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The next best Linux?

Discussion in 'Community Broadband & Computers' started by Dwarflord, Feb 24, 2004.

  1. Dwarflord

    Dwarflord New Member

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    I think Mr. Linux may have a good answer for me, but Id like to see others recommendations as well. Here is the issue:
    For those Red Hat Linux users out there, we all know red hat will no longer support the free distro's anymore. Im looking to get into another Linux flavor and was wondering what others think the best "replacement" for RH would be?
    Here are some Ive briefly looked at:
    Debian, Fedora, whiteboxlinux, ---I dont care for SUSE too much, or some other I have not found yet.
    Right now Im favoring Debian.......any and all feedback is appreciated.
    BTW, this OS will be used on my home desktops and eventually my dedicated server so I need it to fit requirements for both.
    Thanks!!
    [:p]

    DwArFlOrD
     
  2. Pictor Guy

    Pictor Guy New Member

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    RH does support free distros but they don't offer technical support other than what's offered from the community. Core (The Fedora Project) is the continuation of Red Hat 9. So Core1 is more or less Red Hat 10. And Core2 (due out in April) would be Red Hat 11. I've been very happy with Core1 and I just finished burning Core2 Test1 that I hope to install tomorrow. I've looked into the others (including Gentoo) but because of my past experience with RH and my use of RHEL (AS 2.1/3.0) at work I've decided to stick to and support the Fedora Project. There is even a Fedora Legacy project that offeres limited support for RH 7.2-8.0 and after April RH9 if you wish to keep your older installs up to date (via yum).
     
  3. Dwarflord

    Dwarflord New Member

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    So eventhough RH is EOL'ing RH9 in April, the fedora project will continue to provide patches/updates? Community technical support is all I use anyways, I was mostly concerned with the End of Life for RH9. This is my first usage of Linux and really didnt want to change flavors.

    DwArFlOrD
     
  4. Pictor Guy

    Pictor Guy New Member

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    Yes... on a limited basis and it will depend on how many people support the project. From what I've seen it's slow going but there have been a few updates made for the older versions. There is information on the Fedora Legacy Project at http://www.fedoralegacy.org/

    Other RedHat options:

    RHEL ($100 for RHEL WS at MicroCenter) has a much longer EOL cycle if that's an issue. Or upgrade each time there is a new Version of Core. The advantage to Core is that you'll be on the latest and greatest kernel (good or bad) and RHEL is a fully supported, very stable, product and while still on the 2.4 kernel, they have back ported many of the 2.6 features into 2.4 for RHEL WS, ES, or AS.
     
  5. boomertsfx

    boomertsfx Booyakasha!

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    Why would you pay for Linux? Just get a decent distribution like Mandrake and install what you need :)

    All the support you'll ever need is right on the internet, for free.
     
  6. Pictor Guy

    Pictor Guy New Member

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    You're right. For home use there really isn't a need to pay. That's why Core (Fedora Project) came about. But if you're interested in a extended EOL for the product then RHEL is a pretty good option. I'm not sure but I don't think Mandrake is offereing a 5 year life cycle for it's products. In fact, I think they EOL their offereings in 1-2 years. Red Hat offers 5 years on the RHEL products. For most of my personal home use I'm okay with updating my machines every 9-12 months with a new free OS. That wouldn't be much fun in an enterprise enviroment or if I have a very customized configuration at home.
     
  7. Mr. Linux

    Mr. Linux Senior Member & Moderator Forum Staff

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    Sorry everyone, been pretty busy lately with work and missed this thread. Pictor Guy, you took ALL the words right out of my mouth; great answers.

    I too have migrated all my boxes over to Fedora Core 1. It's a rock-solid distro with great community support. There seems to be a growing 'repository' base also (www.fedora.us for one), with growing amounts of 'official' RPM packages.

    For servers I have in 'true-production environments', I still use RedHat Advanced Server (2.1 and now 3.0). I *do* mix RH AS with RH 9 (and now Fedora Core 1) boxes. For example, one architecture I created for my current client use RedHat AS 2.1 servers running Oracle on the back end, and plain RH 9 boxes running Apache and Macromedia ColdFusion on the front. In our case, there was no cost benefit not to use regular RH boxes up front. But our backend, which is a critical component, runs RH AS, since that is the 'approved' platform that Oracle recommends...

    Just to keep in the loop on things, I CONTINUOUSLY do installs of various distros and Unix flavors on some of the hardware I have at home. I have used Suse, Debian, Gentoo, Slackware, Mandrake, YellowDog, as well as some more obscure ones. I also try to run FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD on something at least once during the year just to keep up with the *BSD flavors...

    Apart from RedHat/Fedora, only two other distros have gotten my curiosity level to hit a high note; Gentoo and Suse.

    One of my developers is a Gentoo fanatic. Having heard about Gentoo before, he convinced me to give it a try, so I dusted off an old 12G harddrive from my shelf and stuck it in my IBM ThinkPad T40 and gave it a whirl. What intrigued me was how Gentoo was fully optimes for the hardware it was being installed on. Problem was, it took close to 2 days to install!!! Having to compile EVERYTHING is a double-edged sword. All the apps are uber-optimized for speed and efficiency, but it's just so painful to implement! Once it's up and running though, it's quite nice. It's definately a 'hands-on' distro; Newbies, keep away. A final advantage is that you know EXACTLY what you have installed on your box. The Portage package system seems VERY nice, but the fact that I'm restriced to *one* repository leaves me what a sour taste...

    Suse, always intrigued me. What kept me away though was plain and simply 'Principles'. I don't agree with distros that do not allow you to 'download' the installation media. Suse forces you to download a small boot app, which then goes out and does the install via your network connection. I prefer distros which either provide an ISO or allow me to easily create a set of CD's to do my install. I don't like to have my install options restricted... About 2 months ago, with the Novell announcement, I decided to take a look at Suse once again. I figured I should get a good look at it before Novell's influence was integrated in order to get a better feel for the changes (good or bad) Novell caused in the future. I was pleasantly surprised once the install was completed and I was presented with the desktop. Lots of eye-candy and everything seemed pretty snappy. Looked like a very nice setup for a desktop. Yast2 is very cool; lets you do lots of things, all from one app...

    Ultimately, I still always go back to RedHat/Fedora. I like the current direction Fedora is taking and I'm seeing a lot of good things on the horizon. I also follow a lot of discussions the Fedora developers are having and let me tell you, there's no lack of expertise and/or enthusiasm on that end. I'm quite impressed. Yum is definately a Godsend compared to Up2date. I do it all through Yum now...

    About my only 'change' lately has been my transformation from a 'Gnome' guy to a 'KDE' guy. With the recent release of KDE 3.2, I decided to give it a whirl. Wow. Never looked back since... Who know's what will happen when the next big release from Gnome comes out though... Until then, it's KDE for me...

    Well, I'll end it here. This is getting WAY too long and drawn out. And I'm probably not even telling you anything you haven't already heard [:p]

    Glad to see we have so many Linux folks in Broadlands though. I for one have been using Linux in one way or another since 1993. That was the year of my first install... I still remember those approximately 50 floppies I had to make in order to install it on an old Compaq 386...

    Let's keep this discussion going! If we get popular enough, I'll have a reason to create our own 'Forum Area' [8D]

    Mr. Linux
    ------------------------------------------------
    Got Broadband?
    Yea, REALLY SOON now!
     
  8. Pictor Guy

    Pictor Guy New Member

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    With 5 Linux host computers at home I've decided to mirror one of the Core repositories to speed up things here on my home network. Now I just need to upgrade to a T1. :D

    back on topic.... I've been playing with Knoppix a little and it seems very cool for a bootable Linux OS on CD.
     
  9. Mr. Linux

    Mr. Linux Senior Member & Moderator Forum Staff

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    Yea, with all the Fedora boxes I run, I'm running a local mirror too; just makes sense...

    In a pinch, I highly recommend people use ftp.dc.aleron.net as a mirror. It's SUPER FAST and very close hop-wise to us.

    In regards to Knoppix, I use it now and then, if I need to get into a box or try to resolve an issue. A Knoppix-based distro that I have found VERY useful is Knoppix-STD (http://www.knoppix-std.org/). It's a Knoppix distro with all the security tools you would need to do a vulnerability assessment and such. Boots up like a charm on my Thinkpad T40 with an Orinoco wireless card. I can have Kismet running in less than 2 minutes from booting. Very sweet!


    Mr. Linux
    ------------------------------------------------
    Got Broadband?
    Yea, REALLY SOON now!
     
  10. Dwarflord

    Dwarflord New Member

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    I just installed Mandrake 10 community on Saturday on my 2nd PC. I can say this so far as my experience with mandrake is only a couple of hours. I like Mandrake much better than Red Hat, as far as desktop goes. I found Mandrake to be a very simple and easier install than Red Hat. It also feels much more "cleaner", if you know what I mean. This version has the new 2.6 kernel and it seems to run very quickly. I have not fully configured my desktop so I may have more to say. But for now, I think Ive found my linux desktop replacement. With wine and openoffice, I may not need windows anymore - (im hoping anyways). I find it very easy to work on this desktop.
    :D

    DwArFlOrD
     
  11. boomertsfx

    boomertsfx Booyakasha!

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    Yeah I installed 10 a few weeks ago and tonight I'm going to play with traffic shaping/qos to see if I can tame the Adelphia connection so I can use VOIP while leeching, etc.

    I did it mostly for the new kernel since I hear the scheduler is alot better especially for web servers.
     
  12. Dwarflord

    Dwarflord New Member

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    Looks like Fedora Core 2 is out. Anyone got it yet? Let us know how you like it.
    Also, does anyone know when Man 10.0 official will be available to everyone? I think right now its only available to those who have some kind of membership...

    DwArFlOrD
     
  13. Pictor Guy

    Pictor Guy New Member

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    I've been using FC2 Test 1 and Test 3 and it's pretty slick. I'm finishing up a download of the final version of FC2 now and will have it installed over the weekend.
     
  14. Dwarflord

    Dwarflord New Member

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    Ive used RH9, let us know how it compares to it, and how it compares to Mandrake 10 if you've used Man before as well.
    Thanks..........

    DwArFlOrD
     
  15. Mr. Linux

    Mr. Linux Senior Member & Moderator Forum Staff

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    Hey all!

    I have the 4 install CD's as well as the DVD version. Downloaded all the ISO's via Bittorrent; went very well!

    So far, FC2 looks very good. There has been mention of issues in 'dual-boot' setups with Windows XP from what I hear. I'm not affected by that since I never install Linux and Windows on the same box...

    Test 1 was good. Test 2 was HORRIBLE. Test 3 is a pretty good representaion of what you'll get with FC2. They fixed a bunch of bugs and updated a few things.

    All in all, a worthy upgrade. My only negative is all the SELinux stuff. While I can see a LOT of value in it, it has been a major source of many of the issues we saw during the 3 test phases. I personally don't use it on my FC2 installs at the moment.

    As a side note, I was able to check out a Suse 9.1 Professional install earlier this week and I was VERY impressed. I've never been a Suse guy, but their latest release is VERY polished and the hardware detection and setup was excellent. If you're curious, download the LiveCD and check it out for yourself. Makes a pretty nice desktop if you ask me. But, I'll stick with FC as my workhorse distro.


    Mr. Linux
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    Got Broadband?
    Yea, REALLY SOON now!
     
  16. Dwarflord

    Dwarflord New Member

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    Ok, I just d/l MDK 10 official and hope to install it in the next day or two on 3of my PCs. Ive been reading the MDK forums to see if anyone is having dual-boot issues w/XP again as they did with the MDK 10CE and XP and havent seen anything. If anyone knows of problems let us know, I dont need to lose XP yet, nor the files on those partitions......[xx(], but from what Ive seen with MDK 10CE, I think Im going to enjoy MDK 10off. I sure hope so, Id love to move off of windows on 2 of my computers. Ill let you guys know how 10off. is.

    DwArFlOrD
     
  17. Mr. Linux

    Mr. Linux Senior Member & Moderator Forum Staff

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    Dwarflord, let us know what you think of the new MDK. While I never liked MDK, (too toy-like for me) I'd be curious to see/hear what the latest version is like.

    In regards to the Fedora/XP dual boot issues I mentioned in my previous post, here is a page that describes the issue in detail and how to 'fix' it. Also gives an idea of what causes the issue in the first place. The page can be found at:

    http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2004-May/msg00908.html


    Mr. Linux
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    Got Broadband?
    Yea, REALLY SOON now!
     
  18. Dwarflord

    Dwarflord New Member

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    Mandrake 10 official

    I havent played around with it a whole lot, but what I have seen I like. I think Mandrake, suse and Fedora all have graphical installs and try to focus on the "Windows user", which would include me.
    It took me about 15-20 min to install and Mandrake found all of my hardware (excpet the winmodem - it sees it but has no driver for it). The first thing I do notice is that it is much faster with the new 2.6 kernel than other OS's with the 2.4. I opted for the KDE install and like it. The biggest downside is that the free downloads do not come with some of the ATI/Nvidia video drivers and a few other things, but they are included in the store bought versions. But you can overcome this by downloading them yourself and installing, a pain, but its free.
    I really like the LILO, I installed Man 10 on my 2nd HD of 30 gig and kept my XP Pro on my 1st HD of 120 gig. I now have my 2nd HD boot up on startup and the lilo in the MBR On that drive allows you to pick which OS you want to load and has a default run if you dont pick in a specific amt. of time.
    I havent got into the nitty gritty yet of Mandrake, but so far so good. No complaints.

    DwArFlOrD
     
  19. Pictor Guy

    Pictor Guy New Member

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    I've actually moved from LILO to GRUB a few years ago. I found it more robust for multi boot setups in past versions of Linux that I've used. But these days I use GRUB just because since the only multi boot PC I still have is my laptop.

    Is Mandrake using XFree86 or X.org? FC2 is my first time with X.org and I'm sold. I've setup a sand box machine to really push FC2 on RieserFS with two heads on X.org and it's been very nice, so far. I might give Mandrake 10 a try just to see what else is out there... again.
     

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