[KLUG Members] Linux distro comparison

[Adam Williams]

> > Debian defines the concept of conservative.
> That's only for the stable version of Debian. The unstable version is
> very cutting edge, and works perfectly with kernel 2.6.0.

Well, that gives it a leg up over RH, where I can't get 2.6.0 to do
anything but go down in flames.

> > > Any way I was just hoping to get some input from whoever is willing
> > > to give it.
> It really depends on what you want.
> Red Hat and SuSE, because they handle version upgrades much like the
> commercial Unices, are best supported by third-party developers. Red

One thing for corporations is that RH and SuSe (Novell?) certify various
configurations on certain hardware (mostly IBM boxes).  Management types
and thier legions of familiars (aka auditors) like this.   One can use
Open Source and still be playing by the book.

> Hat, especially with Ximian, seems to do the most for user comfort.

There is also commercial support for "applications" like Informix,
Oracle, SAP, BIE, etc...  I'm certain these would run on other
distributions (I have actually done it with a couple of these).  But it
is pretty brave wager to plunk down $50,000 to find out.

> Debian unstable and Gentoo are better for more hacker-type activities.

I think until Red Carpet Debian had a leg up with apt & apt-get.  That
was a pretty slick updating mechanism.

> Gentoo is truly the hands-on distro, but I'm not interested in compiling
> ping(8) a dozen times a year. ;-)

I can't believe there is a life form in The Universe other than the
Almighty himself/herself/itself that has the time for that - given the
1% perf increase a custom compile might buy you it will take a long time
to buy back the hours it took to compile the monster.