articles comparing different distros.

Mandrake I have used a lot and it's always been pretty good but as a company
they are just such a question mark it's hard to pick them as your main
reference point and I don't think too many people ever claimed it was the
best choice for back room / server situations.

White box I've never used and have not heard anything about lately so they
could be another Stampede Linux, .. "Who?"  "Exactly."  :)

Myself, my enthusiasm is all in FreeBSD lately as far as looking for an
alternative for sco as a base for our filepro app and related services. I
like linux fine for myself but I don't want to have to support it out in the
field. The strictly controlled enforced sanity progress of freebsd makes it
something I can imagine being able to support without much more overhead
than I have with sco now. Perhaps less once I get more knowledgeable but
it's hard to imagine anything requiring actually less attention and having
less year to year learning curve than the almost none I have now with sco.

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
+++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++.
filePro BBx  Linux SCO  Prosper/FACTS AutoCAD  #callahans Satriani