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3 cents Regarding distributions and co.
when one considers the question of "which distribution is better", like
many other religious questions, one should slice the intended audiance
into several groups. i'll present a possible such slicing (many others are
valid as well).
A. someone who wants to use linux as a user ("play" with the internet,
play quake and doom, use a word processor, spreadsheet, ray tracing
software or what-not), or someone who want sto lern general topics in
programming (i.e. just use a compiler, debugger, editor, etc. and
write programs).
B. someone who wants to administer a linux machine.
C. someone who wants to program for linux (or unix in general).
D. someone who wants to learn the system and/or learn system
administration.
People from group A will look for something that can be easily installed,
and that is easy to have software upgraded, and also that has most the
tools they need already inside the distribution.
People from group B are usualy people who need to administer the box
without investing too much time on this administration (please don't start
flaming... wait for group D below). they need something that can be
installed on various machines easily, that will be easy to configure in a
networked environment, and that has good documentation as to how to
configure its various parts. they need more control of their system then
the user in group A, as they manage a more complex system.
People from group C will have two alternatives: 1. concentrate on the most
popular distribution, and make sure their system works for that
distribution. in this case, they don't care how good it is, just how many
pottential customers for their software they might find. or they can try
to cover all distruitions (i.e. the difference in system files locations,
etc.) and for that will want to have all "major" distributions installed
on their network.
People from groups D would usually not care much about which distribution
they have, as long as they can get over the initial installation process.
after that, they'd want to disect their system to pieces, compile packages
using their source code, try installing software that was not designed for
their original distribution, etc.
naturally, many users belong to several groups at the same time, which
means their set of demands is even more complex.
in this spirit, when people ask the 64M$ question of "which distribution",
they should first state what they intend to do with the box, or else
they'll get a host of possibly irelevant answers. we all know that each
distribution has "Good" versions and "bad" versions, nothing is always
steady, and thus the answers might change from time to time.
as for myself, i think i started up with slackware, and moved to red-hat
later, simply because it had an easier installation process _at the time_,
and it was handly. the reason i stick up with redhat, and don't try the
other distributions is because i always configure the system by hand (i.e.
edit configuration files with a text editor), and install software using
its original source code - sorry, this is how i "grew up". becuse of this,
i don't care about software packaging and packages dependnecies, nor about
a system configuration tool. i do check such configuration tools from time
to time, but none that i've seen seemed "good enough" for my needs (not
that i claim to be able to write something that i'll consider good enough
myself). and even if there was - all the fun of administration will be
lost for me...
just my 3 cents...
guy