Re: [SLUG] serious distro comparisions

From: Paul M Foster (paulf@quillandmouse.com)
Date: Sun Sep 28 2003 - 18:58:47 EDT


On Sun, Sep 28, 2003 at 01:19:51AM -0400, ethan@ethanzimmerman.com wrote:

> I know everyone has an opinion on this, but I'm looking for detailed
> info. What
> are the main differences (technical as well as philosophical) between various
> distros?
>
> I know debian is very much an advocate of free software, and very non
> commercial, and I know about apt-get
>
> I know red hat is a company trying to turn a profit, and has been called
> bloated. Can someone elaborate on "bloated". And how can that be ? What
> code in
> red hat (9 for example) is actually written/modified by red hat. Don't
> they just
> grab other people's code and slap it in a nice pretty package? If so how
> can one
> distro be more bloated than another?
>
> I know mandrake was sorta based on red hat. I know little about SuSE
> and united
> linux, and even less about slackware.
>
> So what really are the difference between distros?

Aside from distrowatch, there is a dated comparison of some of them at
http://www.suncoastlug.org/distros.html

<opinion>

Some other comments: I think the Red Hat "bloated" comment is bogus. If
you want to go that way, all the distros are getting more bloated-- more
software, more packages that do the same as other packages.

The ultimate geek distro is Linux From Scratch. Like Gentoo but more so.

Mandrake was originally based on Red Hat, but has gone its own way
(though still based on RPM). It is probably the best for newbies, and is
designed with that in mind.

The best distro for being able to upgrade easily is Debian. Designed
with that in mind. Very fat, with thousands of packages and many
packages that do the same thing. An example of the "choice" in software.
Built and tested by worldwide geeks, with loooong release cycles. Even
the "testing" version is considered very stable.

Red Hat, having dropped its commercial distro, is going toward the
community-based model, like Debian. It's too early to say if they'll do
a good job.

SuSE is fat because Germans pay by the minute for internet access.
Documentation (dead tree) is the best of any distro. Proprietary
administration tools (YaST) that work nicely and make system
administration simple. Nicely engineered. And with up-to-the-minute
hardware support. They were the first to introduce "tiered" distros (one
for home users, one for corporate users, etc.).

Slackware is headed by one guy who does his own thing. Patrick doesn't
subscribe to LSB. His init setup is based on BSD, not System V (unlike
other distros). He has no realistic package management system (no
quibbling here). As a result, this is a distro primarily for geeks.

TurboLinux is still trying to gain a foothold here, and has been very
slow to do security updates. They're more popular in Asia.

There are many distros based on Red Hat. And many based on Debian.
Almost no one bases their distro on something like SuSE or Slackware.

Caldera is no more, folded into SCO.

Coyote and the like are really server or firewall distros, and there are
lots of them.

Knoppix is like a "next generation" of distros. It's designed to run
from the CD, but can be installed on the hard drive. Some of the best
hardware detection and support in the business, with a very nice
well-integrated desktop and broad software functionality, though less
"choice" than you'd expect from multi-CD distros. Based on Xandros.
Designed to be a "demo" distro to introduce users to Linux, but still
fully-functional.

Xandros is a single-CD commercial distro with many of the same
characteristics of Knoppix (naturally). Based on Debian (all three
versions-- stable, testing, unstable). They use some of their own
(proprietary?) libraries for hardware detection and support, and these
work exceptionally well. Inexpensive, but slim and not downloadable, to
my knowledge; you gotta buy the CD.

<opinion/>

Paul

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked
Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages
posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Fri Aug 01 2014 - 19:09:00 EDT