Debian is a comer
W Marshall
took the time to try out some of the various distributions:
Slackware, Red Hat, and Debian.
The system was a 486DX120 w/ 8mb & Toshiba IDE/CD-ROM, Hercules Dynamite
PRO VLB, 1mb, a couple WD hardrives, etc.
CDs from InfoMagic (5-CD Developer's resource, Nov95) and Pacific
Hi-Tech (Hacker's 10, various dates fall 95).
I spent the most time with Red Hat (2.1) For one thing, the X-based
installation is very slow. Red Hat did the best job of auto-
configuring for X, although it took me 3 trials to get the parameters
just right. One suggestion: let it run through it's base
installation first, with all the default selections. The go back
and reinstall all the other packages you want later. I hung the
system trying to set it up to do a full installation on first go.
The Red Hat text-based install is similar to Slackware. But if you
break out of the express/auto loop, it is not as intuitive as
Slackware.
Debian looks really good to me (1.0 or .96, depending on what
numbers you want to go by.) and seem to have the best design for
package management. I am looking forward to the further evolution
of this distribution, because it has the potential for emerging as
the standard.
Right now, though, Slackware (3.0) remains king of the hill. The
installation is straightforward and complete. Niceties include
setting you up with a good text-based system (ie, the color coded
directory listings, screen font selection, etc.) right out of the
box. Red Hat doesn't do this.
Slackware leaves the set up for X to the user, but this procedure is
very well documented by Matt Welsh, et. al. When you do get your
X running, you will find fvwm very well configured, and you can
select other window managers, such as olvwm, if you choose. I'm not
sure what window manager Red Hat uses, but it is kindof ugly.
All of these distributions are to be appreciated for their various
merits, and the new ideas they bring to getting Linux Out There. I
would like to see a merging of the completeness of Slackware with
the package management of Debian. Toss in the X configuration of
Red Hat and you could ask for nothing more.
W. Marshall
only an opinion
BENJAMIN A LINDSTROM
: Last weekend I was doing a fresh installation on a new system and
: took the time to try out some of the various distributions:
: Slackware, Red Hat, and Debian.
:
: The system was a 486DX120 w/ 8mb & Toshiba IDE/CD-ROM, Hercules Dynamite
: PRO VLB, 1mb, a couple WD hardrives, etc.
:
: CDs from InfoMagic (5-CD Developer's resource, Nov95) and Pacific
: Hi-Tech (Hacker's 10, various dates fall 95).
:
: I spent the most time with Red Hat (2.1) For one thing, the X-based
: installation is very slow. Red Hat did the best job of auto-
: configuring for X, although it took me 3 trials to get the parameters
: just right. One suggestion: let it run through it's base
: installation first, with all the default selections. The go back
: and reinstall all the other packages you want later. I hung the
: system trying to set it up to do a full installation on first go.
Hopefully Redhat will have a lot of the small problems worked out in
2.2 which is talked being released in a few months (I suspect 4 months
at the soonest.)
: The Red Hat text-based install is similar to Slackware. But if you
: break out of the express/auto loop, it is not as intuitive as
: Slackware.
:
: Debian looks really good to me (1.0 or .96, depending on what
: numbers you want to go by.) and seem to have the best design for
: package management. I am looking forward to the further evolution
: of this distribution, because it has the potential for emerging as
: the standard.
:
I've not ran Debian..I was warned not to use the one on the InfoMagic
CDrom. And it is .96...Version 1 does not exist. Last time I checked
into the project they were moving to ELF and were about 2 steps behind
redhat for full ELF configuration.
: Right now, though, Slackware (3.0) remains king of the hill. The
: installation is straightforward and complete. Niceties include
: setting you up with a good text-based system (ie, the color coded
: directory listings, screen font selection, etc.) right out of the
: box. Red Hat doesn't do this.
:
Redhat will *NEVER* do this out of the box. It's something that has been
discussed on the redhat-mailinglist a lot of times. It's documented on
how to change it to color directories. As for screen font selection,
I've never personally used it. I don't know why I would want to change
my font. =)
: Slackware leaves the set up for X to the user, but this procedure is
: very well documented by Matt Welsh, et. al. When you do get your
: X running, you will find fvwm very well configured, and you can
: select other window managers, such as olvwm, if you choose. I'm not
: sure what window manager Red Hat uses, but it is kindof ugly.
:
RedHat is using fvwm, yes the colors are not pretty. =) That's something
we are trying to get them to change. Umm...Marc. =) PLEASE PLEASE
change the colors!!! PLEASE!!!!! =)
: All of these distributions are to be appreciated for their various
: merits, and the new ideas they bring to getting Linux Out There. I
: would like to see a merging of the completeness of Slackware with
: the package management of Debian. Toss in the X configuration of
: Red Hat and you could ask for nothing more.
:
You might get your wish in RedHat 2.2. RedHat is working on 2.0 of
their package tool which will excel above the current Debian package
tool for flexiablity and security. (Off the top of my head I know
they are putting in PGP verificatin, adding in much needed package
dependancies, and being rewriting in C for speed.)
The install procedure is being changed to be able to mark off what
packages you want to install instead of just groups of packages.
I should try Debain, but just like *BSD* I don't want to destory my DOS or
RedHat partition because I have everthing just perfect. =) (Note: It
did not take much with RedHat. =)
So RedHat and Debain are the two packages we should be looking at. =)
Poor Slackware. =)
Tom Goodale
: So RedHat and Debain are the two packages we should be looking at. =)
: Poor Slackware. =)
I tried installing Red Hat 2.1 from the Infomagic CDs, but it seemed to
require two root disks for its ramdisk - not all that useful since the
machine I was installing on only had 4 Mb of memory. At least with
Slackware I could specify the root drive to be the floppy, and then add
some swap space - of course everything was horribly complicated from
the fact that the person I was doing this for wanted to use UMSDOS 8-(.
I also found that the Slackware Windows based boot/root disk
creation utility produced useless disks (this was from Win95), so had to
go back to using rawrite - has anyone else had this problem ?
Tom
Mark Neill
Actually, I just talked to someone who installed Red Hat CD's off of
whatever the latest set was (higher than 2.1). He said the whole thing
installed from the CD's, in an x-type environment which was all
menu-driven.