[CLUE-Tech] distro question

[Nate Duehr]

Collins Richey wrote:

>On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 22:30:05 -0600
>Collins Richey <erichey2 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>Just a wrap on this fine discussion. The original poster asked for
>gentoo experiences, but we covered a lot of other fine distros as well.
>It all comes down to preferences. I like gentoo, but it's definitely not
>"one size fits all." About the only one we didn't cover is Slackware,
>and I like that one as well.
>
>Since I don't run a corporate setup (you need to pay to have someone to
>blame when it breaks <g>), I much prefer the "free as in beer" approach.
>That boils down to Debian, Gentoo, or Slackware. Since I can't tolerate
>the GNU/Linux religion (sure, you can ignore it if you like the
>distro) and since I don't like the BSD style bootscripts (yes, others
>are available) in Slackware, I'm left with Gentoo which just fits like
>an old pair of slippers.
>
>Two additional aspects of Gentoo bear noting, and I didn't emphasize
>this enough in my CLUE presentation - the documentation and the user
>group(s). There is a L-O-T of documentation, and this means a lot of FMs
>to RTFM! Gentoo is just different enough from your average distro that
>even experienced users may fail to RTFM carefully. The main user list
>(gentoo-user) has swelled to almost firehose proportions in the past
>year. A lot of those clogging the list are linux and gentoo newbies, and
>the old timers and developers do a pretty good job of fielding the usual
>repetitive questions, only getting snippy occasionally. As is the
>case with any large user list, the occasional troll visits the list
>to waste bandwidth - right now there are two of them!
>
>Keep those cards and letters coming in.
>
>  
>
Good wrap-up.  Fun topic, as always (if everyone's willing to have fun 
with it, which it appears everyone here is!).

I didn't see any mention the entire time about Mandrake... I did play 
with 10.0 recently and have to admit for "ease of installation" it ranks 
right up there with Knoppix.  They have always done a nice job on their 
installer.  But the update tool thing (ah, what's it called) was a 
mess... and I really wouldn't recommend Mandrake to any form of newbie 
because of it.  Oh yeah... urpmi.  UGGGH.

It was "pretty" and it worked correctly with one machine that has an 
Nvidia card out of the box, and generally was -- yep... Linux.  But it 
had no specific qualities that really appeared to make it stand out over 
the rest other than the installer, and lots of folks are getting good 
installers these days...

Have a happy Friday everyone... if you're a ham radio operator -- don't 
forget this weekend is the ARRL VHF QSO Party... time to break out all 
the microwave gear and point it at people for points!  (Please 
understand I do not mean this seriously and RF exposure limits are there 
for safety... 'nuff said.) 

 If you're not a ham, why not?!  (GRIN)  Mixing ham radio and Linux 
is... FUN!

Nate Duehr, nate at natetech.com