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Old 10-15-2005, 07:45 AM   #1
N3Lorax
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Question Jumping the Good Ship Fedora


I have used Red Hat for many years and I have grown to love it since it was something that seemed rock solid and easy to maintain. Unfortunately it's unsupported and Fedora has just become too unstable for my likings. I am looking for a distro comparable to the 'old' Red Hat 9, reasonably easy to install, reliable and compatible with a wide variety of applications, stable and practical for both server and desktop applications. No new kid on the block betas! It's got to be stable and reliable unlike what Fedora has become. I am looking for recommendations based on facts not on opinions. The bottom line is compatibility, reliability, ease of install and use. I don't have time to install from command line or babysit an FTP install.

Mandrake has been one of my standby's since it is based on the RH core but I'm unfamiliar with what they have become since switching to Mandriva. Are they still as reliable and reasonably easy to maintain?

Suse seems to be out as I have 3 friends who use it now and it seems they have nothing but complaints about some of the issues with Suse. It's been a number of years since I have used it (Pre-Novel) but I also had some issues with it as well and wound up going back to Red Hat.

I despise watered down, Linux for Dummies distros which require purchase such as Linspire.

If I find a distro to be reliable and suitable to my needs I will gladly contribute to the cause but I refuse to pay up front for software stolen from GNU/GPL developers.

If anyone knows of any continual support for Red Hat 9 I'd be more than happy to switch back to Old Faithful. The only reason I gave it up was because Red Hat has dropped support and as of late there seems to be a serious lack of 3rd party development for older RH releases.

Are there any suggestions for a distro that suits these purposes?
Thanks..
 
Old 10-15-2005, 07:53 AM   #2
Thoreau
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There is nothing that emulates redhat 9.

There are whiteboxlinux and centos which emulates redhat workstation and server. From what you sound like you want, perhaps ubuntu or suse 10 would be best for you. If your friends constantly have issues with suse, then you need new friends. It's the easiest and most stable of the updated distro's. Apt4rpm is what your friends are proabably ignorant of.

There are 3rd parties that sell support for redhat 9. But, what's the point. Get the newest redhat and buy their support. I don't understand the panacea that you think redhat 9 provides that others don't. If you had some concrete details other than this is what you've used before, then you will be closer to finding a comparable distribution.
 
Old 10-15-2005, 10:54 AM   #3
phil.d.g
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Well if you like redhat, but dont want to use Fedora Core then perhaps one of the Redhat clones would be best for you: CentOS, Whitebox Ent. Linux.

The clones take the source packages for Redhat Enterprise, replace the Redhat logos, compile and make a CD out of them. So they should be as stable as Redhat Ent. Linux.
 
Old 10-15-2005, 11:12 AM   #4
Brian1
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If you like Redhat 9 stay with it and update want you need. You can easily upgrade to kernel 2.6 and any apps you are using. It will take time but will work fine. My current desktop started out from Redhat 7 and has been upgraded over the years( no fresh installs ) to current fc3. It also has pieces from other distros and some apps rpms have been removed and replaced with built ones from source. The main components of a distro is a kernel, ready to run apps, and scripts.
 
Old 10-15-2005, 02:49 PM   #5
N3Lorax
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Thoreau: Thanks for the input. But Ubuntu is out of the question. I've got Ubuntu and I find it a bit watered down to say the least. That's the sort of easy to use Linux I give to people when try to rescue them from being held captive by that Redmond software co. But thanks anyway, I'll take a look into White Box that my suit my needs.

My problem with Fedora is that everything seems to be an infinite loop of conflicts and dependencies. Even on a fresh install with no 3rd party packages installed It's still a royal pain in the butt to upgrade anything. I run Yum with Fedora-Update repos only. No 3rd party repos, no devel repos even Fedora-devel repos are disabled. Still it's one unresolvable dependency after another or this conflicts with that. There are also some things in previous RH versions that just worked. Fedora came along and tried to fix what wasn't broken. Guess what? Now it's is broken. Good job fellas!

Old Red Hat just worked. I've had little to no problems with it. If I installed a package it just worked with little to no hassle, if I built from source it just worked with little to no hassle. Far more than I can say for Fedora. Everything a hassle even on a freshly installed system it has an endless loop of conflicts even with their own release repos! Known working hardware no longer works. I love Linux, but sorry I'm just not into that much hassle.

The only reason I don't buy RHEL is because it's just out of my budget right now. I have no problem giving them money, they've prooven them self reliable over the years. Believe me I would certainly buy it if it was feasible. If Whitebox is built from the RHEL source that should suit me fine.

Brian: Glad to hear there is another Mad Hatter out there! lol
Believe me I waited till it seemed I had no choice in the matter to step away from RH9 but if all else fails I might be going back and just building on that.
 
Old 10-15-2005, 02:59 PM   #6
Brian1
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I know the dependencies issues. I usually download the srpm instead of rpm and run the command ' rpmbuild --rebuild --recompile name_of_file.srpm '. This way it using currently installed version like gcc and what ever. So many rpm's built come a certain users setup with certain rpm versions. If you don't have that version or higher rpm but do have a sourced version installed it is still ignored because it is working off the rpm database.

Brian1
 
Old 10-15-2005, 04:45 PM   #7
Vgui
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So you consider SuSe and Ubuntu "watered down", but Red Hat and Fedora are uber l337?

/elitism
 
Old 10-16-2005, 09:09 AM   #8
Bonzodog
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Hrmm...I'm an experienced slackware user, and even I find Ubuntu a good distro, and have replaced slackware with it because of the ease of use, and I wanted a good 64 bit distro.

The only reason I didn't go to debian itself is because of the package tree which seems very behind-the-times to me. Ubuntu still has all the CLI power of debian, but without the bloat of suse, mandriva etc.

Your description of requirements is exactly what Ubuntu fulfills....easy to install, doesn't need to be babysat, and everything just works.
There isn't too many custom config tools either, the config files are exactly what they are supposed to be. I tend to find it has filled that unique slot in the linux world; good for seasoned users like myself (since 1997, as a sole home OS), and also for people who barely know a graphics card from a CPU.

I've personally never liked RH distros myself, their way of doing things seems very out-of-line with others.
You have to remember that slackware was one of the 'parent' distro's, and it's as close to pure linux as you're gonna get.

Slackware and RH are so far apart in the spectrum that it almost defies belief. Debian is actually very close to slackware, and indeed most commands and tools work on either. Slackware has even ported debians apt-get tools.

To summise: Ubuntu is not watered down. It is a modified debian, without the backwards-ness of debian, and slightly easier to use and configure, and comes with one desktop, one web browser, one email client etc.- it's not bloated by excessive amounts of software.

To me Redhat isn't so much as a Distribution of linux, as an OS based on linux. Come and join us in the real linux world!
 
  


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