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Comparrison between few distros...feedback wanted
Hello everyone.
Well, I am starting this thread because I want some feedback on a few distros. I'm not looking for a distro, I just wanted to hear some experiences with some distros, advantages, disadvantages, liks, dislikes etc... I'll start by listing some of the distros i've used, what I've liked/disliked etc... This is in no particular order: Red Hat 7.0 -- First experience with Linux...fun, learned Red Hat 7.1 and 7.2 -- learning more...liked 7.2 best at this point Debian 2.2 (something) -- install was ugly, but package was nice Slackware 8.0 -- liked it a lot...fun distro Slackware 9.0 -- even better than 8.0...fun stuff Red Hat 7.3 -- favorite Red Hat release so far... Red Hat 8.0 -- cant stand it...too much like windows, seems slow to me Mandrake 9.1 -- trying it out tonight...seems nice, althought seems 'heavy' need more time with it Plus, i've used the following: FreeBSD 4.5, 4.6, 4.7 and 4.8 -- 4.8 really nice OpenBSD 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 NetBSd 1.6.1 -- you can get this to run on a toaster! Anyways, Mandrake seems to remind me a bit like Red Hat. However, one thing i've noticed is that Mandrake seems to get package updates quicker than Red Hat...for instance, i found a samba 3.0 alpha release package for Mandrake... With that in mind, anyone want to share their experiences? Tarballed |
Here is something I thought of as I was testing out mandrake 9.1 tonight...
Being that I use Red Hat at my work (our servers at this point, are all Red Hat 7.3 and we have a couple of *BSD servers...) This may start a flame war, but that is not the point. What I was curious about is, between Red Hat and Mandrake, is either of these two distros more suited for a Company network? Meaning, does one of these distros have a upper hand at all in being used in Company networks? I know RH has a lot of push to be used for company networks as well as web servers, mail and DNS servers... What about Mandrake? Anyone care to tackle this? Tarballed |
Couple other things I wanted to add since there have been some many responses to my thread (sarcasm :) )
Does anyone know of a good link that has reviews or something along that lines that shows differences between Linux Distros used in a Network environment? I mean, is there some place that did a test between Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake etc to see if one or the other made a better Samba server? Apache server? Mail server etc.... Anyone have a link like that...? Also, any input on SUSE? Never tried that one. Tarballed |
well I used RH 7.0/7.1/8.0 but never liked it much ...
enjoyed using Slackware 8.0 (yes haven;t upgrade yet) , with kernel 2.4.19 and some minor customization , and im feeling great bout it .. and now Im on my way of building my own LFS |
I've tried LOTS of distros over the years, still looking for that one that I will love and will finally break me away from Windows. One that I will actually use rather than something to play around with when I'm bored and just takes up HD space. I know I'll find it someday, the only things holding me to Windows is the software( though Linux has alot and some very good software, it still isn't as good as the Windows software I use often, and to me, the software is more inportant than what OS I use, why use a better OS if the software is subpar), software installation is still messy in my opinion, and of course games.
Though I have always firmly believed in the potential of Linux, I knew it would be a long time before it was really ready for the desktop market, especially to the 'average' user. Mandrake 5 was the first distro I ever installed. It damn near killed Linux for me, I hated it. Practically none of my hardware worked, software sucked and I hated installing anything. Sex with a cheese grater would have been more enjoyable than trying to install anything.. and then find it. Later I tried Red Hat and Suse.. hated both of them. I quickly remembered that I couldn't stand RPMs. Then I tried Libranet, the free one before 2.0. Finally I found a distro I kind of liked. After I learned how to use apt Linux didn't seem so bad. Software was easier to install, dependencies were no longer a severe headache waiting to happen. Though half the time I installed anything, something else would stop working. I've also tried Knoppix, xandros, RH 7.2 Slack 8 (source is a bit too archaic for my taste)..damn, can't remember any others. Oh yes, Mandrake 9.1. This was to try to set it up as my home server, basic DNS, DHCP, gateway, router, and file server. After some help from from these forums I got it working.. though slow and ugly.. especially as a file server. Then my laptop board fried and it went to the shop. So I figured, 'Hey, now is my chance to really learn Linux without Windows around.. unless I want to use the older box I have upstairs that my 5 year old daughter uses for her clifford games. So, with Mandrake already installed, I gave it another shot... that lasted about an hour before that hatred of it came back. Back to not being able to find anything I installed, back to the god awful RPMs.. though URPMI makes it MUCH better, I hated setting the sources in it, then trying to find anything to install. An hour later I had Windows back on and all the software that I love. Now it's been a month and my laptop still isn't back yet, and I'm starting to miss having Linux around. I know I could put it on this computer, but I really don't want to set everything up and when my laptop comes back, bring it back down. Besides, for some odd reason, I like Linux on my laptop better. It's more comfortable to configure than this thing is. |
hmmm interesting thread..
I'm most experienced with RedHat and Mandrake and I used to work with Slackware 8 for a year. When we look into the companies view, there is def. a need for support. This is where RedHat is strong. It might also be a reason why RedHat is this big. Companies want support. The other thing about Redhat, but also Suse and Mandrake is that they are all SysV, LSB and almost FHS compliant. Standardization is a must for a company, and might also be the reason why Slackware still is a hobby distro. dont get me wrong here, slack is a brilliant distro but lacks a few things that are neccessary: - Support - Package management - Compliancy with standards When u look to the 4 biggest distributions (suse,mandrake, redhat and debian) they have those 4 points, except debian for support. People can flame about RedHat being slow or whatever, but it's still the no1 used distribution for companies, enterprises and others. For Mandrake it's the same: people call it a desktop distribution, but it's still wideley used in Japan and the US (cash machines for warehouses). Support might be a critical issue with mandrake still.. (financial problems) but this might change with the Enterprise and Firewall version of Mandrake (Enterprise supports Opteron and other high end architectures) About RPM: RPM isnt that a big issues, I dont get it, why people blame RPM and prefer source just because of dependencies (dependencies is an issue with source as well). But with sourcecode it's hard to manage your packages.. it might have optimization and might be 5% faster but it's hard to manage. RPM is suitable for packagement and almost a need for internet servers. Production/database servers is different. |
kayjay, you hit on a number of things i'm interested in...
Quote:
Would anyone be willing to say that the reason why Red Hat controls a big share of the market for hosting Apache, mail and DNS sites is due to support? Also, I do not mind RPM's at all. I do not mind source either. One thing about RPM's is as you said, accountability for your packages which I think is very important. I am still learning alot with source and at times, I do not know what to do when I need to start all over when installing software. RPM's can make your life easier as well as hell at times... I think im going to fireup a triple boot machine to play with. It will comprise of: Slackware 9.0 Suse 8.2 Mandrake 9.1 Debian, I feel lacks in its ability to get software up and stable as quickly as others. As of now, I think Debian has a stalbe version of samba, version 2.2.3 or something, where as suse and mandrake have stable 2.2.8a... But then again, I have not really used Debian... Tarballed |
I've been using Red Hat since the 5.2 version.... my favorite version of Red Hat is currently 7.3 and 9... i hate Red Hat 8... For me Red Hat is one of the stable distros with lots of hardware and technical supports..
I've been using Mandrake 9.1 and I give it a thumbs up too since its install is pretty much a no brainer... and its GUI is very stable... SuSE is cool too... I'm planning to try Slackware soon, since i've been getting good things and feedbacks about it... and check this distro reviews: MAJOR DISTROS: http://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major CD-BASED DISTROS: http://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=cd DISCONTINUED DISTROS: http://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php...e=discontinued JT |
Mandrake 8.2 -
My first distro. Learned really quick not to do the auto-update thing... It ended up making me reinstall. ack. Oh well. I installed like everything, so I was okay. Had KDE 2 and Gnome 1. I really didn't have to deal with dependencies, as everything I wanted and then some was installed. Slackware 8.1 - My favorite and current distro. It took me a while at first to get used to the text based configuration, but I've learned to love it. Linux From Scratch - My first try at this failed, miserably. The second time at least I could get it to boot. The concept of it is cool, but I'll have to pass. With as often as I reinstall, I could never live with this distro. FreeBSD 4.7 - Sure it's not Linux, but it's close enough. :D Anyway, the install went pretty smooth(After all that I learned from other distros) Partitioning is a pain in the butt at first, until you get the logic of it. I had to add my nameservers manually to /etc/resolv.conf when I had a DHCP address, but other then that it worked well. Ports is awesome. Now, to get XFree working.... Gentoo 1.4 - Took forever on my machine(400mhz) I wouldn't use this unless you absolutely have a fast machine. I didn't bother to try to compile KDE. Would have taken about two days or so. Debian Sarge - Install was easy. I don't see what all the hype about it is. apt-get has got to be the best package manager around. I never broke anything with apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && apt-get dist-upgrade once a day. Still, it did a lot of things that bugged me. When I installed X, it automatically changed the default run level to 4. I don't know what login program it was, but it annoyed me. I would boot my machine and it would boot straight into Fluxbox. Okay, I'll just kill X. Stupid thing. It fought me like there was no tomorrow. killall worked pretty well though ^_^; |
Rather than dragging up old threadfs that will get lost again, why not post some reviews?
http://www.linuxquestions.org/reviews/index.php |
# What distro should I use
A Beginner's Guide to Choosing a Linux Distribution |
For a good comparison of Mandrake, Suse & Redhat check out LINUX Format June edition (www.linuxformat.co.uk). Picked it up at Barnes & Nobles - its $14 but came with a double sided DVD that included Man 9.1, Slack 9.0, plus a ton of other app's. I'm still a newbie but have my computer set up with Suse 8.1, ASPLinux 9.0 (RH 9.0 with a different boot loader) and Mandrake 9.1. Of the three Suse seems more "professional" and geared towards the office; RH a close second and Man 3rd for an office - at home I'd almost reverse them.
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oh aight imma pick that up i want Slackware bad
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If you download, make sure it's a good download and make sure you know how to burn CD images.
How To Check MD5sums On A Linux Iso Image # Cheap CDs Discount Linux CDs Linux Central Cheapbytes TuxCDs ComputerHelperGuy |
I use gentoo, have tried suse before, but switched backj too windows. Using gentoo 3 month now and will never go back to Windows. Gentoo has portage, so you just type emerge xxx and program xxx will be downloaded and compile automaticly. Gentoo is a from scratch distro. You will learn much about linux while installing it, but you will need time. I think it is not possible to set up a gentoo system in a day.
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