I just released the 1.0 version of cAos.

Ok gregk433 I'm like a total n00b I just have some basic knowledge of RH and Mandrake do you recommend me using your distro? Can I count on you for my questions?

My recommendation would depend on your interest to learn. Meaning, cAos is still in development and may require a bit of manual tuning to get things to work. But if you want to become very proficient at Linux/cAos, then it is a great place to start. IMHO, it is much cleaner then most of the other distributions out there, and is _very_ flexible.

I will be here, as are the many other cAos developers to help with problems. We are all willing to answer and help with questions regarding cAos, but keep in mind the usual caveats apply. For example, basic Linux/Unix type questions like how do I use Vi, or rpm may end up with a referral to the man pages (or RTFM for short). Don't get me wrong, we are all _very_ helpful, and eager to have more people using the distro.

I also recommend for you to fire up an IRC client, and check out irc.freenode.net, #caos. There is almost always high levels of activity there, and help people. Even do this before you install if you wish (just to feel it out . Besides it is a fun place to hang out, and most people there end up learning a lot (and then helping others) similar to here.

In any case, have fun!

Maybe I should have opened another thread, I'd like to ask in what ways does cAos differ from RHEL or White Box Linux? IOW, if I had to choose between WBL and cAos, why should I choose cAos? Note I'm not looking for eyecandy or distro-specific config tools, but more in the sense of qualitative, long term view arguments (like SuSE vows to support releases for 5 yrs, IIRC).

Check out this thread:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...=&pagenumber=4

And let me know if you have any questions on this...

Sorry, I should have metnioned my comments are about half way down the page....

Excellent. Snippet from your reply: "To summarize, a distro is really only a conglomeration of free software (generally speaking) taken from the community. Each distribution is basically characterized by:

1. how it is managed (corporate/community, stabilizations and longevity)
2. what packages it includes (applications and versions)
3. what value adds it provides
4. administration paradigm (package management, FSH, etc...)
5. Compatiability and use of standards
6. cost to use"


And let me know if you have any questions on this...
Well, the way you put it you either copied it over, OR you have put a lot of thought in it (let's say I hope for the second one, OK).

1. how it is managed (corporate/community, stabilizations and longevity)
I can see that having community-driven support for a distro (this size, way) is crucial, but still someone, some people will have to take the final decision come release day. How well do you listen to your community? Are you still learning from other distro's? Maybe be on fedora-devel mailinglist? I am, and it teaches me a lot of stuff, especially about QA. Would you trust your userbase and community with leading the way? Or do you consider yourself the philosopher-king of cAos? :-]

2. what packages it includes (applications and versions)
sigh. Spose I should read the site for the package lists...

3. what value adds it provides
Tell me.

6. cost to use
TCO compared to?


Let's make it clear I'm genuinly interested, I'm not interrogating you, looking for flaws in your distro's philosophy or whatnot or looking for a way to bash a distro. Tis a nice chance, one doesn't meet distro maintainers every day...

Ok I'm so dumb at finding the CD ISO or Iso's WHERE do I find it:
Ok this is what I do go to downloads click on the iblibios http:// mirror and then click cAos-1/ but where do I go now and then to find the ISO I need????
-Sorry for the question
EDIT ok I go to cinch and current but I see only a 137Mb which I think is not the ISO.
AND OTHER EDIT: Do I really need only this cinch.iso or I need some other files???

Do I really need only this cinch.iso or I need some other files?

'cinch.iso' is the file you need.

LOL, I wrote it on the spot, but yes... I have put a lot of thought into it.

This is an extremely good question, and it is something that I have given much thought to. The process of major decision making will come from 3 major groups:

1. Steering committee: a group that gives the guru perspective on directions and future for cAos.
2. User votes: This will either be via online community polls, or package maintainers acting as representatives to the community.
3. The primary dictator: me.

Minor decision making will be put to the package maintainers. For example, which version of openssh should we include? well, that will be in the hands of the package maintainer. If they decide to use something that would break something else in the OS, then the two package maintainers must figure it out. If they can not, it will be pushed to the above groups as will other major decisions.

Package QA is presently being handled by a voting system that anyone can be part of. It is as easy as adding our testing repository ('crazy') to your yum.conf, and installing the testing packages. Then you can vote for that package either positively or negatively. Each person is assigned a QA vote limit. So an unknown person maybe can vote -1,0,+1, but an OS maintainer can vote between -10 and +10 (for example).

Lots. Growing every day!

But, we are making a very strong effort to keep all packages pristine with the upstream maintainers. Unlike other distros that implement many patches for a given package, we are trying to keep everything as the package maintainer wanted it. This enables us to work very closely with them, and even allow them to _easily_ maintain their package in cAos. It also makes our job much, much easier... Bugs are either a result of packaging, or upstream, and not specific to cAos.

Our value add is simple. We are building a clean distribution, by the community for the community.

Sorry if that sounds like a sales gimmick, but it is the truth.

I am not familiar with 'TCO', but I was thinking about cost of ownership (ie. licenses, etc...) and cost to maintain.

It is ok if you were interrogating me. That is the position that we/I put myself into when starting this project. Of course there would be skeptics, and in the Open Source community, there are many. Seriously, I am happy to answer. It is good to get this out there because I am sure others are also thinking many of the same things as you are.

BTW, distro maintainers == package maintainers IMHO. Jump into IRC or on the mailing list with us, and become a distro maintainer. You may recognize some of the names and people in there!

Jump into IRC or on the mailing list with us, and become a distro maintainer.
Thanks for the invitation. Maybe I will. I wrote the rpm spec files for some security related apps and I regularly build rpm's. I think it would be good for me to invest time comparing WBL with cAos first tho.


You may recognize some of the names and people in there!
Hmm. Now I'm gettin curious :-]